We spent a lot of time today stowing away all the stuff we brought on board. Jack got the new fuel filtering system hooked up to the engine and we decided to take advantage of the lower winds and seas to go into the marina to fill up with diesel and water. The sun was shining and it all went off flawlessly, including coming up to the dock and leaving the dock. That dock ,and the approach to it, are pretty tight on space: a boat any bigger than ours probably would not quite make it.<\/p>\n
The fun started on the way back to the mooring: the engine sputtered and died ! Jack attempted to get close enough to an empty mooring on the boat’s momentum alone, but he didn’t have enough forward motion for control. I got the anchor ready to deploy while he scrambled to switch fuel filters and try to restart the engine. The engine started again, but sputtered again. I dropped the anchor just as we were drifting closer to a moored boat. All 40 feet of chain! At first, I thought I would have to deploy the anchor manually, because usually we can only power the anchor windlass while the engine is running. But thank goodness for our solar power, the batteries were topped up. And with a 35 lb anchor, letting it out by hand is no joke! Pulling it back in is even less fun.<\/p>\n
Jack got the engine running again for long enough for us to be able to haul anchor and get to our mooring. Turns out, he didn’t finish bleeding all of the air out of the system after installing the new fuel filter system. He thought he had let it run long enough to purge all the air, but apparently not. Enough excitement for one day!<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Shuki hasn’t peed or pooped in 26 hours. I got his toilet station set up and every hour or so would take him to it. I want him to learn to eliminate on board. He has his fake grass spot and a stanchion wrapped in more fake grass, and he won’t do it! So I went the route of step by step training him with bits of chicken to at least get to and sit on the grass patch.I spoke to the vet and she said that he will eventually go. I hope so.
\nWe’ll see how he goes through the night. He won’t be sleeping with us!
\nThat will be interesting…<\/p>\n
We’re waiting for a weather window: tomorrow will be raining all day. Then the wind will be picking up to 10-15 with gusts up to 25-30 on Wednesday and Thursday. But the seas will calm down from 2-4 feet to around 2 feet. And we are trying to pick a good spot to be for Yom Kippur Friday night and Saturday.<\/p>\n
Not having a car here really brings home to us that we are now living aboard!<\/p>\n
Gotta sleep, all this fresh air makes me tired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We spent a lot of time today stowing away all the stuff we brought on board. Jack got the new fuel filtering system hooked up to the engine and we decided to take advantage of the lower winds and seas … Continue reading