That’s right, four exclamation marks! If I could put a million, I would! We are finally back in the water. Last night was spent working on the rudder. Apparently, when the rudder was dropped the metal sleeve around the shaft slid up and was getting in the way of the packing nut. After hours of trying to using a car jack to press it down into place it still didn’t budge. Moral was getting low until the idea came up to take our post that holds up the table and slide it over the shaft. Then, take a sledge hammer and bang the heck out of it. After a few solid manly whacks, it slid into place. What’s wrong with a little metal on metal sledge hammer whacking at 11:00pm? The rudder fit perfectly now and we were ready for bed after a super long day.

We were put in at around 8:30am. Everything went pretty smooth, no leaks, no water surging in, no nothin’. The wind was gusty out of the south so we decided to sail north. We had the current and the wind with us. Good things don’t last. When we were motoring back an alarm started ringing. It wasn’t any engine alarms, it was the HIGH WATER BILGE ALARM! HUH!? Our minds started racing. Newly installed thru-hulls leaking? Stuffing boxes leaking? Exhaust? Raw water intake? No, no, no, no. Fortunately, the bilge pumps tamed down the kiddie pool we had going in the bilge. What happened was the bilge pump back flowed 2 minutes ago when I turned off the bilge pump. A siphon effect was created because the bilge pump thru-hull was below the water. While motoring, our boat squats a bit which puts that thru-hull in the water. The solution is to put a vented loop in or maybe just raise the hole. Sweet, another project.

Docking was surprisingly easy. We are always very nervous getting around immovable objects, but things went well. Shore power is hooked up, fresh water is on and hot clean showers are a stones throw away. Don’t worry, we won’t get too used to this.