Sitka!

Saturday morning. We are tied to the end of A dock in Thomsen Harbor, Sitka. The weather is beautiful, partly cloudy, 65 degrees. Forecast is for pleasant weather all weekend.

We arrived Thursday afternoon. The weather remained calm for the remainder of the crossing. It was forecast to kick up to 25 knots SE and 9 foot seas, which would have been a beat upwind. We were making for Salisbury Sound which is one of the gateways to inside and protected waters. At 11:30PM Wednesday, I noticed the engine had overheated again. I had been checking it about every two hours and had added a couple of gallons over the course of the last twenty four hours. When I opened the access to the coolant tank I could see the coolant water where it was dripping on the case of the start battery alternator. I couldn’t see the source because of the angle and a mirror fogged up every time I tried it. I suspected the fresh water pump seal had failed. My fear was that if it failed completely, I would be caught by the weather and forced to make a very uncomfortable approach under sail with no motor for maneuvering in close quarters to an anchorage. From that point on the drill became set the timer for 20 minutes, check the coolant level, add water, check boat position, situation, and status, pump bilge, 2-5 minutes of rest, timer goes off, repeat. Steve suggested rigging a towing bridle and that I rig a tow line in case it failed and we continue to Sitka, a distance of about 20 miles which is what we did. Fortunately, it didn’t get any worse and we made our way with no other excitement.

Poor Jazz. He found it impossible to do his business on deck. He was forced to do it in the cockpit since I wasn’t letting him down in the cabin for obvious reasons. Of course I wasn’t happy with that since it greatly increased my workload which caused him to try harder to hold it and, well, you get the drill. As we were coming along side the dock, Jazz got so excited he couldn’t hold it any more. He let fly, which wouldn’t have been a problem except he was standing right where I needed access to be able to dock the boat single-handed. It made for some fancy footwork and a few words of course but all ended well.

I had to laugh at myself. The first thing I did after getting Jazz to dry land was to get an internet connection. I had forgotten to schedule a payment and didn’t want to pay the late fees. At least that was my justification. I just barely made the deadline.

So we’re here. The boat is plugged in. Cell service is good. Internet is ok. I even found the local public radio station, so I’m feeling right at home. I’ve talked to family and with this entry the blog will be up to date. I expect to be here at least another week and a half depending on how the repairs go.

The picture is of a couple of my neighbors here in the harbor.

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