Chapter 89: Learning…Always Learning

Never get comfortable. That’s really what I need to learn. Boats don’t want you to be comfortable. Unless you own a superyacht with paid crew-then you can be as comfortable as you want. Otherwise, not so much.

What I need to remember is that, even when we think we’ve got things figured out, we don’t. So far, we have logged over 800 nautical miles since we left Brunswick. We’ve motored. We’ve sailed. We’ve anchored. We’ve docked. We’ve moored. One would THINK we’ve got it worked out, right? Yeah, not so much. Because we haven’t yet encountered all the different conditions.
Let’s take sailing. We have done some sailing in fairly windy conditions where Meraviglia was heeled over a fair bit. No problem. Except all THAT sailing was done on the port tack–we were leaning over to the right. On our recent passage from George Town to Mayaguana, we were sailing on the starboard tack–we were leaning over the the left. But, you ask, “so what”? Well. There we are, sailing along, having a grand old time, when Kim asks “why is the bilge pump running?” Because, remember, “what’s that noise?” I, of course, have no idea. We certainly don’t seem to be sinking. I engage the autopilot and we go take a look. Sure enough, the bilge pump is running. How did all that water get in there? Hmmm. We keep watching. The bilge pump pumps out all the water and shuts off. Then the bilge starts filling up again-FROM THE BILGE PUMP!!! What the???!!! Well, turns out the bilge pump pumps the water out via a through-hull fitting near the water line on the port side. It also turns out that, when the pumps were installed, they didn’t install an anti-siphon loop in the discharge hose. So, when the through-hull is under water (like when we are on a starboard tack) water siphons in from the through-hull back into the bilge. Neat! We’ll just always sail on the port tack and never have a problem. Or install an anti-siphon loop-maybe that would be better.

Let’s take some more sailing. Let’s say we’re on the ocean. Let’s also say there are large waves on the ocean. Let’s say those waves cause a lot of spray to fly up all over the place. Let’s also say, just for the fun of it, that our plumber installed the fresh water tank vent on the side of the hull with the opening facing down. See where I’m going here?

So, I’m drinking from my Nalgene and “gee-this water tastes…SALTY!” That’s not good. I’m thinking maybe the new watermaker failed? Nope. It’s fine. Then it hits me-the spray from the boat hitting the waves is GOING DOWN THE VENT AND CONTAMINATING ALL THE WATER IN OUR WATER TANKS!!!! So we have to pump all the water out of the tanks and then refill them with fresh water-fun! Oh, and all the going up and down waves also stirred up little bits of construction debris that was in the bottom of the tank, which then proceeded to clog every faucet in the boat and the washing machine. So I had to clean all those out.
Whew! So much learning.
We’re currently in the southern-most Bahamas, at Mayaguana. We’ll be leaving tonight to sail overnight to Turks and Caicos. From there, it’s on to the Dominican Republic and then Puerto Rico. We hope. It’s starting to get real. We ain’t in Kansas any more.