Keeping afloat

I promised you all the details of what it takes to keep the boat afloat.

This morning I determined to fix a navigation light that I had knocked off in a tunnel. As I am determined to refit the lighting on SONFLOWER with LED lamps to save precious amps I thought I would look at tying them in to the tunnel light circuit as I never use the nav lamps without it.

A quick look at the wiring loom and I discovered a loose (actually disconnected) wire. The tunnel light circuit was in need of repair. A few moments later I was about to start on the navigation lights when I thought about locating the spare. I could not find it in my cupboard where I keep everything! I thought it was at the back of the boat before we had the back of the boat refitted so I wondered where we had put it while we had the back refitted and then thought it might be under the back steps so I felt under there and........water. Cold, wet, water.

This could only mean one thing. I went under the bathroom sink and took out all the shelves and cabinet that are in front of the bilge pump to discover that the bilge pump area was reasonably dry. Lifting the float switch turned the pump on. My intitial fears of pump failure were unfounded.

Nevertheless we had water in the bilge on the starboard side and the list on the boat meant that the bilge pump on the port side in the bathroom wouldn't help me.

The next hour was spent bailing out the bilge with a dust pan which I emptied into a waste bin which I emptied over the side.

We have had a loose connection on the sink waste in the galley so I imagine that this was the source of the water. Time will tell.

We are still afloat.