November 3, 2009.

We left Oriental and the hospitality of the Small’s in our wake this morning. We headed across the Neuse River and entered Adams Creek bound for the inlet at Beaufort.

One part of our revamping of the automatic bilge pump system was the installation of a new control panel as well. The thing keeps track of how much the bilge pumps runs and there’s even an alarm that sounds so you realize that’s it running. I was happy with the installation and hoped it would make a difference in our daily lives.

By the time we were in Adams Creek the alarm was sounding for 3 or 4 seconds every half hour. That’s craptasic. It’s crappy that we evidently have a leak, but it’s fantastic that the system actually works as designed.

We stopped at a tiny marina along Adams Creek to top off one of our fuel tanks. When I was done fueling I flipped back the mattress to see if the freshly packed rudder post stuffing box needed adjustment. Nope, not dripping, it’s coming from somewhere else. Crap.

We (Christy) decided rather than put to sea with a leak of unknown origin we should drop the hook in Morehead City and check things out. That’s why she’s the admiral. So we called it a day after covering 25 miles and slipped behind Sugarloaf Island.

After setting the hook I went and checked out the engine room while the motor was still running. Crap. The raw water pump is leaking through the seal. Crap. It can’t be properly repaired underway and needs to be sent out to be rebuilt. Crap.

As luck would have it, the other day when I was repairing the manual bilge pump I noticed a forgotten unopened box in a dark corner. It looked like the box a new raw water pump would come in. Today when I needed one, the first thing we did was get out the ships inventory and look down the list for a new pump. None, nada, zippo. Crap. I went below and dug to the back of the locker and pulled the box out into the light of day. Eureka! A brand spankin’ new raw water pump. We’re in business. I knew Christy wouldn’t have let us go to the Bahamas the last couple of years without a spare pump in stock. I probably stuck it back there before she had a chance to inventory it. Oh look another locker to inventory, it’s on her to-do-list. I’ll take the blame, whatever, we had a new water pump.

It was quick work to remove the fittings and pulley from the old pump and flip them over to the new pump. The new pump was installed and ready to roll in an hours time. Since we were already dug in for the night we decided to just sit here until tomorrow.

The weather on the ocean is supposed to be a little “lively” tonight anyway. They issued a small craft warning, with winds predicted to be 15-20 knots, climbing to 25 knots after midnight. There had been some serious discussion as to whether we should go or not so it looks like the leaking pump made the decision for us.

The anchorage is really nice and we can’t believe we have it all to ourselves. I’m not even gonna predict what we’re going to do tomorrow.