Mark is just leaving Kotzebue, which is basically at the Arctic Circle. They are on their way to Little Diomede (USA) which is a mile and a half away from Big Diomede (Russia).
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| Alaska on the right, Siberia on the left and the tug is in the middle |
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| the arrow is the tug, less than 2 miles from Russia, they were watching the crew unload |
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| Little Diomede (USA) on the left and Big Diomede (Russia) on the right |
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| Big Diomede in the center and if you look to the right, you can see Siberia |
Mark’s old boss called him Sunday and asked if he could come help out. As we are still suffering from cash deprivation after our dry dock and mini refit we thought it might help. Not sure on how long yet but he flies out in the morning. He said he would gladly do two weeks, but he is prepared to do three if needed. So we moved berths and paid up until October 3 at present. The marina said no problem extending this spot so Pauline will not have to move the boat by herself.
Well, officially we have the new stuff installed. We are just waiting for some sealant to dry a bit more before we fire up the engine and test everything out. After pondering everything, we think we know what happened.
Back in 2004 or 5 when we replaced the engine, the shipyard built a fiberglass tube to go the fairly long horizontal distance from the engine room over the top of the counter and under our cabinets. We are pretty sure they used a piece of PVC pipe and wrapped it with fiberglass to make the fiberglass tube. We all know PVC pipe gets pretty soft when it gets hot and we think when we were having our overheating problems before we left Sitka, it probably deformed a bit and broke free of the fiberglass. It probably even got misshaped a bit and started letting the cooling water get away from the hot exhaust gasses and thus allowing itself to further deform and move down the line to the elbow which eventually blocked everything off. The nearly 300 hours of motoring we did from Alaska slowly did their magic. It is a miracle the exhaust water didn’t back up and hydro lock the engine. When we got the hose off the piece of PVC was all twisted and melted together. We are sorry but we didn’t get a picture of this. In any event this all happened just after Cape Mendocino, which is a place that is famous for having to watch out for bad weather. We didn’t want to be stuck here just bobbing around helplessly waiting for the weather to get bad so we desperately tried to figure out a method to make repairs so we could get a working engine again. One of the hoses between the mixer riser and the fiberglass tube was also very damaged. The inner hose and outer liner had separated and the exhaust gasses had softened it enough that if we tried we could poke a hole through the hose with our finger and we needed to rescue this hose. We flopped the hose around and put the very soft parts over the fiberglass tube. We then tightened up the hose by tightly wrapping it with electrical tape, then a couple of layers of heat shrink tape that we had left over from when we put the winter enclosure on Sari Timur. This and some carefully placed hose clamps got us working again. We motored at low revs for 36 hours until we got into Half Moon Bay as we didn’t dare to turn off the engine and restart in case we caused something to blow.
Being in Half Moon Bay allowed us to order the correct stuff. We now have a new Vetus Hydrolock and the hoses are hardwall exhaust hoses. So there is no need for a fiberglass tube. Everything had to come from the East Coast so we only received it yesterday.
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| The old hydrolock with splash zone repair |
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| New Hydrolock installed |
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| The fiberglass tube |
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| The elbow |
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| The old tube and hoses out for replacement |
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| The damaged hose |
We are tied up in Pillar Point Marina in Half Moon Bay. We were told to check in right away after tying up. So tied up and headed up to the office. After checking in, we returned to the boat to find our first visitor waiting for us. Apparently he was checking out the new arrival.
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| sea lion checking out our new decal |
Wow, this morning the weather was good. We rounded Cape Mendocino nicely and we were arranging a stop in San Francisco. Then the wind dropped completely and we turned on the engine. Well it started making a funny sound and there was a lot of water leaking into the boat from the hydro lock device. We figured that was due to an overheating we had with the old engine finally giving out. Got out the Splash Zone and fixed that. Put it back together and fired it up. No exhaust water. Further investigation found a rotten hose and the reason it was rotten was it overheated when the exhaust elbow before the hydro lock was blocked by an old piece of pvc pipe that was put in there when we replaced our engine in 2004. Long story short it shouldn’t have been there but it did work until now. Anyway all day trying to cobble a system together to get to SF. We are motoring now 10 PM but we don’t trust the repair. Fingers crossed we make it.
We are rounding Cape Mendocino. Wind is leaving us for a short while. May have to start the motor. But will wait for a while. Over 40 hours sailing so far
Position
43* 42.66 N
124*39.70 W
We just gybed close enough to shore to get cell service. Almost 300 nm into our journey. Saw some humpbacks, a sperm whale, dolphins otters albatross etc but not a lot of wind
Position
48* 22.48’N
124* 36.40’W
We left Port Angeles at 0615 we had to go slow at first as we had to clear the anchor of a large ball of kelp. But once under way we were getting a nice assist from the out flowing tide. As we got closer to the entrance of the Juan de Fuca we started going through the rollers that this strait is so famous for. Luckily we have been have light winds so the rollers though a decent size were well spaced. Looking at the weather last night and this morning we toyed with the idea of a quick turn around and head back out tonight once the tide shifted. But after thinking about it more a good night’s sleep seemed important. So we have most things stowed. The outboard is mounted on the stern rail and the dinghy is on deck. The main and mizzen sail covers are off and the sails ready to hoist in the morning. The wind has died down for now but we expect it to return tomorrow afternoon. There is a little contrary wind tomorrow evening so we will be motoring some. Tuesday there is contrary wind north of Astoria but we think we can thread the needle and get south of it before it comes up. The forecast looks pretty good all the way to San Francisco. So we are heading out in the morning. Of course forecasts change so we have contingency ports along the way we can head for. But right now we are getting out while the getting looks good.
You can watch our spot for progress the link is on the right of this page. Not sure if we will be able to use the StarLink underway but if we can we will post updates.
