The perils of doing the dishes

Paddy is in Australia.

He flew out on the red-eye and had to get up at 4am to check in at the airport.

I took pity on him and offered to pop by the boat this afternoon and do the pile of dishes I knew was sitting there.

I turn on the tap  ‘splutter, splurt, splat’ – no water.

No problem, time to fill the water tanks – I hop off the boat, grab the hose, chuck it in the tank and get on with the job.

Am washing away when suddenly ‘woosh, gush, splash!’- water is bursting in through the pantry and pouring into the boat.

Top tip – water usually belongs on the outside of a boat, not blasting in through the kitchen.

I drop everything, leap off the boat and turn the hose off. Rush back in and mercifully there’s no more water coming in to the boat. The bilge alarm – which goes off when there’s water draining out of the boat – is however going bananas, so we might not be out of the woods yet.

Paddy is in Australia.

I take a deep breath, hands shaking a bit – but can’t lose it now.

I figure there’s no immediate danger as the boat isn’t listing and there’s no more water coming in. The alarm is screeching because it is doing what it is meant to, draining the excess water out to sea, but I can’t honestly say I know everything is actually okay.

Paddy is in Australia.

Frazzled brain remembers he left an Aussie celphone number. I call it. A nice young woman answers. She is most definitely not Paddy.

Must have put the number in wrong. I go through my contacts, call Paddy’s sister, babble a million miles a minute.

She calmly details a number of ways she will try to get hold of Paddy.

Alarm is still screeching. Time to get the cavalry in. I leave Rachel to go on a Paddy hunt while I look for someone to help.

Hands shaking a bit. Can’t find my keys to unlock the pier gate. Another deep breath. No time for this – chill out woman!

It’s getting darker now and there are no obvious lights on any of the boats on our pier. I run down the dock until I see a boat with lights on and bang on the side.

Yes I was doing the damsel in distress thing, but I honestly didn’t know if the boat was okay. I would rather make a bit of a dick of myself than not have done everything possible and have our house sink.

I was reasonably confident this would not be the case because there didn’t seem to be any more water coming in the boat, but I wanted all my bases covered.

At this point I feared we had a split in our water tank. Not life threatening, but a big, messy job to fix – just as we had taken leave and were planning to actually take the boat away on a trip.

The cavalry came in the form of a lovely chap called John, from a launch with the serendipitous name of Friendship. A professional skipper, he was calm and relaxed with me – everything I needed right then.

Deducing no immediate danger, John set about looking for the leak while I tried to get hold of Paddy again.

Turned out I had dyslexiced the number when I put it into the phone. A quick fix up and I manage to get through. At this point Rachel has reached him as well. It was good to know I had a team backing me.

I tell Paddy “there’s no need to panic but…” I hear my own voice and nearly fall over. Me telling someone else not to panic? What topsy-turvy world is this!

Paddy of course is calm and zen and we agree I will call him back once we have found the root of the problem.

Mercifully it was not a split water tank.

It turned out the seal on the screw top that closes the tank had stretched to buggery and the water pressure just popped it off, spewing a bunch of water into the bilge. It will be as simple as going into a shop and buying a new one.

The alarm cheerfully honking away in the background was doing exactly what it was meant to as the water drained out (it’s still piping up on occasion). All is as well as it can be.

John kept to the yachtie code – politely leaving me to lick my wounds in the knowledge that next time he could be the one needing help. I owe that man a beer.

I am overnighting on the boat just in case, but other than the odd honk from the alarm all seems fine.

Yes I probably could have found the source of the leak myself eventually, but I would rather have someone on board who could have helped if the situation was worse than we thought.

Also, I did all this without having a screaming panic attack.

That is no small thing.

I live with the kind of anxiety disorder that, on a bad day, can have me leaping out of my skin if someone beeps their car horn.

Yes, my heart rate got up and I talked really fast, but I made myself understood and got the job done.

I am not curled up in a foetal ball gasping for air.

I haven’t kicked this thing yet – but I am feeling calm and the boat seems to be fine.

This is something to celebrate.