Saturday 24 December Where there's muck there's work

It's almost the holidays and time to join the rush out of town. For us this is a motor sail into the Bay of Islands and a sheltered bay on Urupukapuka Island. First we pull up to the cruising club dock to fill water tank. Although we have a water maker the river water in the estuary is too dirty and muddy and would clog the filters. Going alongside we can fill with 1000L and scrub clean the decks and cockpit. The latter suffering from being the nominated workshop when the winches were stripped down and cleaned last week.

We got off the dock with an hour of out going tide to speed us down the Veronika Channel and out into the bay. An hour later we dropped anchor in Otaio bay amongst 10 other boats. It feels so good to be out of Opua and sailing once more and our first opportunity to try out and adjust the new head sail. 

Urupukapuka island

With sunset close to 9pm tonight David jumped down into the engine room to begin work on replacing a leaking oil seal on the outboard motor. However, while he was close to the bilge pump he heard it straining to clear water. A quick inspection revealed a gunged up pump, jetsam floating in the reservoir and a nasty, dirty job requiring immediate attention. On our boat all water from sinks and showers flows into this one sump to be pumped overboard when a pre-determined level is reached.
It took us two hours of removing parts, cleaning two years of amassed fat, grime and smell, flushing with the seawater hose, hand pumping and cunning to remove a rubber bulb pump and a large washer which had ended up in the bottom. The cunning to retrieve offending articles from a filthy place deeper than the length of David's arm was to fill the pot to the top and allow the items to float within reach.

Otaio bay sunset

It wasn't our plan to spend Christmas Eve up to our (rather David's) elbows in mess but it's a boat! If we could arrange breakdowns for convenient times how much easier it would be. Not to worry, an iced gin & tonic in the late summer evening warmth and dinner watching the sun set soon helped us to forget. What bilge? Which leaking outboard? If we don't have a chimney how will Santa Claus deliver all my presents?