What is that sound?

No boat trip this past weekend. Instead we spent time working on a couple boat projects. What? You thought boating was all fun all the time? Okay, fine, we did make time to go to the Great Grapes Wine & Food Festival but that was after doing our chores and we didn't get to take our boat to the festival.

For a while now we've had an issue with our fresh water. It's been working just fine but there has been a horrible rattling noise whenever we use the water. I was starting to get embarrassed by the noise and decided it was time that we took action.

First stop - the engine room:

Doug is 6 ft tall but he still fits in the engine room.

We are very lucky on the 3760. We push a button and the aft seating area lifts up to provide amazing access to the engine room. While contortionist-like movements are sometimes required, almost everything is right at your fingertips. While Doug hung out in the engine room, I turned the water on and off as he tried to pinpoint the source of the vibration. No luck there.

Second stop - behind the aft shower:

We unscrewed this access panel and did the water-on-water-off dance again. We still didn't find the root of the problem.

Third stop - behind the refrigerator:

We removed all the beer from the fridge and pulled it out of position. While we were grateful for a mild day so the beer didn't get skunked, we still couldn't find the problem.

Last stop - back to the engine room:

That white cylinder in the middle of the picture was the cause of all the noise.

We attempted to install a water filter last year. We found that the filter decreased the water pressure so much that it wasn't worth it. However, thinking we might find a solution the filter was still partially hooked up to the fresh water tank. Doug left the filter housing but completely disconnected it from the water tank. Hurray! No more vibration! We believe the filter was letting air into the water pipes and therefore causing a vibration. We are still hopeful for a working water filter in a future project but will accept the small success we had this weekend.