I’m fighting off a minor cold. This is the first micro-organism caused illness that has diverted me from normal activity and schedule since leaving Portland for Canada a year ago last July. Cruising is a healthy life.
A friend stopped by for lunch. As she was leaving, she said she smelled something hot. I looked around and assured her that it was just the cabin heater which has been running 24 hours a day for the past few days. She asked if I had a CO detector and I assured her that I did and knew it worked because the Origo alcohol stove sets it off if I cook for a long time. I haven’t been testing and checking it regularly though. She left and I turned in for a nap thinking this cold was really starting to take hold.
I had just drifted off when the CO detector started beeping loudly. I keep it on the shelf above my bunk and inches from my ear so I was AWAKE. I stumbled around, opened up the ports and hatches. The cabin heater has never set off the alarm as it is vented. I made sure the cowl vents were pointed in the right direction and started bumbling around straightening up things in the galley.
Almost the first thing I decided to do was put the little plastic disks into the Origo burners which I had left out after heating up the soup. When I opened up the stove, there was a small flame inside. This has never happened before with the stove but turning the knob to off had not extinguished it. No flame was visible from the outside. Since it was burning very inefficiently, it was probably producing large amounts of CO.
If this had happened at night instead of an afternoon nap, you might well be reading about this in the boating press instead of one of my posts.
Every boat should have a CO detector in each sleeping area. I am going to be a lot more consistent about testing mine and I hope there will not be any more mornings when I wake up and see that I forgot to put the disks in the stove. One of their most important functions is to make sure you open up the stove so you can verify that the fire is out.
I now have a splitting headache.
A friend stopped by for lunch. As she was leaving, she said she smelled something hot. I looked around and assured her that it was just the cabin heater which has been running 24 hours a day for the past few days. She asked if I had a CO detector and I assured her that I did and knew it worked because the Origo alcohol stove sets it off if I cook for a long time. I haven’t been testing and checking it regularly though. She left and I turned in for a nap thinking this cold was really starting to take hold.
I had just drifted off when the CO detector started beeping loudly. I keep it on the shelf above my bunk and inches from my ear so I was AWAKE. I stumbled around, opened up the ports and hatches. The cabin heater has never set off the alarm as it is vented. I made sure the cowl vents were pointed in the right direction and started bumbling around straightening up things in the galley.
Almost the first thing I decided to do was put the little plastic disks into the Origo burners which I had left out after heating up the soup. When I opened up the stove, there was a small flame inside. This has never happened before with the stove but turning the knob to off had not extinguished it. No flame was visible from the outside. Since it was burning very inefficiently, it was probably producing large amounts of CO.
If this had happened at night instead of an afternoon nap, you might well be reading about this in the boating press instead of one of my posts.
Every boat should have a CO detector in each sleeping area. I am going to be a lot more consistent about testing mine and I hope there will not be any more mornings when I wake up and see that I forgot to put the disks in the stove. One of their most important functions is to make sure you open up the stove so you can verify that the fire is out.
I now have a splitting headache.
