The Case Of The Slowly Sinking Ship | Nancy Drew Investigates, Pt 3

If you haven't read Part 1 and Part 2 of the Case of the Slowly Sinking Ship, then you might want to check those installments out first - click here and here to have a read.

Could this be the cause of the mysterious leak on Tickety Boo - an attack by the aliens from outer space?

****

Nancy Drew was curled up on the couch next to the fireplace in the spacious living room at the Drew's house in River Heights. She was staring off into space, tapping her pencil on her notebook and trying to figure out what could have caused the leak on her friend Bess' boat. Absorbed in her thoughts of seacocks, thru-hulls and fresh water systems, she didn't hear the Drew's housekeeper, Hannah Greun, come into the living room.

"Nancy, you have a phone call. Bess is on the line and she sounds distraught," said Hannah. You better see what she wants. After you've spoke with her, come into the kitchen and try some of this apple cobbler I just took out of the oven."

"Thanks Hannah. I'll take the call in the den and then I'll be right in for some of your world famous cobbler," said Nancy. As she got up from the couch, she asked, "Do we have any vanilla ice cream to go with that cobbler?"

Hannah smiled fondly at Nancy. "Of course dear. I wouldn't dream of serving cobbler without ice cream."

"Thanks, Hannah. Father and I are so lucky to have you taking care of us." Nancy turned, went into the den and picked up the phone. "Bess, what's wrong? Hannah said you sounded worried."

"Oh, Nancy. You won't believe what's happened now," Bess exclaimed. "I've got another leak on my boat! It's just my luck. You know that Dave is back from college this weekend and he was going to take me out on a hayride tonight. But, how can I go anywhere knowing my boat might sink at any minute?!"

Nancy frowned and said, "That's strange. I wonder what could have caused another leak on your boat. Gosh, Bess. This is the most perplexing mystery. Don't worry, I'll be right over. I'll even bring you some of Hannah's apple cobbler. That should help take your mind off of this leak."

"Oh, thank you Nancy. You know how much I love apple cobbler! I should be on a diet, but I really could use something sweet just now. I'll see you soon. That is, if my boat hasn't sunk into the water by the time you get here."

****

I know some folks might be thinking that Nancy Drew has actually solved the Case of the Slowly Sinking Ship and that I'm just stringing everyone along with these installments of the Nancy Drew Investigates series. Nothing could be further from the truth. I still don't have a clue what happened on that infamous day when the bilge pump started going off. And, to top it off, I found a new leak on Thanksgiving.

Yes, a new leak. Go figure. When it rains, it pours. Seems like an apt metaphor for a leaking boat.

So, what's happened since I last left you with Part 2? Matt and Jessica came back over on Tuesday to see how things were going. We talked about the fact that when I filled the fresh water tanks on Sunday, the bilge had filled up with water, leveled off and then stopped. We decided that I should play around with isolating out two tanks and running experiments filling them up alternately and turning on the water pump to see what would happen.

Only one teeny tiny problem with this plan. I'm a weakling and I can't turn the plastic handles on the balance tube which connects both tanks to each other and the various hoses which lead to the sinks, shower and hot water heater. Scott turned them when he was here and said it was a piece of cake. I couldn't make either one budge.

Fortunately, Matt's a strapping young lad and was able to turn the handles and isolate one of the tanks. He did say, however, that it wasn't that easy to turn them. So, at least I'm not an utter weakling, but I'm definitely not as strong as Matt and Scott. So, now I'm dependent on those with more muscle power then me to help me isolate my tanks. {Sigh}

By this time, I was getting tired of the whole Case of the Slowly Sinking Ship. It was starting to feel more like the Case of the Annoying Boat Up to No Good and Trying to See What Will Send Ellen over the Edge and into a Chocolate Coma. Unlike Nancy Drew, who would doggedly persist in trying to solve the mystery, I decided to ignore the whole situation for a couple of days. Who needs a fresh water system anyways? I just trundled off and filled up some water jugs each day for washing up, drinking and the like.

On Thanksgiving morning, I decided it was about time that I opened the saltwater intake seacock so that I could flush our toilet. It hadn't been the cause of the mysterious leak, so there wasn't any reason to leave it turned off.

