Chasing leaks

Tuesday-Thursday 15-17 Mar, Honduras days 13-15, French Key Harbour: Scuba dive through Mary’s Crack, pizza night, and chasing a water leak into the bilge.

The day after Jane’s party at Roatan Yacht Club, I head off for a dive with some of the guys from the other boats. The site is only ½ mile offshore and it’s called Mary’s Place. Apparently renamed from Mary’s Crack! The feature of the dive is a deep narrow gully (crack) in the coral that was formed after an earthquake.
Swimming through this feature was quite an adventure. In places it was only just wide enough to swim through with our scuba gear on. But other than that, there was nothing special about the dive and the coral certainly nowhere near as good as I had seen on Guanaja.

Tuesday evening was a quiet affair with everyone staying on their own boats after the party the previous evening. I spend some time re-stitching the seat cover for the dinghy (zip had broken) and also making a new wrist band for the dingy safety cord. I always try to wear this band when driving the dinghy, so that if I fall out, the engine will stop. Over the years, I’ve witnessed too many boats with outboards going in ever reducing circles around the driver who fell out, until finally the inevitable happens when propeller meets human flesh.

Wednesday is the last day for a while with low enough wind to fly the drone. It had been frustrating not to be able to capture our tranquil anchorage in Guanaja. The proximity of the airport had disallowed take-off. But here in French Key Harbour we are in the outer sector of the airport zone, and I am allowed to fly, but with a height restriction of 150m only. It’s quite impressive how these DJI drones automatically know where you can and cannot fly, and what restrictions are in place for each country. In this case, I can fly up to 149m, then it tells me that is the limit, and the drone will physically go no higher, even if I try to pilot it higher.
The view across this side of the island, and particularly this anchorage with the turquoise waters of the shallow reef in front of us, makes for fantastic aerial photography and I do several flights trying to take it all in.

Then we are off to the supermarket. Yes, a real supermarket! Quite a surprise following the small local shops in Guanaja. And best of all, it’s only a 2-minute walk from the RYC where we leave the dinghy.

During the afternoon I start a new project. The leaky bilge. Just small amounts, maybe 2-3 liters per day, nonetheless a tad concerning considering we clonked the keel on the bottom 2 weeks ago.
A quick look in the bilge suggests water is coming in around the aft keel bolt. So today I need to deep-clean the bilge and closely inspect all the other bolts. This takes several good hours but once perfectly clean and dry we are pleased to report none of the other keel bolts are leaking.
So, I focus back on the rear keel bolt. Having dried everything out, we now observe that the water is in fact entering the bilge from a cavity aft of this aft keel bolt, where all the aft bilge compartments drain into. This trickle was then going around the aft keel bolt, giving rise to the misconception the keel bolt itself leaking. Plus, to the taste, it appears to be fresh water, not salty. So, in I go with the endoscope, to find the dripping is coming from a drainpipe that starts in the engine room.
Long story short, the “leak” is emanating from the hot water tank safety valve, which appears to have started leaking following its blast with steam that we reported a few weeks ago (where the emersion heater had been left on and the tank had boiled its contents, the pressure of which relieves itself via this safety valve).
With the safety valve drips directed into a container, the bilge now stays perfectly dry, as it should be.

After chasing for this particular smoking gun and coming-up with the water heater leaking, we now have a new term on Cloudy Bay. Going forward, this type of situation will be known as the “rotting potato syndrome”. You may remember that a few weeks ago we moved heaven and earth trying to find the source of a hideous smell in the forward heads, only to find it was rotting potatoes that we have stored in the forward bilge. So while rotting potato syndrome relates to situations that turn out to have a simple explanation, we would like to avoid them if we want to live a long healthy life with no pressure! Now the question is, do we live with this small leak until we are ashore again, doing maintenance, or do I attempt to do plumbing surgery under the hot water tank and attempt to replace the safety valve? I think we should sleep on that one.

That evening we head back into RYC to attend their 2-for-1 pizza night. The usual gang is there, and the evening is fun, but again rather short. However, the pizzas and drinks were no good. Under cooked and nothing special. We would rather have 1 for 1 and it be a decent product. Though the company was very good.

Lastly, Thursday, we spend most of the morning putting the bilge back together, tidying tools and getting the floor back down. Then we arrange a scooter rental for tomorrow and spend the rest of the day catching up on videos and photos management while outside the wind again starts to howl in the rigging. By 8pm it’s gusting 30kts. But with our anchor riding sail and the fact that we have the reef protecting us from the wild onshore sea state, we are quite comfortable on the boat.

Tomorrow we scooter around the island. Can’t wait! We love scootering.