First run for the season

Erin & I set off from Captain’s cove around five on Friday for our first trip of the season. We didn’t have a reliably functioning GPS. I over wrote the chart software last year with some UK road map software, so the GPS screen currently has a car driving across the Georgia Strait and not a lot of detail like islands. As a result, when we got across the strait we completely overshot the inlet for Silva Bay in the dark, which is hard to find at the best of times.
Outside Silva Bay there are reefs everywhere, one of them known as Thrasher Rock. Usually reefs are named after the first boat that sinks on them, so presumably there was a boat aptly named Thrasher at one point. Somehow we managed to weave our way through all that in the dark overcast night. Perhaps the gods of the sea thought it might be funny if a reef in the area ended up being called "Carefree Isle". We tied up by 10:30 on Tugboat Island, one of the islands that form Silva Bay.
One of the engines was not running 100% so in the morning I drained some of the water out that had apparently accumulated over the winter and been collected in the diesel filter glass bowl. I guess in doing this I had allowed some air to get in, which typically will stop your diesel engine dead.
The wind picked up on queue, just as we decided to leave and head for Ruxton Island. Needless to say the engine died at the worst possible moment when we were most likely to get blown onto the rocks. This is the second time in a row that we have almost been blown onto these vary same rocks. Fortunately, we’ve got two engines… Just as we seem to have things under control, and are backing out into the wind away from danger on one engine, the second functioning engine over heat alarm starts making it’s ear piercing screech. Turns out it had decided that this would be a good time to suck some seaweed up its cooling water supply orifice. Fortunately the previous owners had put a hand pump on the diesel lines which Erin hopped down to the engine room and got the first temperamental engine going just enough to get us the hell out of there with the second engine turned off in fear that it would overheat.
We made it to Ruxton, through some narrows, on the one engine with the air in the lines and Erin running down to pump the diesel about 300 times. Good thing I didn’t listen to the guy that told me that I should get rid of those pumps.
Got the air bled out of the Port engine and the seaweed out of the Starboard this morning. Had both running without a problem for about six hours coming back across the strait, so the problem appears to have been solved for now.
Weather was great in the gulf islands yesterday. We had some shitty cold wet whether today coming back. Almost looked like it was trying to snow.