First a question for those of your smarter than myself out there. When we left Yacht Haven Marina in Thailand, Zephyrs boot stripe was pristine. That's the red stripe we painted on the top edge of our water line. Contrasted nicely with the dark blue side. We've not been in a marina since yet to look at our waterline, you would have thought we had. The starboard side was darn near still pristine with hardly a blemish. The port side was a mess with green growth all along the strip. It took some scrubbing with Comet and a green scratchy pad but it did come off. Now the question that has baffled both of us. Why the portside and not the starboard side? Makes no sense to us. Please leave us a "comment" if you have a clue. That was the job we did just after a lunch of one of Tracys wonderful quiches. She found a place that sells fresh spinach and it was perfect for the quiche. Yes, "real men do eat quiche"!

We started in again this morning trying to find our fresh water leak. For the last several months, the fresh water pump would spring to life for about 2 seconds and then stop for 15 minutes. Over and over. We looked at the most obvious areas where it might be leaking, the biggest one was the water heater with it's collection of hoses. Nope, all was dry when we looked yesterday. The head faucets were all dry. The accumulator devise in the water line was dry. We couldn't find it anywhere. So last night, I turned off the water pump for the night. Today, we again headed back for the water heater. While we didn't seen any obvious water on the platform the heater sits on, we could see where some might have been in the past. I got some of our paper towels and laid them along the side of the water heater and turned on the water pump. It came to life and cycled a couple of times so we knew the problem was still somewhere on board. Fifteen minutes later, the paper towel next to the water heater was soaked. Crap, was the new water heater leaking? Had a hose somewhere behind the heater come loose(but only just a little bit)? Tracy then looks at me and says "Lets look under the galley sink clear at the bottom". I'd look a while ago up where the fitting join the faucet and seen nothing. This time, once Tracy took out all the left over containers(where they are stored), the wood platform was soaked!! When Zephyr was built, they used all copper tubing for the water lines. No plastic was involved. Well, some time in the distant past, long before we got her, some one took out the cold water copper line and stuck in a length of plastic line. They had simply pushed it over the copper line and stuck on three hose clamps(not even stainless steel). While not a bad job, it wasn't done the way it probably should have been done and in the end, the juncture had failed letting water slowly come out of the end of the plastic line. Off went the pump and the three hose clamps were undone. I cleaned what was left of the copper tube and got some caulk and spread it well above where the fresh water hose would come in contact with it and put on three more stainless steel hose clamps. I'd pulled out a magnet just to make sure. I screwed them down and then took my socket set and really tightened down the screws. We waited an hour of so for the caulk to have a chance at setting up and turned on the pump. Voila, no more leak!!! Problem solved. Now the water in our tanks will stay in our tanks. We're off for Victoria tomorrow to refill all four of our tanks in preparation of us leaving the Seychelles in a week to ten days and head for Mayotte, or Madagascar. Not sure where the wind will take us.

We've stowed Puff on deck upside down for traveling tomorrow and installed our Hydrovane wind steering rudder for tomorrow. If the wind is good and we can get up some speed, I'll be installing our DuoGen water propeller to see how much it will put out electrically versus what it does with wind. Should be interesting but we will need to hit at least 6 knots to put it to the test. We will see tomorrow. It's just about the same distance either heading north around the island or going south around the island. Almost 24.5 miles so we will be off early to get there in plenty of time. The morning is better as more wind and waves kick up in the afternoon. Once back in Victoria, it's water and provision time. We also need to get our propane tank refilled. We had it last done at Yacht Haven Marina in Thailand so it's been a good 6+ months on this one tank. We brought in fiberglass propane tanks clear back in Pohnpei over two years ago and they have been great. Somewhat see through, more rust resistant than the steel ones we had had and far lighter in weight. The only way to go on a sailboat where weight and rust are bad for boats. Tomorrow, up comes the anchor and off we go again.
The picture today is of the front of our water heater. It's going to be a bear getting in the tight space to get it fixed.