Wouldn't you know it, the minute I opened up the compartment to access it, I noticed that it was leaking. This is the very same seacock that was completely fine and dry up until then. Because, of course, this was just what I needed - another leak and one potentially coming from outside of our boat. {Grrr}

Fortunately, it was a minor leak, more of a seepage, so there wasn't any worry that our boat was going to sink from this particular leak, but it was a hassle and it confused the whole monitoring of the fresh water system because this seacock was now draining into the bilge too. {Insert your favorite naughty word here}

I ate a couple of Oreos (amazingly there were still some left from the ones Michele and Bruce had brought me earlier in the week), got myself together, said a few more naughty words and checked out the seacock. From what I could tell, the leak wasn't coming from any of the hoses. The hoses were complete dry and the leak seemed to be coming from the fitting itself.

It would have been so much simpler if it had been one of the hoses. That would be easy to fix and could be done while the boat was in the water. Instead, I started working through the worst case scenarios of having to have the boat hauled out so that it could be fixed in the work yard. Talk about depressing - more Oreos were required.

We had had this seacock and thru-hull (along with two others) put in by the guys in the work yard back in April/May, so my next step was to have Graham, the service manager, come out and have a look since they guarantee their work. Of course, it was Thanksgiving, so no one was around. I headed off to my friend's for Thanksgiving dinner and consoled myself with turkey and all the trimmings, along with a very large slice of pumpkin cheesecake. Pumpkin pie - yuck, pumpkin cheesecake - yum.

I came back to the boat and it was still floating. This is what my life has become. Anytime, I go someplace, I wonder if my floating home will be above water when I come back.

Graham came by to have a look on Friday. He couldn't see very well into the compartment and he and his guys are slammed with work right now, so we made arrangements for him to come back the next day with his handy mirror and tools. On Saturday, Graham came back and poked around. He agreed with me that the leak wasn't coming from the hose. On one hand, it was nice to know that I wasn't off my rocker when I had ruled out the hose. On the other hand, having a leak from the thru-hull or seacock is never a good thing.

Graham took the hose off and had a look at the fitting. Turns out everything was fine after all - the hose was the culprit. I tell you, these mysteries are enough to do my head in. False leads everywhere. Just when you think you've got it figured out, your case falls apart. Sneaky hose leak - winding it's way around some hidden path to give the illusion that it was coming from the fitting.

Although he didn't have to, Graham replaced the hose for me. He talked me through the process, showed me what he was doing, explained the different types of hoses, how to put the clamps on etc., which will come in handy once I track down the leak or leaks in our fresh water system and may have to replace other hoses and clamps.

The new hose did the trick. No more leaking from that particular spot on our boat. But, the Case of the Slowly Sinking Ship continues.

Stay tuned for Part 4 of Nancy Drew Investigates. Hopefully, Part 4 is the conclusion of this sorry saga. At this point, I don't know when I'll have an update as I'm just not going to deal with this investigation until next week. Georgie the Sailing Cat is staying with me this week while her humans are away and she likes to get into everything, as cats do. So, it seems easier to wait until she's gone to pick the investigation back up. Besides, unlike Nancy Drew, I'm a complete slacker and need a break from all of this detective work, so Georgie seems like as good excuse as any to put the whole thing on hold. She'd much prefer to just hang out and snack on cheese this week and so would I.

Wouldn't you rather snuggle up with this adorable cat then try to track down a leak(s)?

Thanks for stopping by our blog - we love it when people come to visit! We're also on Facebook - we'd love for you to pop by and say hi! 

The Case Of The Slowly Sinking Ship | Nancy Drew Investigates, Pt 2

If you haven't read Part 1 of the Case of the Slowly Sinking Ship, then you might want to check it out first - click here to have a read.

Could this be the cause of the mysterious leak on Tickety Boo - an attack by the marina alligators?

****

"Bess, I thought you were on a diet. Are you sure you should be eating so many Oreo cookies?" said Nancy Drew. 

Bess wiped chocolate crumbs off of her face, turned to her friend and said, "I know, you're right. If I gain one more pound, I won't be able to fit into that new dress I bought and then I won't have anything to wear to the sock hop at the yacht club tonight. But, I just can't help myself! This Case of the Slowly Sinking Ship is so frustrating that the only thing that makes me feel better is chocolate."

Nancy got out her notebook and pencil and said, "Now, Bess, we just need to look at things logically. Let's go through our list of suspects and try to see who had motive, means and opportunity to commit this dastardly crime." 

