Last Day

Well, today is my last day of work on the boat. Neil will return this evening to a clean, well fed, running, happy tank. After diligently babysitting the RO unit for 3 days, Dan finally answered my prayers and took me out in the tender to get ocean water to fill the tank. I had (half jokingly) put that as an option for replacing the water lost from the incident on Monday and everyone kind of laughed it off. Dan came around yesterday before lunch to see how things were going and when he saw how slowly the water was being made, he said he'd ask if we could take the tender to collect water.

After lunch we loaded up three 20 gallon trashcans and a five gallon salt bucket into the tender a headed about one mile offshore. We rinsed the big buckets, filled them as much as we could while still being able to drag them on board, then took turns using the 5 gallon bucket to top them up. On the way back to the boat we were forced to go slowly because of all the extra weight in the boat but that helped to prevent too much spillage. Once back, we dropped a submersible pump into one of the buckets, ran a long hose all the way to the reservoir and started filling it up. I, or course, tested the water for basic water quality parameters (Nitrite, nitrate, ammonia, pH, temp and salinity) but we really had no way of knowing if any other toxins might have been in the water. It took us 3 trips out to get enough water to fill the tank. We got it all up and running though!!

When we were done cleaning up from our adventures, we donned wetsuits and jumped in a bright pink, 2-man kayak and went for a cruise to the beach. About halfway out my paddle snapped in half - I guess I'm just too strong for my own good, or the thing was crazy corroded from the inside out. Luckily, we were passing John and Sandy in another kayak on their way in. They gave us a good paddle since they didn't have as far to go. Dan and I continued on and landed on the beach, hung out for a bit, decided we were starving and shoved off again. He got in and I pushed him out and he started paddling like crazy to get out of the surf, I thought he was going to just take off without me but I caught him and jumped in. It was alot of fun and hard work!

After dinner Dan and I walked down to the bar and I bought him his first beer since he passed out in a doorway in Sitges last weekend to say thanks for all the help today and this past month. If he hadn't been around I think I would have destroyed everything.

As I said, Neil gets back tonight and I leave the boat tomorrow at noon. I will arrive in Pisa at 4:45 and hopefully someone will be there to pick me up. Hopefully we recognize each other! Miro and I are going to get some wine and tapas tonight so I can sample the local cuisine before leaving Spain.

I'm glad my job is over, I've made some friends (and probably some enemies),I've seen some cool stuff, done some cool things and eaten some great food. I can't wait to get home.

Time Flies...

...when you're in crisis management mode. Monday I got in the tank to clean and do a water change. You have to drain some water out then close the valves, shut off the pumps and get in the tank to clean twice a week. Monday, after doing EVERYTHING the way I always do it, I realized about halfway through the dive that the water level had gotten lower while I was in the tank. I pulled myself out of that tiny hatch so quickly and dropped my weight belts as I sprinted across the deck and down the stairs to the pump room. Sure enough, the reservoir was overflowing like crazy. I turned the pump back on to get the water out of the reservoir but at that point I had already lost a good portion of the water.

I have to make the RO water now since we are in port and I can't just pump in this nasty-ass marina water. The RO unit takes a long time to do it's job - about 30 hours to make enough for a water change. On top of that, add the fact that I'm paranoid as hell about that hose coming off again, this was not shaping up to be a great day. And I was only supposed to have 3 days left. (Turns out it's 4 since Neil's flight to Barcelona was canceled for today due to labor strikes all over Spain - awesome). So I did what I could to keep the fish alive in an isolated tank. There is 1 pump running to just circulate water but there is no heater/chiller, and no filtration. The main concerns are lack of oxygen in the water and a drop in temp - funny, the first crisis was a spike in the temp (actually, none of this has been funny).

By the time I went to bed Monday, I had nowhere near enough water to get the system going again. I placed a small powerhead pump in the top of the tank and left the top hatch open so that there would be some oxygen exchange happening. Since I had no problems during the day with the RO unit, I decided to let it run through the night but alerted some of the guys on Odyssey to just check in there every once in a while to make sure there wasn't water gushing everywhere.

A small knock on my door woke me on Monday morning. Matt was there to tell me that water was pouring out everywhere and the pump room was flooded. It was 2:00 AM. I scrambled over there but all I could really do was just vacuum up the mess. Of course, after about 10 minutes of vacuuming the vacuum overheated and I had to stop. I went back to bed.

Tuesday I sat in the small, dark, stinky pump room ALL DAY just babysitting the damn thing so that if it busted open again, I could stop it right away. Nothing happened. Though after about 24 combined hours of water RO water, I still didn't have enough to fill the tank and reservoir enough to run the pumps. I turned off the RO unit last night - I wasn't going to deal with that again and I started making water at 7 AM this morning. I'm praying that by midnight or so I should have enough to start the tank up. I now have an oxygen tank that the engineers use for welding acting as an airstone to pump O2 into the tank. Luckily the temp hasn't dropped at all even though the air has been quite chilly. The animals all look ok - even the corals and anemones are open and happy. I did notice a dead anthias fish this morning but they had been dying since before Neil left so something else is killing them.

