Perhaps today was one of those days I should have stayed in bed. I was one the oars for 06:00 and ready to have a good day of trying to head south west if possible. The over night drift has taken me north of west and that was something I wanted to avoid happening further.
The forecast was for a ENE swell (direction of waves coming from) so that would be in my favour. However the sea state was very confused which means it didn’t seem to have an actual direction. So at times waves were hitting the boat from 2 different directions at the same time. It felt a little like trying to row whilst day on a rodeo bull or in top of some fair ground ride. This didn’t make for easy rowing nor did it make it easy to get comfy on the seat, but I enjoyed the sunrise whilst I ate my breakfast.
When I fired up the water maker, mid morning it didn’t seem to be running correctly. A quick investigation showed that it wasn’t building any pressure. So I removed all my kit that is stowed over that side and removed the lid to investigate further. Noting seemed to be wrong. Everything was working as it should but just not building pressure. I completed 2 resets on it to no avail. So I fired up the sat coms and phoned the water maker guru Jim MacDonald. A legend of a guy he is and always willing to help out. We went through everything and still no pressure. Ran through some over bits and then some more and back through some resets again. No joy. After some backwards and forwards phone calls I beginning to worry. Normally it wouldn’t be going by now. One last throw of the dice was to bend one of the outlet hoses to see if that built up the pressure to release what was thought to be a stuck none return valve. We had tried this several times but it hadn’t worked. But it was thought to be the only reason why it wasn’t building pressure. The last throw of the dice worked. With the pipe bent and allowing the pressure to build a touch above what Jim suggested it began to build pressure and that worked as it should. I made extra water just to be sure. Phew. Two hours of messing but it’s going now.
I thought I may as well boil my water and make my meals for the day along with tomorrow’s breakfast after all that! All as going good until a wave splashed over the side and on to the Jet Boil. Oh what a joy. Halfway through meal making and this happens. Terrific. So I had the try dry it out some. Nope. So then it was time to look for a secondary lighting. I found my emergency matches which then would light. Even thought they had been in a sealed container and And also a sealed bag. So I dug out the lighter instead. Got the Jet Boil going and celebrated with a mug of hot chocolate. Hopefully that will have dried it out enough for it to ignite on its own tomorrow.
They say things come in 3’s but I was hoping they were wrong. But when I went in to the cabin to put the Jet Boil away I noticed that the antenna for the Iridium Go didn’t look right. Further inspection should it broken. I can only thing I may have banged it with my head whilst being jolted about in the cabin trying to fix the water maker which is just below it. Oh no. Without that working I have no emails. No downloads of the weather. Poo.
So I had to take it apart to seeing I can find a solution. But the antenna is broken and needs to be swapped out. And to turn the device on you raise the antenna. So I think I may have been able to position it do that it is permanently on. I will then have to plug in the charger each time I need to use is as the battery will most probably be flat.
So it really is one of those days I wished I’d stayed in bed. Very little time on the oars. 3 things broken but hopefully fixed.
If you are reading this while I’m still out at sea. Then the iridium fix worked. For now.
Hopefully nothing more will be an issue from here on.
Craig x