April 21th.. Marsh Harbor, Abacos

We had a prefrontal squall during the night which rinsed the salt off the boat for the first time in months. It was cloudy most of the day and a little windy. There were a few items that we forgot yesterday while shopping so I took the dinghy in and returned to the grocery.

On my return, I began the task of fixing the bilge pump switch which hasn't worked correctly for a while but is such a pain to remove that I've been putting it off.

First I moved all the stuff from the garage (starboard berth) to get at the access hatch for the storage area behind the engine. It is filled with plastic container about the size of large shoe boxes and spare parts. Once it was empty, I reached in with the drill and removed the screws that hold the rear wall in place. Then, I moved to the cockpit and emptied the port lazarette to gain access to the area between the cockpit floor and the hull.

After changing clothes and organizing some tools I stepped through the hatch and carefully ducked down. Once in, I have to do a 180 turn to get my head and shoulders in the right position to work. I removed the hatch that covers the hollow section of our keel and took out the wall that I had just unscrewed from the other side. I had been at work for an hour by now and was finally at the point that I could see what was happening.

Our bilge switch has no moving parts but senses water electrically. It is attached to a 6 foot section of pvc pipe and suspended just about the bottom of the keel above and beside the pump. It appeared that the pvc pipe had slid down submerging the sensor permanently in about ½ inch of water. I loosened the clamp and raised the switch about 2 inches to solve the problem.

After testing the system, I was finished with that job but found two other things that needed some attention before I could climb out of the basement. The first was that the packing gland was dripping too much and needed tightening. I didn't take to long back off the lock nut with a pipe wrench and then tighten down the packing nut about ½ turn.

The last job was that the oil reseviour for the autopilot seemed to be low so I had Kathy find the ATF and a small funnel to top it off.

Finally I could come up for air.

It took another hour to put everything back in place. I also transferred the diesel in our jerry cans to the main tank before putting one of them back below decks in its place.

As we were having lunch "Solitaire" called and a few minutes later was anchored behind us. I ran over to chat for a while and was invited back at five for snacks...along with "Fine Lion." We stayed too long and by the time we returned it was bed time.