July 11, 2012: Melanie Cove off Prideaux Haven to Lund to
Copeland Islands
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| Wayne replacing our raw water pump; key keeping the engine cool. |
Great start for the day, eggs
with hungry jack hash browns, mild green diced chiles and precooked turkey
sausage, topped with cheese and salsa.
Yum.
Wayne figured out the motor
was getting heated up because the raw water intake was blocked by
barnacles. He cleared it up and we
were back on our way again, with a properly cooled engine.
No rest for the weary, our overfull
head (toilet) prompted our backtrack all the way to Lund, where we were 5 days
prior. It was the closest place
for a pumpout – we pointed checked at every logical place we could, and it’s
not something any of our guidebooks mentioned. For those of you unfamiliar with boats, a little about
“heads” aka marine toilets and pumpouts.
Heads are often fussy devices, and seems no two behave exactly alike, at
least in my relatively limited experience. More on that in a future post.
If you’re squeamish, skip this section…
Most boats have something
called a through hole for their head, which is a fancy way of saying there’s a
hole that lest you flush your stuff out into the water, in areas that allow it
(like out a ways in the ocean). Our
O’Day, however, did not. So we
discovered in 10 days, it took the two of us to fill a 10 gallon holding tank,
including flushing. The best way
without a through hole to empty our tank, was a pump out. And the closest one was Lund. To use a pumpout, you clamp a big hose
onto a cleanout fitting, flip the on switch and it sucks – vacuums -- the
“stuff” out. Usually there’s a
hose near by so you refill your tank until the “stuff” vacuums out clean.
From that point on, we
determined we’d be more strategic in our use of our head. We knew we were capable; my husband has
the black photo of me making the “poop deck” name a literal one (click
here for the real origin of a poop deck – and there’s a good reason folks
“pooped” off the bow [front] rather than the back) when we rented a boat from San Juan Sailing (this is atypical for
their boats – San Juan Sailing is great!) several years prior. Its head was so stinky, we did not use
it the entire week we sailed. Not
such a big deal for my husband, but for a girl, well, anatomically speaking,
it’s more challenging.
Ok, it’s safe now for you more squeamish folks
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| Crabs from the boat docked next to us in Lund. Price? 2 beers. |
We also ran 2 loads of
laundry, caught up on a weeks worth of internet, bought 3 blocks of ice, dumped
off our garbage (which we had to pay to do, typical for many places in
Desolation Sound), showered and did some light re-provisioning. The Lund trip cost us $97, not counting
fuel – beer was a huge % of that.
My charming husband wrangled 2 fresh-caught crabs in exchange for 2
beers from the fisherman tied up next to us at the marina. We managed it all in 3 ½ hours, before
getting hit for a full-day marina charge.We figured we’d save a few $
anchoring at nearby Copeland Islands again, and get a head start back up into
Desolation Sound.
This time, however, we were
there much later, and it took us quite a while to find a good anchorage, this
time on the opposite of the Island, positioned perfectly for a stunning sunset
view. Once again, we stern tied,
but we did so much more proficiently.
Oh, and skip this part if you can’t handle crustacean killing, but scroll...
Despite, or maybe because
Wayne is a Cancer, he’s is not at all keen on preparing them to eat. So it was my job to take on the role of
crustacean killer, which I did with a hammer – right between the eyes -- as
what that’s what Michael
Greenwald’s “Cruising Chef Cookbook” claims is the most humane ways to do
it, and boiled them up.
Ok, it’s safe again
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| Our O'Day sailboat at sunset in the Copeland Islands. |
While the crabs simmered, I
hopped in the dinghy to capture this amazing sunset.
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