If you ever decide to cruise in a sailboat, be prepared to flex until you are tied in a knot. The fun never stops!
As many of you know, we thought we would head south last Monday after a quick check of the keel. We thought wrong. The rock we hit in Maine last summer left a signature in the form of a gouge into the fiberglass matting. There were some dings and scratches that could have been tolerated, but that deep gouge required attention.
It took a whole week to do the work. The temperature was so cool that Larry had difficulty working with the fiberglass and epoxy required for repairs, and the same problem cropped up when he was applying paint to the repaired spots. We were finally on target to leave on Monday (Monday, November 9, 2009).
We got up early and made sure we had our pre-departure tasks done before 10:30, our scheduled splash time. We cleaned out all our trash, because we can’t discard trash while under way in Chesapeake Bay. We hosed down the deck and cleaned the cockpit. We washed the cockpit curtains. We were ready when the lift arrived. The lift operator had to make a few adjustments to our radio antenna and pole on the aft deck, because the lift for splash was smaller than the lift for haul, but very soon the boat was back in the water. I breathed a sigh of relief and allowed myself to start feeling excited about our winter plans.
Larry and I climbed back into the boat. The lift operator and his helper guided our boat out of the slings, and then they told us we could start the engine. One of the things I have always enjoyed is the sound of the engine starting, because when that sound hits my ear, we will be going somewhere. Larry turned the key and pressed ’start.’ We heard a couple of feeble wheezes. He looked startled, but after fiddling with the gearshift to be sure the engine was in neutral, he pressed the button again. No doubt about it. That engine had a serious flu. Larry went below and reconfigured the battery bank in order to combine the full power of three batteries instead of just one. Sad to say, all we heard was a feeble, limping thump instead of the roar of diesel power.
The boatyard men pushed and pulled us over to a nearby slip where we tied up. Larry had been threatening to buy a new starter battery for a while. I guess that week on land gave the battery a good excuse to retire. That explanation is as good as any. Fortunately the boatyard includes a full-service marine supply store, and they actually had a battery we could use. This one is even more powerful. That should mean that it is not only better than a dead battery; it should also be better than the old battery when it was new. Larry brought it back to the boat, we sat there for half an hour to bring it up to full charge using shore power, and then the engine started. Yay! All looked well. Ha!
One of the casualties of our never-ending departure mode is that I keep having to top off the supplies and food I need for a three-week jaunt without stopping to shop. It took us a whole week to get away from Harborview after we thought, “Tomorrow,”, so I had shopped to replace a week’s worth of groceries right before we went to Tidewater. We were supposed to be there for only a couple of hours. After it turned into a week, I again needed to shop to make up for that week of food we had used. We left Tidewater and cruised over to the fuel dock where we were shocked to discover that the price of fuel had risen to $2.95 per gallon. We gritted our teeth and filled the tank with 80 gallons. You do the math. Then we headed for an anchorage across the street from Safeway.
Because we always expected to simply cruise, not to go shopping, we had deflated the dinghy and strapped it down on deck. We don’t drag it behind us when we know we won’t use it for a while. Therefore we had to unwrap it and inflate it and throw it back into the water before we could shop for groceries. That took a while, so we didn’t leave for the grocery store until 4:30 PM. I had a very complete list, and Larry is a good shopper, so I sent him to gather up some things while I did the picky ones. We hurried back to the boat, had a nice dinner and discussed our plans for the next day. Since we had had such a scare with the battery, we decided to run the engine a while to bring it up to full charge before we went to bed, and that is what we did. We both felt a little gunshy after that unpleasant surprise at the boatyard.
Next morning, I got up a bit before Larry, and I got everything ready to make coffee. Coffee-making requires AC for the grinder and coffeemaker, and that means the inverter. Given our battery scare, I decided not to risk turning on the inverter and using up too much power before we had to start the engine for our trip. When Larry got up, he said, “How are you?” and I said, “Coffeeless.” “Well, I guess I better turn on the engine so we can turn on the inverter,” he said. He turned the key and pushed the button, and all we heard was a click.
This can’t be! This is a brand new battery! We carefully charged it up last night! What is going on!
Larry tried any number of little tricks, but none of them worked. There we were, stopped in our tracks again. After some time for thought, Larry came up with a plan. We were anchored near a marina, less than a quarter of a mile. We would use the dinghy to push the boat to the marina, where we hoped they would let us tie up for a few hours and use their shore power to charge this battery. For the right price, of course!
You would have enjoyed the show. We tied the dinghy to one side of the boat, with any number false starts as we tried to work together despite radically different perceptions of the right way to get this task done. Then Larry climbed into the dinghy and started the outboard. I went into the cockpit and turned the wheel so we could test whether the dinghy could provide enough power to move the boat. It actually worked!
So — the next move was to tie the dock lines and fenders on the other side of the boat and call the marina. I busied myself with lines and fenders, and Larry went back into the boat. I thought he was calling the marina. Then I saw him come back up and sit down beside the starter for the diesel engine. He turned the key, he pushed the button, and miracle of miracles, the engine started.
We both heaved a sigh of relief that we would not need to use the dinghy to move the boat, but neither of us regarded this outcome as a reliable indicator that it was time to head out of town. We called Harborview and arranged to go back so Larry can figure out what really happened and fix the problem.
So here we are. Still in Baltimore. Still not headed south. And I expect that we will be here two or three days. We could be here for a week. It is hard to imagine when we will actually be moving southward. I may even need to shop for groceries again!
Well, at least I have internet, but that is another story. Before we left Harborview for the boatyard, Larry purchased an antenna and software that are supposed to connect to the networking hardware in our laptops and enhance reception of wireless signals. He asked me if I would like to try it, so I did. It didn’t work. We loaded the driver, plugged in the antenna, and nothing. You would have thought I was in a desert. So, we uninstalled the software. I went back to the laptop’s own wireless features, found wireless networks and clicked one to connect. It failed, and I have not been able to connect since. Right now I am using my Dell mini. I hope that using this little guy I can connect to Microsoft support and figure out how to recactivate my network adapters. AAAAAAaaaagggghhhhh!
All I really want is peace and connectivity and the wind in my face as I cruise south. I’m doing just fine, but boy am I flexed!
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