Day 298, Year 6: Holding Tanks–Ugh!
Date: Thursday, August 18, 2011
Weather: Another Gorgeous, Sunny Day, 75 degrees F
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
After reading yesterday’s log, our daughter Heather thought we were ready to get rid of Windbird. We’re not that desperate yet! It was a day with many bumps and I was overly negative, but we are certainly not at that point. We just need to find the money to do the repairs needed. But money doesn’t solve everything. Our most pressing problem, the full holding tank and pump out hose with a leak, got more complicated today. We called the Harbor Master early and the news we got was not good. The only pump out boat for this entire area is on the hard and will not be ready to go back in the water for at least a week, maybe longer. That was when I said, “Ugh!” I totally agree with the environmental regulations regarding No Discharge in sensitive areas, but if you are going to have regulations, you have to have the things needed to make it work. Having only one pump-out boat with no back-up in an area with so many boats is just not acceptable. We moved off Windbird and to Heather and Jed’s today, but if we cannot find some alternate way of getting the boat pumped out by Saturday, we will just have to sail offshore south of Martha’s Vineyard, discharge the waste, and return. It is a long trek, but that’s what we’ll do if necessary. We will call the Harbor Masters in Hyannis and Martha’s Vineyard tomorrow and see if we can get pumped out at either of those places on Saturday, but if that doesn’t work, we’ll just sail out to sea.
We stayed on Windbird this morning and got a few jobs done before heading into Falmouth to pick up Sam and Jonah. Mark got the brackets that hold the new stove in place and the installation was quick and easy. I did some routine cleaning and got us ready for the our two nights away. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to work on the website. Justin gave us so many good ideas last night, but I’ll just hope I can remember them all and start the work tomorrow morning. Heather came come with us when we left Woods Hole today because Cape Light Compact was doing an energy audit on the house. It was quite an involved procedure that took all afternoon and most interesting to watch. I couldn’t believe that Sam and Jonah both slept through the whole thing, but they did. We had a delightful dinner on the deck and now we’ll settle in the for the night.
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| 110818 Day 298 Cape Cod, USA–Energy Efficiency Testing |
