A Home with No Address

In perhaps the biggest step of our plan completed so far, we have moved aboard full time.  Our house is in the hands of our house sitters and we are mostly settled in on the boat.  We have packed away clothing, food, supplies and the boat is still floating above her marks so we will count that as a success.  We did not take many photos of the transition, but here is one.13511992_1259822270695607_6567196440264793882_n

 

We follow a number of blogs and vlogs, one of our favourites is Gone With The Wynns, here is there take on moving onto their new boat from an RV

The Wynns are making a fast switch from full time RVing to full time sailing, buying a boat and moving on board in a matter of weeks.  We sort of sneaked up on it over 18 months, so we had less to do, but a bigger transition from land to sea.  The boat has swallowed a huge amount of stuff and we still have space for more.  That said, friends have one more car load for us, but I think we have places for most, if not all that gear.

All  has not been sweetness and light in other areas, we had quite the unfortunate Canada Day weekend where some unkind power boaters decided to have a 3 day party inches from our boat.  This is likely going to result in a relocation from Confederation Basin to Portsmouth Olympic Harbour, we just need to try out the dock we have been offered.

And then we have pumps. Boats have a lot of pumps and we have had more than our fair-share of issues in the last week.  We have been trying to find out why our bilges have more water in them than they should.  We had all the floors up and under the last but one, we found a leak coming from the foot pump that enables you to get water from the tanks without using power.  This was a happy moment as it explained the water in the bilge and it was an easy, throw-money-at-it fix.  So in goes a new pump and we are good to go, right?

Not so fast! to test the foot pump we needed to fill the water tanks to pressurise the pump to make sure all the connections we good.  When you fill our tanks the vent sends the excess to the bilge.  So we fill the tanks and all is well, well with the foot pump.  We notice that the bilge pump is running and running and running.  This is not normal.  so I take a look at the pump and it looks like the bearings have failed 🙁  I just need a new pump, more throw-money -at-it, but an easy fix, I am waiting for the new pump to come in and it will be installed by the weekend.  So we are good to go right?

Not so fast! we have water in the bilge we should pump out.  We normally used a manual pump located in the galley for this task, but for some reason I thought to use the pump in the cockpit that draws from the same place.  Kathleen grabbed the handle and pumped, nothing happened.  OK, so I need to rebuild the pump, no big deal, other than accessing the pump from the sail locker.  So good to go right?

Not so fast! I got the pump out, opened it up for the rebuild and find that the interior of the pump is destroyed.   The casting had corroded so badly that the rubber flaps that make up the valves would not seal.  New pump required 🙁 So off we go to Marine Outfitters for a new pump.  After about 45 minutes spent in the sail locker, the pump is installed and we are on the way to being good to go.

In retrospect it was great that the bilge pump failed when we were looking at it, we could see the issue and get it fixed at the dock, if this had happened at some other time, it would  have been a bit scary, the bilge alarm going off, the pump turning and but the water level not dropping. We might have assumed that the issue was a leak and not the pumps.   On the other hand, I don’t want to dwell on the amount we have spent on pumps in the last week.

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