Monday 13 Sept 2010

Pretty uneventful weekend actually - which is a good thing. Saturday I took the tender to shore and spent some time wandering around Beaulieu and St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. It's quite beautiful. Spent a few hours on the beach, went for a swim and lost my earrings. I have to take them out when I am on duty so I put them in over the weekend to keep the hole from closing up too much. They are circular barbells with a ball at each end to keep them in. Well, I was too lazy to screw in the ball I had removed in order to take them out. I went for over 2 years without that ball on there because last time I was here I lost them. Anyway, as I was walking back to the port I happened to reach up to my ears and noticed that they were gone. Must have come out while I was swimming. It was probably time to get smaller ones anyway.

I took a stroll through town and found a supermarket where I bought some green grapes from Italy and some peaches from France. The peaches were very good - reminded me of home. The grapes are awesome - except for the seeds. Yay for genetic engineering! They aren't nearly as sweet at the Thompson's we have in the States - they taste kind of earthy. Also bought a can of Bavarian Special Red Beer 8.6. If you ever see this stuff (which you won't in the states) I highly recommend you buy some and give it to your WORST enemy. The stuff is AWFUL. I took about 2 sips and then had to pour it out. I was hoping to enjoy a beer while listening to the Giants game but, alas, I had to settle with water.

Yesterday I just hung out on the boat all day. Read a little, fed the fish, took a nap, had a workout, got really bored. Tried to download another new book only to have the same problem as before and can't get it to transfer to the eReader. During the evening feeding I noticed a trickle of water coming from out of the top of the tank and freaked out. Called Dan over (he's a deckhand on the Shadow that has worked on the tank before). We decided that it wasn't an emergency and could wait until today when I did my dive. This morning I noticed that the water level in the tank had dropped. When I got in the tank I figured out that a siphon had been created in the overflow behind the tank and water was slowly escaping from there. Once we dropped the level of the water to below the pipes feeding the overflow box, we broke the siphon and the water has since stopped dripping out. Phew!

I also took note of the fact that the temp was starting to creep up again and I first thought that the pump had failed again. We open and closed some of the valves while the pump was running in order to force some water through at higher pressure to knock out any blockages that may have occurred. This seems to have worked for the time being. We may need to remove the whole chiller unit and flush it out to remove any other blockages if the temp goes back up.

If I am ever offered this job again, please remind me that since I have been here I have had to deal with:
1) 2 lost frozen food shipments
2) A failed pump
3) A massive temperature spike
4) A blockage in the phosphate dosing system
5) A problem with the overflow system
6) A busted valve in the plumbing system
7) A blowout in the RO unit hose
8) A burned out lightbulb in the pump room

Good times!