Pumps and early morning

Not much goes on early mornings around a pleasure boat dock. Unlike docks with commercial operations, where boats leave at all hours of the night, these docks see very little movement until “breakfast” times. This is particularly true for the larger boats where the crews have cleaning duties, then meal prep for the owners then for the crews and finally a casual departure from the docks at more “civilized hours”. After all, one would simply not enjoy ones latte before, oh say, 1000. And the misses may not be awakened at any earlier hour for she has been shopping ashore for two days straight.

Now for scurvy sailing vessels such as Why Knot, formal hours are not observed. There was no shopping ashore yesterday and we have no boat pet with which to contend other than the occasional fiddler crab or some sea bird. It is reasonable to assume (I hate that word) that if any sort of breakfast is served, it will be by one’s own hand and not on the poop deck, for we have none. For some reason, I was done sleeping at 0500 this morning and simply sitting in the main cabin wondering why it was that I was not horizontal at the hour when I heard a pump cycle. That usually is not a good thing as it represents a leaking faucet, an a/c condensation drain or the bilge pump which means we are SINKING. One by one, I am relieved to find that they are not the cause. Humh, why is the mystery pump still cycling and, more importantly where is the pump that keeps making noise. I know this boats systems and have never discovered a pump in the direction from which the noise is coming. Could I have missed one? Then the noise stopped, but for only a minute or two.

Just as I was thinking that the boat troll, Little Prick, is messing with me again, it started. First, the pump came on for a good twenty seconds. Then a few seconds more. Then it changed in pitch and came on again, this time a bit muffled. I start switching off, then on the dc circuit breakers. Nothing! The pump stopped. Just as I was about to start pulling stuff out of the aft cabin, I noticed some lights on a boat across the main pier from us. They were backing out of the slip. The boat is about 100 feet long and then the source of the pump sound made sense. It was their bow and stern thrusters which I could hear through our hull. Who would have expected to see a biggie boat leaving at such an hour? It is not civilized.