The Final Shakedown

The latest blog has morphed from one that was intended to be used between trips into one that will be used for the upcoming trip, essentially leaving the details about the maintenance that has been going on in the blog rather than starting up a new one.

Last weekend several of us launched out to put Quijote and a few of the crew through their paces, a shakedown cruise if you will.  It turned out to be a great time, as is most often the case when we venture out onto the water.

We started off with a minor crisis when, no sooner had we requested the Ballard bridge be opened than the engine temperature alarm started wailing.  We shut the engine down and drifted for a while to let the engine cool while we investigated the source of the problem. Several weeks ago I found that the previous owner had used the wrong kind of coolant in the engine, so I drained and refilled it with distilled water, warmed it up, then repeated the process a couple of times to get most of the old coolant out, before filling it up again.  Going though all this, I noticed that more coolant was drained than it was taking to refill, so I was sensitive to the fact that there might not be enough coolant in the engine.  After the engine cooled I pulled the coolant cap off and found that it was indeed dry, so it was just a matter of adding more as coolant worked its way into the nooks and crannies.

With that problem resolved, we headed out the locks.  We actually had the lock to ourself for the first time that I can remember.

The first order of business once we had poked our nose out into the sound was to test the water-maker.  It was inoperable when I first fired it up many months ago, and it took several weeks of troubleshooting, ordering and replacing various parts as one problem and then another was fixed.  I finally got it to a state where I was confident that it was working properly, but sitting in a clean freshwater lake, as Lake Union is, didn’t allow me to test it fully.

For the first time had the opportunity to actually make fresh water out of seawater and I’m happy to report that it works like a champ!  I installed a sample valve while I was working on it that allows me to divert the flow to a tasting cup before sending the desalinated water to the fresh water tanks.  When I diverted the water into a cup and tasted it, it was wonderful.  Ain't technology amazing!

We followed our footsteps of last year’s preparation cruise and headed around the south end of Bainbridge Island and up into Liberty Bay.  The weather was a little dodgy, but at least it wasn’t raining.  It took us a couple of tries to get ourselves docked after getting kicked out of the first place we tried, but we were finally able to step off the boat and wander around Paulsbo for a while.  When we made our way back to the boat intending to head out into the bay for a little anchor practice, we found the winds had kicked up enough that getting out of the slip had me a little worried.  I pictured getting blown sideways in 25 kts wind with no flow over the rudder to give me any control.  It probably wouldn’t have been a problem, but the crew was happy to wait it out and when the winds finally gave us a lull, we jumped at the dock lines and charged out of there.

We were glad we did.  Even with the winds snorting again, it is always more quiet in an anchorage than it is in a marina.  It is also the case that boat naturally points its bow into the wind when at anchor, so the cockpit stays relatively dry behind the dodger.  That’s not the case when tied to a dock.  So it was a good decision.  The anchoring was well done by the crew and we enjoyed a terrific meal before settling off to sleep with the weather raging around us.

The following morning we pushed out early to make slack water in Agate Passage, so we were back in town relatively early.

All in all it was a very successful weekend.  We learned a few things and added items to our shopping lists that will be helpful to have when we make our departure next Sunday morning.

Quijote Crew makes their way home through the Ballard locks

A pot of gold in Paulsbo?