We got POOPED!!!
18 April 2015 | Kandufushi
Bill/ Partly cloudy
After close to 7 years, it finally happened. We got pooped!!! For those of you non boaters out there, the be "pooped" is to have water come over the side or stern of the boat. Not something you ever really want to happen especially when the port lights along that side of the boat are open. Today, as we entered the channel to pass Buruni(02 33.563N 073 06.874E),we ran into a bad thing. The wind(yes, we finally had some) was coming out of the northwest and the tide was coming out of the southeast. When these two things run into each other, especially in a narrow channel, the water gets very upset. And boy was it ever upset this afternoon. Waves were all over the place with no order to them. Now our boat has very high sides, a good 4 to 5 feet in some places. As we sat in the cockpit, just a few miles from where we expected to stop for the night, a very big wave smashed into the port stern area of the boat. Then a second one. In all our 28,000 plus miles, we have never been hit there and hit there with such force. I rushed below(Tracy was at the wheel) to find the stern cabin drenched and sadly, drenched in salt water. It had come through not only the port side port light, but also through the hatch on the ceiling!!! Water was everywhere. The most disastrous was one of our computers was sitting on the bunk completely soaked!! I grabbed it and got it out of there, but I feel it may be too late for it. I grabbed towels and tried to clean it up, tearing the sheets off the bed and then the mattress pad. Mopping up the water where ever it was and it had gone clear across the entire cabin. Books, papers, clothes, all were soaked. It took me quite a while to get it all pulled out of there and we didn't really get a good grip on getting everything out till Tracy went below to start washing everything. Sheets, mattress pad and even the cover for the mattress had to be tossed into the shower stall and washed as that was the only place big enough to handle it all. Of course, this is when the water pump that sucks out the water under the shower stall fails. We were using a ton of water and we couldn't get it out of the boat. In the end, I unscrewed the cap off the water strainer in the drain line and let it run into the bilge where I could pump it out. Or at least I thought I could. As I started pumping the water out, it suddenly started coming through holes in the rubber bellows that sucks the water out of the bilge and then pushes it out through drain hose and off the boat. Now I have more things to fix.
In the end, the place were we had expected to stay(Gaalee at 02 32.616N 073 09.109E)ended up being too deep and with the wind still out of the northwest at about 16 knots, it was not the place to stop. So we turned around and started heading west to another anchorage. Now we had read about Gaalee from Emerald Sea, another cruiser that just got to Chagos, that it was a great place to stop. When we got there, it was over 75 feet deep just about every where we went. Add in the wind and we just moved on.
We headed west toward Kadufushi(02 31.269N 072 58.661E)and finally pulled in about 1430. We'd radioed Yolo when we found out how deep Gaalee was and since there were a good hour behind us, they changed course and headed southwest along the outside coastline of the atoll getting thrown about by the waves that were running past the atoll. In the end, they pulled in just after we did, entering the atoll through a different channel than we had. They stayed nice and dry. We on the other hand, had by 1600, a deck covered in freshly washed sheets, etc. Now it's been dry of late with just a rare shower. Today, of course when we needed it to be sunny and dry, it became just about overcast and Mother Nature made sure to bring us some nice showers. In came everything, waiting out the rain and wind. By 1700, it had passed us by and everything came back out. By 1830, it all came back in again as the Sun was setting and we have learned that it's never really dry at night with soaked teak decks just about every morning. Our main cabin is now covered in damp things. Tomorrow, we will be pulling them back outside and maybe we can sleep in the stern cabin again.
As for the broken things that cropped up today, we got then all fixed. The pump for the shower sump just needed a new fuse. The old one blew since the pump was using a bunch of power to get the water out of the sump. We hadn't cleaned the water strainer that is in the pump out water line. We'd last cleaned it back in Krabi in Thailand. It was just about full of the things that wash off your body when you take a shower. Now, with the fuse replaced and the screen in the filter all cleaned, it's back to it's good old self. As for the manual Whale pump, the previous owner had left a replacement kit on board and I actually remembered where it was. With that knowledge(where the part was), I had it taken apart and the rubber bellows replace in about 30 minutes.
Tomorrow, out come the drying clothes to hopefully finish drying and with luck, a nice snorkel on the reef that Yolo saw as they entered the atoll.
I tried to post this post but have found that they apparently turn off the internet after 2300 hours out here. I've run into this before out here and will just have to try again in the morning. My wifi adapter shows it's getting a good signal but there is just no wifi to be had. Tomorrow is another day.
OK, it's now tomorrow and here is how the night went. About 30 minutes after I went below decks to get some sleep, the storm hit. Winds in the 30 knot range and lightening and thunder. Tracy had already gone on deck and deployed the big wire we have attached to the shrouds just in case. It was one of those cases a flash-bang, flash-bang with not much time between them. The rains came and all the hatches and portlights got closed and battened down and the winds continued. I just recently downloaded a new program for the IPad that's an "anchor watch" program that you activate when you drop your anchor and set up a circle around it on the screen and it monitor via GPS where you are in that circle and tells you if you have dragged. With a soggy mattress pad over the binnacle, there wasn't much chance for the sound the drag alarm to get out and down below should something happen. I watched the screen for a while laying on the settee cushions in the main cabin. Tracy had put down a small blanket over the mattress foam and was sleeping on it in the formerly drenched stern cabin. With her having a cold, I opted to sleep elsewhere(probably going to catch it anyway). This morning it's partly cloudy skies and the forecast is for less wind and still some rain. Guess we will see as the day progresses. Having all these mattress pads, sheets, etc, it makes sense that it should rain some more and not allow us to get them dry. Mother Nature has a great sense of humor.