Day 4

Trial by water. We came home to find our water tank down to 2 gallons. That was odd, because we'd set the watermaker to add 6 gallons before leaving this morning, and we'd started with 20. The first question we asked ourselves was, "Where did the water go?!" The main water tank is under our bed. With visions of gallons undernearth our mattress, we hurriedly stripped the bed, lugged out the bulky mattress and got a flashlight. We pulled up every wooden platform covering the compartments: no water. Next we headed to the quarter berth, where the hot water tank is underneath the bed. (That's where you'll sleep when you come to visit!) Recently, the quarter berth has been serving as our storage unit. We pulled everything out and stacked it in our saloon. (Yes, that's the proper name for the living area aboard a yacht.) There were a couple gallons under the hot water tank; some water, but not a flood. There was also some water in the engine compartment and some in the bilge, but no flooding; not enough to trip the automatic bilge pump.

The engine compartment worried us the most. Was it overflow, or did we have a leak in an intake line? We did some Twister-like moves to get a hand (mine fit better) around, over and under the engine to the safety valve for the intake line. We checked the water filter and found it unusually full. We're in choppy water and we're a little heavy in the stern. (No jokes please.) If the water filter lid was at all loose a steady trickle of water moved into the engine compartment. We made sure it was tight, got out the wet/dry vac and dried out the engine compartment.

About this time, I had a flash of insight. The Magic Flute! The prince and his true love are subject to three trials: trial by air, trial by water and trial by fire. We'd had the trial by air yesterday (52 mph winds). Clearly this is our trial by water. Uh-oh. I told George my theory and that it meant we could expect a trial by fire tomorrow. "Don't worry," he said, "I already had that last week!" "What?!" I said. "My firefighting class," he replied with a grin. Phew! I'd forgotten about it, but having that cover the base suits me just fine! (After some thought, George pointed out that the Earth spirit seems to have gotten in on the game as well--yesterday the toggle switch broke on the anchor windlass and the earth would not release us. He also said the fire gods may have something to do with our heater being on the fritz.)

It's 8:30pm, and we've dried every compartment. We didn't refill the tank, so won't have water tonight, but that allows us to do some control testing when we're awake enough to fill the tank and monitor for changes.

The cats seem to be taking this in stride.