Just as Nancy opened up her notebook, her boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, walked into the room and said, "Gee, Bess, don't you ever clean out that lazarette of yours? It really stinks down there." Bess blushed and said, "I'm sorry, Ned. I completely forgot to take care of that. I've just been so busy with other things like shopping for my new dress and checking out the new ice cream parlor that opened up in town. They serve the most divine root beer floats." Bess stared off into space, daydreaming of ice cream sundaes and banana splits.

Nancy shook her head at Bess and then turned to Ned. "You're just in time. We were going to go through the list of suspects in the Case of the Slowly Sinking Ship. Have you found any clues that can help us out?"

"Well, you can cross everyone off the list except the fresh water system, " Ned said. "It looks like the leak might be coming from there."

Bess gasped and said, "Gosh, do you think one of those alligators swimming around in the marina got on my boat and chewed a hole though one of the water hoses?" Ned looked at Bess in disbelief. "An alligator? You really think an alligator caused this? Sometimes, I just don't know about that imagination of yours." 

Bess stared helplessly at Nancy and Ned and shrugged her shoulders. "But, what else could it be? And, what if they come after me next!" Nancy smiled at Bess and said, "There, there Bess. It isn't alligators that did this. You'll just need to buckle down and work through this systematically. Here, have another Oreo cookie. That will make you feel better."

**** 

Of course, this isn't exactly how things played out over the past few days. But the Nancy Drew version is a lot more interesting and entertaining then reality. Reality is full of hard to reach places on your boat, stinky lazarettes and water that seems to come from nowhere. In Nancy Drew's world, everyone is always dressed smartly and Nancy solves the mystery without ever breaking a sweat. Because of course, she's Nancy Drew - she doesn't sweat, she doesn't even perspire. She might occasionally have a healthy glow from a tennis match, but she never sweats.

In our last installment of Nancy Drew Investigates, the mysterious leak had stopped the minute that Graham, the service manager in the boat yard, and my pals, Matt and Jessica, popped by to help with the investigation. Isn't that always the way? The minute someone who knows what they're doing comes by to help you, the problem stops. They look at you funny, like you're some sort of boat hypochondriac, imagining mystery problems with your boat just to get attention.

I somehow convinced them that I hadn't hallucinated the whole thing and then headed off to the party at the marina with Matt and Jessica. I had a few beers and something to eat and then settled in for the night on one of the settees in the saloon so that I could hear if the bilge pump went back on during the middle of the night.

I'm sure it won't surprise you to know that I didn't sleep very well. Dreams of sinking ships and alligators swimming around my boat waiting to pounce on me filled my head during the night. I woke up often and peered into the bilge anxiously. Nothing but a little bit of a water. If I hadn't known better, I might have thought I dreamed up everything that happened on Saturday. But, I didn't. Trust me on this. I know I have an overactive imagination, but it usually leans towards things like alien abduction, not my boat leaking and slowly sinking to the bottom. I'd rather be transported up to a spacecraft and experimented on then deal with these kinds of problems on my boat.

Matt and Jessica popped round later on Sunday. I had cleared out the lazarette so that we could have a good look in there, which is a pain in the you know what. Our lazarette is big enough to store dead bodies in it, so you can only imagine how much crap we have in it. Our 40 pound Rocna anchor, tons of lines, a huge box of chemicals, cleaning products, solvents and the like, diesel jerry cans, buckets, stuff that the previous owners left which I've never been able to identify and other bits and bobs. 

Once you get all of that out, you're left with lots of hoses that lead to mysterious places, a diesel tank, a hot water tank and our holding tank, which I affectionately call our PPB (or pee and poo box). 

Have I mentioned what a sweetheart Matt is? Bless his cotton socks (which is a strange saying by the way, why would you want your socks blessed?), Matt jumped into the lazarette and checked all of the seacocks out. I hadn't had our PPB emptied in a while so it stunk like the dickens down there (another strange saying) and it might have been leaking a little bit too. Yeah, Matt went down into the deep, dark pit of utter grossness to check things out. Jessica snagged herself a good one. He's a keeper.

One of our seacocks was looking a wee bit suspicious, but we couldn't tell if it was leaking or if the water around it was just due to the torrential downpour on Saturday. Matt told me to keep an eye on it.

Next up, Matt poked around in the engine room again and looked at the stern tube. It all looked okay - not the source of the leak. I showed him where I thought the path was that the water was taking - from the lazarette into the aft cabin, through the engine room and into the bilge. Everything was pointing towards a problem with the freshwater system, so he told me to fill up the tanks again and see what happened. 

