*That* call

On Saturday, we got that call.  You know, the one that no boat owner ever wants to get.

Brent & Jill, our next door neighbors (bless you guys!) called us Saturday morning (we were away from the boat) and told us that our bilge pump was running every 20 minutes or so.

Yeah, THAT call.

I jumped in my TransAm and may have grazed some speed regulations getting to the marina.

Thankfully, what I found was not serious.  We were not in danger of sinking.  As Brent pointed out, the pump was no where near to running continuously, so the situation was stable.  But it was not pretty.

In order to describe what happened, I need to backtrack a little.  Remember when I told you that our refrigeration was seawater-cooled?  And that we had a small telltale stream running into the sink?  Now imagine that someone left the sink stopper in the sink, and that it managed to seal up the drain (something which we never seem to be able to get it to do).

Yeah, the sink filled up with seawater.  And because of our current state of trim, when the sink overflowed, the water ran outboard... and into the freezer.  Yes, we had a freezer nearly full of frozen seawater.  Not quite full of ice because of the near continuous stream of warm seawater which kept coming, but certainly full of seawater.  When the freezer overflowed, the water made its way behind the cabinetry attached to the hull, and then into the bilge, where the bilge pump took care of it.

There was no damage.  But do you have any idea how many pans of boiling water it takes to melt a block of ice that big?  No, I didn't either.

*That* call