Tomorrow is Departure Day!

We have all but finished the packing process and the boat is ready for the road.  We have food stowed for the three weeks and as you would guess, I have my three week supply of spam ready for my luncheon delight. 

Last evening, as we were filling the water tank with potable water, we began to hear water running in a location different from the inlet pipe sound.  Janine, who was inside watching that we didn't overflow the tank into our bunk, turned around and was surprised to find water flowing out onto the salon floor.  I shut the hose off and ran into the boat, threw off the bedding, opened the hatch into the storage area under the bed where the water tank is located and found that a crack had developed from the inspection port in center of the top to the forward side of the tank and then down about 3 inches along the front.  Water was freely flowing out of the gaping crack.  So what to do.  We need water so I ran to the computer and googled water tanks and began calling to get someone to overnight me a tank.  I was aware that it was Friday, 4:45 PM, and as you can imagine, no one, not even someone in the Pacific time zone, would send me one before Monday. 

  It appeared that even if I ordered on Monday, it would be late in the week before I could get it installed and we could get under way.  In desperation, I removed the damaged tank and attempted to patch it.  The tank, that was probably made over 40 years ago of some sort of soft plastic and I could find no solvent that would soften it so that I could apply a welded patch.  I tried using resin and fiberglass and it just pealed off.  The crack started at one of the holes on the inspection port so I made a ring (basically a 10 inch flat washer) out of stainless steel.  That supported the back of the port and prevented the mounting bolts from applying high pressure on the small area of plastic.  I then liberally applied a silicone sealer which seemed to stick somewhat.  I let that dry over night, added about 3/4 of a tank of water and we are back on the original plan. 

Our plan is to leave fairly early tomorrow morning and head for the Lancaster, PA area.  We will spend the night in the boat and then pick up my brother-in-law, Bob, on Monday morning.  We will travel to Elk Neck State Park in the very northern end of the Chesapeake and drop the boat in the water.  Bob will then take our truck and trailer back to his house for the duration of our adventure.  He has willingly agreed to pick us up when we end our voyage. 

More to come!