Minnie Bay lives up to its name, as it’s teeny tiny, with big rocks. Its definitely not a destination anchorage, but an excellent port in a storm in the N Pacific Ocean…
These rocks were behind us at low tide, it was sort of like a moonscape, except this is all underwater at high tide. (Bill marks the hard bits and their edges on the chart plotter using RADAR at low tide. Many were not on the charts…)
After we were inside the bay, we were using the forward looking sonar to find a good spot to drop the anchor. As we were snooping around a loud alarm went off, and I went below to the salon to look at the gauges at the nav station.. The oil pressure gauge showed 10 PSI, when it should have been 60, the oil pressure light was bright orange, and the loud beep of distress were all indicators of the problem. We needed to shut off the engine immediately. Bill steered toward the center of the little bight and deployed our 99lb Spade anchor as we glided by the drop point, killed the engine, and hoped for a good soft set from the boat’s momentum.
This is a complete departure of our anchor setting protocol. Normally, we map the edges of our desired anchor spot, noting depths, deploy the anchor, and chain in the desired spot, backup to “soft set”, put on the bridle, drop more chain, and put the engine in reverse upping the rpms to set the anchor hard. We did almost none of that in order to get the engine shut down before any damage occurred.
We were relying on the breeze to push Denali Rose back against the anchor and chain, and hopefully the anchor would dig in enough to hold us in place. There wasn’t much maneuvering room, and lots of hard bits around the perimeter. My brain was in “yikes” mode, imagining all kinds of horrible scenarios of how to get out of this bay without an engine, and how to get to the largest nearby community. [Ketchikan @ 58 miles or Craig @ 66 miles- both requiring careful full time navigation.]
Fortunately, Bill is a problem solver, and he doesn’t go into panic mode. He sits down to piece the puzzle together. It was evening, And the engine room was hot. Bill found oil in the bilge but no apparent cause upon quick glance. The engine was too hot to safely explore the source of the oil leak in such close quarters as our engine room. So after shutting down the maintenance bilge pump [to keep the oil contained in the bilge] we decided to have dinner and address the issues in the morning after everything cooled down.
The next day, under investigation, Bill discovered an obscured, unused, redundant oil filler neck and elbow mounted at the top of the oil pan had fallen off. [Later to be discovered under the black oil in the bilge…] The 1 inch mounting hole is above the oil line, but would allow the crankcase pressure to vent. And since our last 30 minutes coming into this anchorage from Dixon Entrance we are rolling in the ocean swell as we traversed over the shallower shelf, it must have helped splash oil out the new hole… into the deep bilge [~3 quarts in the bilge out of 8 in the oil pan...] Otherwise, the bulk of the oil would have remained in the pan with just a loss of oil pressure…
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| The 1” hole exposed in the oil pan… |
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| The fix [from our collection of various rubber plugs…] |
Whew. The engine hadn’t blown-up.
As you already know, Denali Rose is chock a block full of extra fluids, filters, and parts, and he had Big Red up and running within the day. [With an earlier than scheduled oil change to boot.] Whew! Worst case scenarios discarded, and anxiety level back to normal. I couldn’t live this lifestyle without Bill as knowledgeable, calm, and competent as he is.
Just in case you were wondering where the bilge oil went; our oil change transfer pump- in addition to permanent lines plumbed to both the main and generator engines- also has a long hose for sucking oil/fuel from anywhere it can reach- including the bilge. We pumped the oil and water mix in the bilge into empty oil containers for future disposal at a harbor recycling facility. And Denali Rose carries a full complement of “oil diapers” (and other absorbers.) Lay them down and they soak up the oil/fuel, keeping it contained onboard. (Remember Bill killed the maintenance bilge pump the night before as a precaution- despite the fact that the bilge maintenance pump solid state switch will not activate with oil or fuel; only water; another safeguard against inadvertently pumping oily waste overboard. )
If troubles run in threes, we’re done now. First the new battery issue in June, then the generator overheating, and now the engine oil leaking [dump]. I’m glad that’s over with.
Normally, we don’t anchor where the depth gets so skinny at low tide, that’s 6.5 ft under the keel, so in reality, with the depth of the keel, the water depth is about 13 ft. Still a bit shallow, but this is a very protected bay, and no inclement weather is expected.
We had visitors one morning walking the edge of the rocks.
A doe and her fawn walked along the waters edge, they didn’t appear to be fleeing anything, or searching for something to eat. After a bit, they disappeared into the foliage.
Gus likes to keep an eye on things, and make sure all is in its proper place.
As always, we enjoy hearing from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page.
