OMG! Why is there water INSIDE the boat when it belongs OUTSIDE the boat?!

What on earth will they subject me to next?

I guess the fact that we haven't suffered a personal or marine disaster within the last 48 hours was more than the Knotty Cat could handle.

Yesterday, after getting the heads pumped out, I swept, cleaned, dusted, rearranged our belongings (in other words tried to find room for my books, sewing machine, sewing supplies, mini ironing board, and Hans' clothing), filled up our water tanks (not one square inch of my body was free from sweat after that fun endeavor and why I wore my good clothes I'll never know!), took Wilbur for a hot sweaty walk, picked up some more groceries, and finally took a shower at the shower house (wasted effort on my part as a few minutes later after boarding the Knotty Cat to find a disaster, I was once again thoroughly soaked in sweat). And BTW,are you keeping count of how many times I type 'sweat'? Because that's what you do when you live in Florida. You sweat!!!!!!!

My reward for all these good deeds? I came back to the boat to find about 3 inches of water sloshing around on the port side cabin floor, and the bilge pump was snotty about the whole thing and refused to pump. I tossed poor Wilbur into the cockpit where he climbed onto a cushion, shot me accusing looks and sarcastically thanked me for leaving his precious pitty self alone on a sinking boat.

I grabbed the metal rod that's needed to manually pump out the bilge and joined Wilbur in the cockpit. I had a rapt audience in Wilbur, who, with all the excitement of watching me pump like a mad woman and hearing water splash overboard, forgot that he was upset with me.

Then it was time to find out where all this water was coming from. I opened the port side engine room and nearly fainted when I saw water all over the floor and it appeared as though water was coming in through the shaft that connects the propeller to the boat. It was way too much like the time we took on water in Charleston.

Then the water pump kicked on and water started streaming down from a leaking hose over my head. I turned off the water pressure and the hot water tank, prayed that it wasn't the head, and zipped back to the engine room. The flow eventually stopped and the water that had leaked in, settled around the propeller shaft so at least I now knew that we hadn't sprung a leak.

Hans called me on his way home and said he noticed I'd left a message on his voice mail, and what's up? He figured it couldn't be good because I never call him at work so two hours later when he realized I'd left a message he didn't bother to listen to it and just called me. Hmmmm...

Very long story short, we think a pressure valve on the hot water tank failed. We had a 'discussion' about the fact that I'd left power to the tank on for a few hours but it really shouldn't have caused a problem (so there!)

We are now without water and for some reason the manual pump at the galley sink won't work either.

We have no idea how much water actually leaked out (we'll find out when we're finally able to refill) and I really hope the hot water tank didn't run dry since it's a big no no to operate it while it's empty!

Today Hans will try to find parts and as for the snotty bilge pump?

It's fired, and we're interviewing new ones today. Just like Fritz the GPS, if you refuse to carry your weight and want to act like a prima donna, you're going to go on a little one way trip to the dumpster.

Unfortunately Hans is putting in very long days and instead of enjoying his few free hours relaxing, he's once again tending to the Knotty Cat's selfish needs. And of course to make things even more fun, Wilbur has decided to have another bout of diarrhea!

This is life as we know it.