Well, I have to get back over there and babysit. I will be leaving Barcelona on Friday afternoon for Pisa where I will meet up with family and stay with them for a week. I will then (hopefully) drive up to Hungary with my nonna. She's got a cold right now and is not 100% sure they will make the drive. If they don't I will have to get there via train or something because my flight home to SF is booked out of Budapest.

Friday 10 Sept 2010

Last night there was some celebrating related to Ramadan. Not only is the boss Muslim, but some of the crew are so there were some yummy desserts, lots of beer and wine and karaoke. I didn't realize karaoke was a part of Ramadan celebrations! Actually, I just think karaoke is a big part of life on this boat. Anyway, I got wrangled into singing "I Walk the Line" because I said if they could find Johnny Cash I might actually sing. So Janet kind of made it her mission to find some Cash. I am a terrible singer.

Today was a day off in observance of Ramadan so that was cool. Not that I was off, I had to deal with some stuff in the pump room. Neil has this thing set up to add a chemical to the tank and it consists of a glass tank sitting on top of one of the reserve tanks with a pipe leading to another reserve tank. Anyway, when I opened the door to the pump room this morning I noticed the chem tank was overflowing. I had to drain it and take the pipework off and clean it out. Luckily that seemed to solve the problem. I also seem to have solved the problem of the RO unit blowing the hose off and spraying water all over the place. I replaced the hose and cranked down the water volume going into the hose. I'm still hesitant to let it run unwatched. Luckily, I shouldn't have to use it too much since I can pump seawater directly into the tank now instead of making synthetic seawater using the RO water and salt mixture.

After I finished what I had to do I went up to the gym and got the place to myself for my workout today. Then I jumped off the aft deck and went for a brief snorkel/swim in the ocean. Not alot to see other than the bottom of the boat and some halfbeaks.

I am currently reading James Barrie's Peter Pan and it's kind of cool because I went to see Peter Pan on stage in SF a few months ago. The stage show definitely is based on the book and Disney took some liberties in their telling of it. It's always been one of my favorite stories so I'm glad to have a reason to read it. It was included in the 100 free books on my eReader. Speaking of which, I haven't had any other major problems with it - but I also haven't tried downloading any new books.

I'm hoping to go ashore tomorrow. Not sure what the situation is - if and when the tender boats are making shore runs. It looks like there is a great beach and I'd love to wander around the town.

I also forgot to mention that the frozen food shipment I was supposed to get on Thursday or Friday...not here yet. Not my fault!

My new digs

We fixed the tank temperature problem. After a small misunderstanding yesterday, it was confirmed today that the pump that serves the chiller was, in fact, dead, deceased, kaput. I had mentioned to the engineers that the pressure gauge was reading 0 psi but he somehow misunderstood that, mentioned something about it being broken and that was kind of the end of that. Turns out, it wasn't broken, the pump was dying and it was confirmed this morning when the other engineer opened the pipes and found only a small trickle of water coming out.

Let's rewind. We left Antibes at 9 AM and started heading back north to Beaulieu and more sheltered waters. About 10 minutes in, we suddenly switched direction. Apparently, another ship radioed us to alert us that they had found our tender about 5 miles south of Antibes. We went and rescued it then headed to Beaulieu. We dropped anchor at noon, I ate my lunch, took a quick power nap then headed out to the aft deck with all of my possessions and a bag full of fish food. to wait for my ride. As I boarded the tender, Dan tells me it looks as though a pump on the aquarium has failed (see above). I get over there, confirm it is the chiller pump and then beg Sandy to help me replace it. Not only did he help me, he did it all. He was great! He's a big guy and had a hell of a time getting back into the pump room to access it, pull i out, fit the new one and get it all reinstalled. While he did that I busily tended to prepping the fish food for the day and changing all the filtration systems that I usually do each morning. Once the pump was reinstalled, the temperature began to drop quite rapidly - almost too fast. Problem solved!

My next problem is the RO unit that has been spraying water all over the pump room. I changed all of the filter units on it this afternoon to see if there was a clog causing a pressure backup. This didn't help. Immediately after I turned it on, the hose popped off - this time though I has holding it together so it wasn't nearly so bad. I checked some of the lines and I don't see any clogs, water is running through the system so tomorrow I am going to try to replace the connection hose, perhaps it is just stretched a bit and needs to be replaced.

Oh yeah, and one of the UV filter bulbs is out. Neil sure picked the right time to go on vacation.

So, I am now a guest aboard the Golden Odyssey instead of the Shadow. I liked Shadow better. Mostly, I just felt comfortable there - I knew the staff, I felt like I could go wherever I wanted (within reason) and it just seems a little more relaxed. Some other downfalls include, no 110 Watt outlets (but the electrician said he will get me an adapter), no fridge in my room for my peanut butter, people actually use this gym so it's crowded at 5, no TV in my cabin, no dessert! That last one might be a good thing actually. Anyway, this may not last long as they may ship me back to Shadow. We'll see.

Last I heard from the Odyssey captain is that we may all go to Barcelona now instead of Hamburg. I like that idea much better!