E- Water and fuel don't mix

65 GALLONS OF DIESEL

These blog posts are a little of of order/date....but I had my hands full at the time.  Bryan and I filled up the tank completely this Spring and our boat doesn't exactly burn it quickly...perhaps as little as a gallon an hour.

Usually this fuel efficiency is a really good thing, but when you discover water in your diesel, suddenly getting fuel out of the tank is a new priority.  With no logistical back up source of power, having clean fuel is particularly important on our boat.  After making enough noise that the engine wanted cleaner fuel, I decided to oblige on Cortes, before we went any further into the remotes of our province.  I really didn't want to end up in a dangerous situation with no power on this trip, so my only option was to get rid of the fuel.

Luckily, a very friendly tree faller (I guess many a giant cedar across our province might argue with the friendly tag) offered to take my fuel to burn on some of his stumps.  So, armed with only a small, slow pump and may of John's jerry cans, I set to work pumping out 65 gallons of diesel.  It took many hours, but at least the family had a nice place to spend a couple of days and I had a pool to jump in at the end of a messy afternoon.

The low point hit just after I had finished pumping out all the fuel and paying for a whole new tank when a very, very unpleasant smell wafted into the cabin.  Apparently the toilet pump settings were opposite to what we believed and our septic tank had overflowed into the bilge.  Cleaning this out was not fun and made me long for the toxic, but not so smelly diesel I was so used to pumping.

NOT A BAD WAITING PLACE