Trepidation

Mandy moved out here from Wisconsin to join an Americorp team working in Federal Way public schools. If you haven't heard of Americorp before, check them out... they do some good work (and hey, it's your tax dollars, you should keep an eye on them). One of the things that Mandy's team does is hold an annual charity auction to raise funds for underprivileged kids to purchase equipment for extracurricular school activities... instruments, uniforms, and so forth that are necessary to participate but which many families in that district are unable to afford. Businesses and individuals donate items or services to auction off and the money goes to buying equipment for those kids who would otherwise be unable to participate in those school programs.

After she bought the boat, Mandy decided to put a day sailing trip up in the auction. Though she is no longer with Americorp, we've donated a trip every year, and it's always done pretty well, giving us warm fuzzies in addition to providing another opportunity to go out sailing. This year's winner has picked this Sunday for her trip, bringing her family along, and we expect they'll have a fine time and it's more money in the bank for the kids. But I have come to view the annual event with some trepidation and all I can think about today is what is going to go wrong tomorrow.

The annual charity day sail, you see, appears to be cursed. The first year, a banjo bolt sheared off in the fuel filter assembly as I was bleeding the lines, just as the lucky winners arrived at the dock. We had to cancel and reschedule. The second year, it was some other engine related problem, though it only delayed our departure instead of cancelling it altogether. The third time, it wasn't our boat, but the Ballard Bridge that broke, stranding us and our hapless passengers on the wrong side for an extra hour and a half. Last year, our starter died. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even I can see a pattern developing here.

We both worked on the boat most of yesterday and I couldn't find anything ready to give out, but I am sure it is hiding there somewhere. I changed the secondary fuel filter, fiddled with the transmission (took a little fluid out, it seems to be shifting easier now... apparently too much is worse than not enough) and extracted the problematic pin on the anchor roller, all with suspicious ease. We pumped out and fueled up, and Mandy painted the foredeck hatch and touched up some spots on the mast, and she is back there again today cleaning up. Maybe she'll come home with some tale of woe, I'm not sure. I suspect whatever it is will only reveal itself after our passengers show up, however, as that seems to be the point at which maximum stress can be inflicted.

Making things more fraught is our plan to head north for Port Hadlock immediately after finishing the day sail. Since we're going to be gone for most of July and most of August, we went ahead and sublet our slip out for the whole of both months, so we need to get the boat out of there and up to Hadlock before July 1st. This seemed as good a time as any. The currents will make things slightly complicated, though; if we actually head north as soon as we drop the passengers off, we'll be bucking a head wind and a flood current. We could wait around until 2300 or so for more favorable currents, but then it's dark, and we'd still have the head winds, which would have us tacking back and forth through the shipping lanes with limited visibility. Or, we could hang out until 0400 or so and get both light and ebb current, but then we might not make the Hadlock canal before slack.

Haven't decided entirely what to do yet, but I'm not putting a lot of thought into it as I expect any decision made today will be rendered moot by tomorrow's impending but unspecified failure.