Stratford, Connecticut

Steep, sloppy seas and a cold, wet wind right on the nose. Not the best sailing conditions (gentlemen never sail to windward!). My friend Sylvain has come up to help me get the boat down the Sound - a tremendous help - and we're crashing into it.

Earlier today, while motor-sailing, we appear to have sucked up some dirty diesel. Suddenly the engine died, and a look at the fuel filters showed a dark gray sludge clogging every pore. Oh man, why does this kind of thing always happen in rolling, corkscrewing seas? Still, better than an engine failure just at that point-of-no-return while approaching a dock I guess!

We changed the filters without too much problem. Those of you who have been up to the elbows in a diesel engine will know that they don't work if there's any air in the fuel lines. You also can't just crank away to get the fuel flowing as you might in a car. So when you change the filters you need to pump fresh fuel through the system while bleeding out the air bubbles (typically, in my case, with diesel flowing down your forearms). We had a bit of trouble getting the pump to prime, and I was getting frustrated after nearly 40 minutes trying that we're about to set off half way around the world and I can't even fix a blocked fuel line.

The diesel fumes and rolling conditions also left me a bit seasick. But ultimately we got it sorted with some creative use of the pump normally used for the transmission fluid, and Sylvain and I both pumping away at these silly little priming pumps. But as it burst into life, confidence was restored, and we pushed onwards towards the rapidly darkening horizon.

When we get to Mamaroneck another task will be to pump out and clean the tanks. At least I've changed the filters! This is really how it is: you cross one item off the to-do list and add another at the top. It really never stops!