So, I did. Water poured into the bilge, but then it leveled off just below the line where the bilge pumps start kicking in. 

This was both odd and exciting. Seriously, did I just say this was exciting? This will give you a sense of how warped my worldview has become. I used to think getting a pair of black boots with an adorable wedge heel on sale or finding a new Ethiopian restaurant was exciting. Now, I think finding water in my bilge is exciting. 

I skipped over to Matt and Jessica's boat with a huge smile on my face and screamed out, "I've got water in my bilge!" Matt gave me a huge high five. We were all excited - we had found the source of the leak. Never mind that we didn't recreate the actual problem on Saturday with a continuous leak and the bilge pump going off. Yes, that was odd, but we had water in the bilge again. Things were looking up.

I spent the day poking around trying to trace all of the water hoses and figure out where the leak could be coming from. I drained the tanks again before bed, took all the water out of the bilge and slept somewhat better that night. 

On Monday, the bilge was still dry. This was good. The suspicious seacock in the lazarette was dry. This was great. But, it looked like the path that I thought the water was taking wasn't actually the case. I found a little bit of water accumulating in the aft cabin, but wasn't able to figure out where it was coming from. Yep, more mysterious bypasses and channels lurking somewhere in inaccessible places on our boat. {Sigh}

At some point, I posted something on Facebook about how frustrating things were getting and whined about not having any chocolate. Michele and Bruce from Sailing Wind Spirit brought me over Oreos and a giant Hershey bar to ease my pain. Aren't cruisers wonderful? They're always there to help you out in times of need.

So, that's where we'll leave the story for now - a dry bilge and plenty of chocolate. But, stay tuned for Part 3 of the Nancy Drew Investigates series. Spoiler alert - things are never easy. Things get confusing again. One of our original suspects, who we had crossed off the list, left some new incriminating evidence. Was it a red herring or the cause of the leak? 


Thanks for stopping by our blog - we love it when people come to visit! We're also on Facebook - we'd love for you to pop by and say hi! 

The Case Of The Disappearing Cat

For someone who doesn't actually own a cat, I've become something of a Crazy Cat Lady here at Indiantown Marina. I kittysit Georgie the Sailing Cat from time to time when her humans are out of town and now Charlie and Jane's cats are spending the day with me while they get their boat cleaned up and ready to move onto. 

It's all a good distraction from the Case of the Slowly Sinking Ship, which remains an unsolved mystery. I'll post another Nancy Drew Investigates update on Friday. Hopefully, I'll have it all figured out by then and we don't have any more bilge pump dramas

In the meantime, I've had to open up a new case file - the Case of the Disappearing Cat. Charlie and Jane have three cats - Evy, Smokey Joe and Sugar. Evy is a sweet little kitty who seems to be the boss of her two brothers. She immediately picked out the prime spot right next to the new pillows I made and settled in for a nap.

 
Smokey Joe isn't supposed to be up on the counters, but our babysitter always let us break a few rules, like stay up past our bedtime, so I figured Smokey Joe should have some fun too.

This is about all you're going to see of Sugar. Sugar likes to hide. He thinks if he can't see you, then you can't see him. Someone should tell him his feet are sticking out.

Sugar stayed under the chart table for quite a while. Then he came out for some food. I thought heard him go back under the chart table, but couldn't see any feet. He's a huge cat and hard to miss. I looked under the table - no Sugar. I looked everywhere - no Sugar. It's not like this is a huge boat with lots of places to hide. In fact, I had the cats confined to just one cabin so I could keep tabs on them. Still no Sugar.

I was trying to figure out how to explain to Charlie and Jane that one of their cats had disappeared. I wasn't sure that they were going to go for the alien abduction explanation, but it was looking to be the only logical solution to this puzzle.

Fortunately, Sugar has now reappeared. All I can figure is that he was either beamed back down from the spaceship or he managed to find a secret hiding space somewhere between the hull and the chart table. If it was the latter, the good news is that he wasn't wet, so we can rule that area out as the origin of the leak on our boat.

Anyway, everyone here is napping, so I better join them. Indiantown Marina is having a week of Thanksgiving festivities and I just got back from the dinghy races. Now, I have to rest up for the grape stomping competition tonight. I figure even Nancy Drew took a break from her investigations from time to time, so I should do the same.

See you back here on Friday with the latest from the Case of the Slowly Sinking Ship.

Thanks for stopping by our blog - we love it when people come visit! We're also on Facebook - we'd love for you to pop by and say hi!