Friday 10/2/09

We have had a hellish nightmare all late last night/early morning. The winds died down around a quarter to two, so eric decided to give the sails a boost with the engine. He switched from the port fuel tank to starboard tank in order to keep the weight of fuel on the boat balanced, and a few minutes later the engine died. I couldn't help but think how this was reminiscent to the engine going out on the GoldenFleece in the middle of Drake Passage, the sail boat shelley had joined for a voyage to antarctica, except we are in the middle of the the North Pacific in October, a place I am sure couldn't be much worse. At least the winds have been calm for the while, but that could change any time. We wrenched all night on the engine and discovered the problem. Although my mechanical abilities are limited, the very basic law of engines i have learned over the past few years is that most all problems come down to one of three things: air, fuel,  or fire. An obvious concept, but much harder to actually pinpoint and diagnose a problem. We checked the first of 3 fuel filters and it was absolutely packed with crud. We thought, "aha- dirty fuel" and we cleaned out the filter and put it back on. The strange thing was that we took it off about 7 times and each time it had housed a completely new layer of crud. This didn't solve the problem and we painfully listened to the engine choking as we turned it over and over, slowly draining our batteries away. We changed the other fuel filters, one of which separates  any water that finds its way in the fuel, and the other of which is a high pressure filter through which fuel passes before entering the engine. Eric thought that there was air in the system, so we bled it by opening various valves and sending compressed fuel through the lines. He was right, air bubbled and hissed out, yet the engine still would not fire. We tried various other tricks-spraying ether in the air intake as we tried starting the engine, same as well with gasoline, neither of which worked. He exhausted his reserve of tricks and ideas, and though quite confounded, kept a cool head. He then had the idea to test the diesel itself so we poured some into a small tin, made a wick, and attempted to burn it on deck. Strangely enough, it wouldn't even hold a spark! The only explanation then had to be that there was water in the fuel. We went back down into the engine room, he switched back over to the port fuel tank, and we proceeded to drain all the bunk fuel we had been trying to force through the system. After an hour we had about five gallons of water drained out! Dutch Harbor not only sold us extremely dirty fuel, but fuel with water in it! (unless it got in after we had filled our tanks-but we checked all caps and lids and they were tight). We drained the system of any air one final time, and using the gasoline in the air intake trick(we were out of ether by this point) we tried starting the engine. Disgruntled and unwillingly, she slowly sputtered and finally roared to life. She ran for about 5 seconds and died. We repeated this several times, and with each try she ran a few seconds more. Finally although by no means smooth and healthy, she was able to hold onto life, and we let her run for a good 20 minutes, trying to run out all the poisoned fuel we had abused her with. It was close to 9 in the morning and we hadn't slept all night so we decided to see if she would fire when she was cold. We shut her down, cleaned up, and fell into our bunks. 

It turns out there is a happy ending to this little saga. She fired right up when we asked her to, and not only that but we dared switching to the center tank(which we weren't sure if it still had water mixed with the fuel). Everything seems to be running okay, and after an hour or so we shut it off and sailed as we had a stiff southwest wind. Again i spent a few hours on deck soaking in the magnificence of this great ocean. This has been a spiritual journey for me as well, and i am doing my best to exercise an open heart and tune in to surrounding wonders that are ordinarily overlooked. It is also an exercise to keep my ego in check as i constantly question whether i am just falling prey to hogwash/hocus pocus or whether its all in my head. But like i say i am firmly sticking to what i feel inside-following the heart and refuting the head, so to speak. Much further i am not really able to explain-and it boils down to the simple fact that i am humbly grateful for each breath i draw. I have still been reading Loren Eisely with great pleasure. I relish each word and purposely limit myself to a chapter a day as to draw out this small enjoyment of mine. Not only is he such a fantastic writer, but his subject matter hits straight home to my heart and to where my thoughts have been dwelling as of late.  I am reading "The Star-Thrower" which is a compilation he put together in his last years of many of his unpublished works, as well as essays and poems that were his own personal favorites. I'd recommend it to anyone who is a lover of nature and a contemplator of the inherent qualities of mankind and the maddening mysteries of the universe. He writes with an unmatched intellectual dexterity and a vulnerable sensitivity. He even taught at University of Kansas at one point. I'm just sad i missed him by half a century-he is definitely someone i would have liked to meet.