A Slippery Mistake: 7/19/26

Sitting comfortably at anchor in Sydney, the whole crew woke up to slamming noises coming from all around the boat. Huddled together in our pajamas and underwear, we tried to brainstorm the cause of the noise. After wandering around the deck in the rain and scouring the inside of the boat, and even preparing to go swimming under the boat, we observed one small wave break perfectly into the side of the boat, resulting in the crashing noise. Crisis and swim in sewage-filled waters averted, we set about readying the boat for the next stage of our voyage, which is a trip to St. John's, Newfoundland. The first tasks in doing so were to clean the decks, do an oil change, and cahnge the fuel filters. I set to work on the oil change while Nathan and Helene started on the fuel filters, and Kaia started cleaning the decks. Once Nathan and Helene finished replacing the fuel filters and I screwed on the new oil filter, we fired up the motor. I had asked Nathan to inspect the engine with me to make sure there were no oil or fuel leaks and to tell me to stop the motor if necessary. I had told him to start by taking a look at the oil filter, and luckily he was not looking too closely, as when I cranked over the engine, an O-ring from the old oil filter that I had missed and left on underneath the new filter caused about a liter of oil to spray out, coating Nathan and a good part of the chart table in fresh engine oil. I was quick to shut the engine off, as I had my hand on the kill switch in the case of something occurring, but not fast enough to avoid the few hours of cleanup that then ensued. The good news is that the boat is cleaner than it likely ever would have been otherwise, and that we were not held up so long as to miss the World Cup game, which itself turned out to not be that exciting. After the World Cup game, we all got hot showers, which were our first hot showers since the start of the trip 11 days ago... and finished the day by playing liar's dice.

Kaia describing the story of the human waste she had unintentionally pulled up in the bucket while scrubbing the decks

Nathan at the start of our oil change debacle

Nathan making his way out to clean himself up in the sewage water

The crew prepping themselves for the ensuing cleaning

A cheerful walk back from the laundramat