You learn a little something new each year

[Quetzalsailor]

Today was a gorgeous, clear, low wind, 40 degree day in Rock Hall, MD. I went down to check on Quetzal and charge her batteries. I lifted 2" thick ice sheets out of the puddles on the cockpit tarp, dumped the water, unlashed just enough and went below. Q smelt clean, the deep bilge was still too dry to operate the float pump, the forward bilge was not very deep. The batteries had enough charge to run the forward pump and lights. In short, all was well.

A couple years ago, I went down to find 3' of water in the deep bilge, pumped, and re-tarped only to go down the following weekend to find nearly as much water in the bilge. Turned out that my tarping had knocked a deck ventilator catty-wampus and the storm refilled tarp had refilled the boat.

Seems that I got away with it last November; how many years before one has learned enough to do this boating stuff?

Unrelated to my learning curve, a 45 year old marina worker was crushed and killed by an acquaintance's 40' sailboat in Cambridge MD last week. He was transferring the boat from jackstands to a trailer, and the boat fell over. Awful from several viewpoints.