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Melissa & Dave - Adventures at Sea

Melissa has wished for this for 8 long years

Breakfast was pork sausage with roasted veggies and a herb sauce.  Most of us loved it, but Dave said it was “mushy”.  Oh well.

Ever since seeing Joint Decision (52 foot Nordhaven) wash their anchor down with a pump that could have powered a fire hose (after rescuing them), Melissa has dreamed of a washdown pump.  That was 8 years ago.  4 years ago Dave ordered a wash down pump.  Been thinking about how to install it ever since.  Two years ago, Jim and Dave got serious.  Just not serious enough apparently.  Some nonsense about not knowing how to run the intake water pump hose down through the boat to the through hull in the bottom of the forward compartment.  And that’s where this project stalled out.  This year they decided to give up on routing to the thru hull and just toss a hose overboard (did Melissa say this was a solution some years ago?  Who can be sure?).  Anyway, this year the pump came back out while we were on the dock at Gig Harbor.  Great option as there is a West Marine and a hardware store nearby.  Plan is to mount the pump to the divider in the anchor locker, toss the intake hose overboard, and mount the output hose to a quick disconnect coupler on the deck in the anchor winch compartment.  Despite years of planning we needed a male spade clip, stainless steel wood screws, and a hole saw in the right size.  Dave and Jim headed out to Ship to Shore – a local marine store.  They had the screws and connector, but not the hole saw.  Next stop was the grocery store for a few supplies.  One grocery store was closed for Labor Day and had a “no ice”sign”.  They headed to Natural Market next only to find they had no groceries.  But they did have Dave’s calcium/magnesium supplement.  They then headed to West Marine but there was no hole saw but they did have wire. 

When they returned without the groceries we needed, they got in the dingy to head to another grocery store for onions, ice, and more olive oil.  You can never have enough olive oil!

Along the way they saw a really cool looking electric boat that they then helped to navigate into an open slip in the marina.  The whole top was covered with solar cells – likely 20 x the energy production of Apsaras.  She was underway and still putting power in the batteries.  It was their maiden voyage.  The owners helped design it and modeled the interior after their airstream.  The builder who built it to their specifications probably built his last boat before retiring.  Dave loved the drum winch for the anchor – very efficient, and was combined with a washdown pump!  Apparently everyone but us has one!

Lunch was a big platter of goodies.

Upon returning to the boat, Dave began installation of the circuit breaker for the washdown pump in the forward head.

See how nice and neat it is?

Meanwhile, Jim walked the 6 miles round trip to the hard ware store for the hole saw.  When he returned, they installed the pump itself.

When the guys sat down to relax after a hard day of work, Dave began to shake and shiver.  He got worse and worse as the minutes went by.  He reported feeling anxious and cold.  We covered him with a blanket but he continued to shiver.  Of course, we were all freaking out thinking COVID.  But that made no sense because Jim brough his daugher’s home test unit over the night before we left and we all tested negative.  Still… We started to wonder if he had absorbed some marine grade sealant doing the installation and wondered if that was causing a reaction.  Eventually we decided to just put him to bed in hopes some rest would make him well.  Meanwhile, Melissa put in a call to her brother, Kelly, the paramedic to ask whether we should be freaking out.  By the time Kelly called back, Dave had gotten up and was looking a little better.  A quick conversation with Kelly revealed a working theory – dehydration.  The shaking and shivvering is the result of his body having dumped a ton of adrenalin and other stress hormones into his blood stream when it detected the low blood pressure.  And his body could not course correct itself because of Dave’s low blood pressure medications – essentially preventing his muscles from tensing up and correcting for the lack of pressure in his system.  So when he quit working – the blood pressure dropped fast.  And his brain s said “something is wrong here” and set off the alarm bells – leading to the stress reaction.  All he needed was water.  Fortunately, Melissa had gotten him to drink a glass of water before we sent him to bed – and likely that is why he recovered and was better.  We fed him another couple of glasses of water before the night was over.  Next morning he was fine.  Final word of warning from Kelly – Watch it in Mexico.  This is gonna hit him hard if he isn’t careful.

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