Thursday

We were all up early trying to get something actually happening.  I think we all lost our tempers just a bit with the frustration of things not getting done. This was a good day to attempt to get her out. The seas and winds were relatively calm.  One of the contacts we made was Daniele, a local guy that had an industrial pump who would loan it to us  Eric, J, and I took the pump and hoses out to Mahalo Nui using my dinghy.  After figuring out how to actually work the pump, we emptied Mahalo Nui in about 15 min. 

The onboard batteries were pretty dead but I was able to get the bilge pumps running enough to empty what the big pump couldn't.  Unfortunately, there is a breach somewhere in the hull and while the water isn't rushing into the boat, water keeps coming back in and without enough battery power to keep the bilge pumps running, she eventually fills back up.  Ruben brought 3 charged batteries so I could keep the interior emptied while he, J, Eric, one of his helpers and I attempted to float her using barrels. 

At the end of the day, we just didn't have quite enough floatation to move her much.  We might have made 5 feet of progress of the 50 feet we needed.  We worked well past sunset and finally resigned ourselves to we have to finish tomorrow.