We have been going on mini shakedown sails to check out systems and ensure everything is in proper working order for the last few months leading up to our departure.

A couple weekends back we sailed across to Silva bay in the Gulf Islands, a great trip across until it was time to navigate a narrow pass entering the bay. It was at this time we realized the depth sounder was definitely not functioning correctly. …..depth sounder reading 600ft……. hum that’s odd, since when we look over the side we see the bottom.

Depth sounds not working properly, no problem I will just pull the sensor from the thru hull and check it once docked. I know some you are thinking “it’s going to dump a lot of  water into the boat with a 1 ½ hole open 3 ft underwater”. Nope, it has a cool little flap on it that slams shut as the sensor comes out. So I check the sensor and sure enough it was painted over during our last haul out/bottom paint. Cleaned it, reinstalled, checked it, sounder reads 11ft sounds about right, all is good again.

Next day we sailed to Nanaimo Harbour. Coming into the anchorage…600ft sounder reading. Damn.  It isn’t working again. We anchor in an area we have anchored numerous times so we are confident about the depth. The next day we made a trip up to the marine store for a sounder (long shot but maybe we will luck out). Sure enough they have one! We take it back to the boat and start installing it, the cable is too short.  Well now what… cut off the plug or not, that is the $550 question.

Well what the hell, lets cut it and hard wire it in. The day is going good it went smoothly and looks good, now we just need to pull the old one and put in the new one. Remember back about the flap that slams shut .

So I pull the thru hull and was promptly soaked by an 1½’’  fire hose type water column. Quickly pushed my had over it ….it’s not working.  My son Dan pokes his head in to inform me “that’s a lot of water” , and grabs me a rag …like that will work. How about a wood plug? Perfect I have some tied right here beside the thru hulls, of course they are floating on the ends of the strings, making them difficult to grab. Never the less I get my hands on one too small … Err.  Not to worry my boat isn’t going to sink the next fits perfect, water stopped!! However, I still don’t have the depth sounder in yet. Alas we get prepared to pull the wood plug out and stuff the depth sounder in, a lot more water, but success! The sounder is in so we check the display and it works perfectly.
So we got the depth sounder replaced and confirmed that the bilge pumps worked great as well.

It is now beer-thirty, I need to wash this salt water out of my mouth.                                                      




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