2022: Water Pump Repair

 3 January 2022 - Monday

No boat travel.

When the toilet on the boat got flushed for the last time last night before we crawled into bed, the water pump did not run. It always runs when the toilet gets flushed. Clark decided he needed to investigate. The only problem was that it was after midnight when this happened. As soon as I learned that Clark was going to crawl under the floor boards to look at the pump, I decided that I might as well read some of my most recent novel because I would not be getting any sleep any time soon.

The water pump has been intermittent and giving off alarm conditions that basically indicate that the pump thinks it has run dry. Clark tried reprogramming some settings on the pump. This seemed to make the pump run more often for no apparent reason. Around 1:30 or so, he decided to call it a night and look into it more in the morning.

Around 9:00 this morning my friend texted to say she was going to the store at 10:00 and wondered if I wanted to join her. I slept through her text and did not become awake and aware of her message until 10:30. I apologized for missing her note. In fact I planned on going to the food store this morning as I needed some items, so I was disappointed to have missed her text.

Clark told me yesterday that a front would be coming through today bringing rain and colder temperatures. We planned to bike to the store for provisions before the storm hit. By the time we were up and around, we could see the sky already appeared ominous. We missed our window of opportunity to bike to the store. We decided that we would postpone this activity until another day.

Storm coming

We met a couple today who just arrived here at Marlin Bay. Their boat is docked just a few down from us so they have to walk past our boat to get to theirs. The front rolled in as we talked. Before the front came through, our boat was pushed up tight against the dock pole on the starboard side of the boat. That made it easy to get off the boat to talk with these new folks. 

 After the front came through, the wind pushed the boat away from the pole by at least 18 to 24 inches. It went from an easy on / off the boat to impossible. Clark pulled on the line to bring the boat over. He got it about half way and could not get it closer. He said if I wanted it closer, I would have to pull also. The wind was that strong that he could not fight it alone. We managed to get the boat closer and climb onboard, and after that, we stayed onboard the rest of the day.

The rain, when it came, was heavy but passed quickly.  Rain has been so scarce here over the past month, I took a picture to prove it actually rained!

Rainy boat window

The winds, however, stayed for the rest of the day.

Stormy sky in Marathon

Waves crashing onto the island Clark
explored the other day in his kayak

45 minutes later ...

Storm has passed

Sitting on the boat, we heard a big splash. It sounded like someone had dropped a huge rock in the water behind our boat. Clark looked out to see what fell in. What he saw was a bit of a surprise. 

The splash came from a pelican diving into the water behind our boat fishing for his lunch. I guess he was hungry because we heard a loud splash a second time, and when I looked out, I saw him swallowing - he must have caught something big and was choking it down!

Noisy bird fishing from rocks
right behind our boat.

 

Given the lack of success last night with the water pump, Clark made a phone call this morning to customer service of the pump manufacturer to see what insight they could give. Their response was disappointing. They said that the life expectancy for that pump was 5 to 10 years. With a date of 2007 stamped on the pump, it appears that it is original equipment with the boat and has lived more than its 10 year expectancy. Their response was "buy a new one". Easy for them to say! 

Fortunately, Clark remembered that he had seen a box stowed on the boat that he hoped contained a spare water pump that would be in workable condition. He pulled it out from storage and found that it was indeed a new pump that presumably the previous owner had on hand in case the existing one failed. 

Belated Merry Christmas to us! We would not have to fork out a fortune to fix the problem, and we could address it right away instead of trying to find a new water pump and waiting for it to be delivered.

Of course the water pump had to be in a pretty inaccessible part of the boat. Clark had to pull open a hatch and climb in under the floor to reach the offending equipment.

Cozy quarters for the pump

After fighting to disconnect the hoses, he managed to remove the old pump and remove the plumbing fittings from the old unit to reuse with the new.

New unit on desk; old unit on floor.

Since he was replacing a water pump, water was involved. I stood on standby, and he passed me buckets of water to be disposed. Some came out clean from the pump, and some dirty water he sponged up off the bilge floor. On my end, the clean water conveniently got dumped down the sink in the guest head. The dirty bilge water, I hefted up to the main level and pitched overboard.  Besides dumping water, my jobs included opening and closing taps as needed, turning on or off breakers, and as usual being the "go fer" for tools, etc.

When I wasn't fetching and carrying, I was entertained by a kite sailor having fun in the waters behind our boat. He took advantage of the strong winds. At times he was flying high in the air. I wanted to watch him put on a show, but Clark kept calling out that he needed me for something, and I had to keep stepping away to do work! Sigh!

Going up

Way up!

Speeding along!

After Clark had the pump installed, we did the real test. Drum roll please! Did it work!? I turned on the tap in the galley and water came out in a rush, followed by a burst of air, and then the water slowed to a trickle. Since that was the full force we could achieve, we figured there must be something clogging the tap, but we did not know how to clean the filter. 

Clark took the nozzle off the faucet to take a look inside. He figured he could maybe rinse out whatever might be clogging the faucet. When he turned the water on, we both got a shower of cold water. The hose for the faucet spun around like a wild fire hose. We were both drenched. 

Eventually he figured out how to remove the filter in the end of the faucet. He figured it out for the master and guest head sinks and then used that information to figure out how to remove the filter for the galley sink. When he opened it up, the backside of the filter was coated in white (calcium deposit?), and none of the screen of the filter was even visible. It's a wonder any water came through! He cleaned it out, reattached it, and it worked perfectly with full force water! Job done successfully! 

The whole time we (mostly Clark) were working on the pump, the boat was rocking and rolling due to the heavy winds. What I could not understand was how Clark did not get seasick crawling under the floor boards in the hot and stuffy guest stateroom. I am just happy that he did not suffer any ill effects.

When we went to bed, the boat was still rocking away. It did not take long for me to be rocked to sleep!