After arriving and filling our water tank at Jerisich Dock in Gig Harbor, we parked at our favorite buoy to enjoy…hopefully…a very calm night…
…because Wednesday night was anything but! We tied to one of the mooring balls in Mayo Cove (Penrose Point State Park). It started out very calm, as you can see by our wine glasses on the bow swim step. The moon rise was spectacular!
The wind picked up a bit and woke us up sometime around midnight. Nick noticed a strange noise so we went on the hunt for the source. He opened the engine compartment door and found the bilge pump running even thought there was no water to be pumped. I went looking for paperwork and online resources and Nick reset the fuse. That turned the pump off but Nick threw a bucket of water in the compartment, which started the pump, and then again it...didn’t turn off. After resetting the fuse again, we went back to bed, planning to tackle the problem later.
Oh, if that were only the end of things! We had done all of that in an increasingly bouncing boat. The wind waves continued to build and Europa got slammed for another few hours. Not sure when it all died down and we got back to sleep. Needless to say, not a good night. This was quite a bit worse from our similar experience recently in East Sound.
The next morning was very nice. This little bird took refuge in the top of the neighboring mooring ball.
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| barely poking his head up |
On our way to Gig Harbor, we saw this boat again – quite distinctive. It took a turn through Jarrell when we were there, and was then at the dock in Gig Harbor.
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| Gizmo |
After a little research, we are trying a better mooring system with two lines. (Another reason I didn’t sleep well in Mayo – imagining the metal ring on the mooring ball acting like a saw on the line during all that bouncing!)
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| Redundancy! |
It’s Friday morning and we are eating our oatmeal after a very calm night…I don’t think I woke up once. Hallelujah!
We’re going to work on cleaning the bilge pump float
sensors, hopefully take a paddle, and head home. Whether this is our last day
on Europa remains to be seen.
We are excited to have Mac over Labor Day weekend (our first overnight!) while his parents go camping.
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