Poulsbo Kidboat Raftup Managerie
Friday began our Poulsbo Kidboat Raftup extravaganza and the kids and adults had a great time. That night we rafted s/v Laissez Faire off our starboard side, both boats held in place by our Rocna 25 anchor in the shallow mud bottom of Liberty Bay. We put out 110ft of chain in 20ft of water and even when we ALSO had s/v Westy on our port side Saturday night, the anchor never moved in the 25kt breeze that came through. It was so set in fact that we had trouble getting the anchor unset on Monday when we departed Poulsbo.
s/v Westy joined us early Saturday morning. We tried out new hammocks, explored the town, had an excellent Italian lunch with all 11 of us at the same table (6 adults, 5 kids, 3 boats). The 5 kids ages 4 to 8 played Minecraft together every second they were allowed. They either played together with their tablets (Minecraft PE) over the boat wifi network, or when we fired up the Xbox One they played 4 player Minecraft on our boat TV. These kids are obsessed with Minecraft and they love joining and sharing each other’s worlds. The weekend felt short, it was great for both the adults and the kids, we all just felt like it was such a nice way to spend the time.
(By the way, if you work for Microsoft, understand that even though the Xbox and Minecraft DO NOT NEED TO HAVE INTERNET to work, if we don’t have Internet for a bit, which is super likely on a cruising boat, the Xbox ceases to work… REALLY PISSES ME OFF… moving on..)
Devon climbed the mast (with her new favorite toy, the ATN Mastclimber) to reinstall two missing screws in the spreaders and attach our new radar reflector in the rigging. The telescoping legs of our dinette table, long a topic of disdain since we’ve had this boat, finally failed completely and the table dropped down, with no hope of keeping it elevated to eating height. I relented and ordered two new table pedestals next day air to Shilshole marina. I did upgrade to new legs that have gas pistons inside to hold the table up (and help bring it up from the sleeping height).
Meanwhile the new toilet seemed to have decided not to pump flush water anymore. We work around that by spraying water into the bowl with the shower handle but hopefully I can figure out what that problem is. Morgan’s cabin door has been sticky (as long as we’ve had the boat) and I decided it was time to fix it. I was able to remove the screws holding the door frame in place, adjust the geometry of the frame and re-secure it in place. Now the door opens and shuts just as easily as the others.
And then, to charge the batteries, we fired up the genset for the first time since the boat had all sorts of work done. And after a couple of hours the cabin smelled like diesel, not exhaust but actual fuel smell. We shut it down and aired it out.
On Sunday, my parents drove over to Poulsbo to meet us. We dinghy’d in to shore and walked to a highly Yelp rated Mexican restaurant a bit away from the waterfront. It was very good. Then we walked back, got coffee, ice cream, the kids played at the park after which my parents headed home and we dinghy’d back to the boat.
I opened the genset enclosure and found that the old absorbent pad in the genset pan was not replaced after servicing, was sopping wet with fuel and oil. With the genset running and warm, the fumes must have been blown out of the genset enclosure and into the cabin. I removed the pad and put in a few paper towels to check for leaks (there were none) and that seems to have solved the smell.
My new fancy (read: expensive) LED bulb for the deck floodlight doesn’t seem to work correctly either. It pulses like a strobe light. So disappointed.
By Sunday, we had also reattached the wires to the fuel level sender in the main fuel tank so we now know that the tank is still nearly full. Score!
The girls got to practice driving the dinghy around quite a bit. And when they are paying attention they do pretty well. When they get distracted they turn the boat accidentally. More practice needed.
On Monday we went to town for a great breakfast at Tizley’s Europub before pulling up anchor (it took a while to dislodge the anchor from the mud however) and heading out of Liberty Bay.
