November 29 Friday

This morning when I turned on the SSB there was too much loud interference so I turned it off. Next I checked for internet service as yesterday afternoon it stopped working. It was still off. With no internet I couldn’t laze around drinking coffee and reading the paper so I had to go to work. I emptied out the sail locker so I could get to the manual Gusher 10 bilge pump. While I was in there, I checked the reversing gear oil. I was very slightly dirty and had well over the 300 hours recommended, so I changed the oil.
I disconnected the bilge pump hoses and took out the six bolts holding the pump. I took the pump apart and it was corroded and the flapper valves that are rubber were curved instead of flat. The chandlery at Peakes was having a sale and yesterday I saw on the 50% off table a rebuild kit for a Gusher 10 pump. Off I went to the Peakes sale. I found the rebuild kit and was glad no one got it before me. I walked back to Changes and put the new rubber parts and new screws back in the cleaned up pump housing. Good thing there were new screws as one of the old ones fell In the water. I tested the pump by putting my hand over the ports and pumping the handle creating pressure where there was none before the pump was rebuilt. I mounted the pump and put back the hoses.

After all this I was hot and soaked so I rested in front of a fan. After lunch I walked back to Peakes to use the internet. When I got there a note was posted stating that because of a service provider problem there would be no internet. Oh well!

Phil

From Lorraine: I’m glad that the manual bilge pump is fixed. We had a situation where we could have used it and it didn’t work last trip, so now we have a backup pump. The Internet came back on about 930pm.