So apparently one thing all boats ever made have in common is that they break. All the time. Usually without warning and at inconvenient times. Since our boat is a 1984 this happens more frequently. This time the head stopped flushing. That’s a problem since in order to pee, we have to get in the dinghy, row to shore, hike to the pit toilet, do your thing, and then do the whole thing in reverse to get back to the boat. Pain in the ass. I don’t think I’m particularly high maintenance but I want to be able to pee on the boat, dammit! So we had a delicious breakfast, waited for the tides to turn in our favor and headed up the Nanaimo, the second largest town on Vancouver island, to hopefully get some repair parts.
There are 2 ways to get to Nanaimo from Pirates Cove. One is to just sail out into the Strait of Georgia which can be an “exciting” experience. The other option is to go through Dodd pass, which can also be quite exciting. It’s very deep and very narrow, so if you don’t hit it at slack tide, you’re not getting through. There are whirlpools and the currents frequently go much faster than the top speed of our boat. We hit it an hour before slack, so it wasn’t too bad. The boat got tossed around a little bit but we made it through!
Eventually we made it up to Nanaimo! Nanaimo was on my “must do” list. I’m not entirely sure why. Probably mostly due to “Nanaimo Bars“… which I haven’t even had, but I figure if theres an entire candy car named after a town, it’s got to be pretty good. THEY ARE!
The town of Nanaimo is pretty neat. One thing I noticed is the lack of graffiti. I had to look pretty hard to find what I did. There are also a lot of muscle cars. I also got a maple coffee with 4 shots of espresso. Pretty good day!
I suppose you are all wondering what happened with the head? We went to buy replacement parts, but our head is obsolete. They sell the kit to rebuild the pump for $90, or a brand new head for $160. So we carried our shiny new toilet all the way back down the hill, through town, to the boat and installed it. Overall it was a shitty job (har!) but in the grand scheme of custom installations it wasn’t too bad. We now have a shiny new drill and drill bits for use on the boat and also the ability to pee while on the boat. Good times! We also used our layover in Nanaimo to do laundry, re-provision our food, and just generally run some errands. It was a very useful stop with some mild sightseeing. The water clarity here is unreal. I would very much like to come back and do some diving!
So I suppose there’s a saying or whatever about bad things coming in threes? We had the shifter cable break, the head break, and… the next morning the stupid boat won’t start. Well shit. We’re about to untie from the pier and she’s barely trying to turn over. So we tear the thing apart to get to the engine bay. Cushions, bags, shoes, etc scattered all over the boat. We poke around and nothing is fixing it. Jason goes over and starts to tighten the connections on the battery bank because they’re loose as hell. (boy, doesn’t THAT seem like a likely culprit?) I’m poking around on the internet trying to find a solution and suddenly there are sparks flying into the air, jason also flying into the air, and a sickening smell of burning. What in the hell just happened? My darling Jason, who until previously had been tightening things on the batteries, managed to cross the connections on the battery with the wrench and his wedding ring which caused the sparking and scared the crap out of him. Luckily his ring has been super loose for a while now so it flew off into the bowels of the boat and he’s now got an awesome burn on his hand from it. So I get to practice my first aid skills (negligible). Thank goodness I watch so much survivorman. We got the human fixed, now for the boat. Turns out the loose connections were the problem and we got her started and underway so we could make it to Dodd Pass in time to make it safely through. I found the first aid kit on the boat and did the absolute shittiest job of gauze and tape that’s ever been created. I need to stick to repairing cars. They whine less than humans and the parts are cheaper.
Either way, all is now well, we made some lunch on the boat and we’re on the hunt for a secluded anchorage to spend the night and begin our meandering back down South.