Almost made it...

We were supposed to be at anchor tonight. We got up this morning and went to Deb's Doctor's appointment. There we got permission to be on our way. $500 worth of provisioning purchased at four different stores on the way back to the boat got stowed. The boat was topped with water. All ground power lines were pulled in and we left one dock to go to another dock, tied up starboard side to so the diver (and good friend) had easy access to the boat. While he was cleaning the bottom and replacing a couple of zincs Grandson Eldest and I emptied the holding tank. Then the 3 of us went over to the Bean for a final round of iced coffee. After that we climbed aboard and, with the help of some friends, I made a complete botch of getting off the dock in a slight port to starboard cross wind. Embarrassing, but nothing got damaged. During the next several minutes we changed our mind three for four times as to where we were going to anchor, with the final decision being to head out into the Neuse river where we could find a little more depth and swing room to drop the hook. Happy with a place, I called for the anchor pin to be pulled and hit the down switch. A second later the winch locked up. After a few minutes of struggling with it on the bouncing deck I made the decision to head back to the dock for troubleshooting and repair.

Once safely tied back on the dock from which we started this morning, I started working on the winch. I must be getting old because it took me about 2 hours to figure out the 5 minute repair needed to fix the thing. Yes we have the operations manual on board. Yes we got it out and read through it. And no, it didn't help at all. Nothing in the manual reflected the problem I was seeing.

Somehow the clutch locking pin got pulled instead of the anchor pin. The pin I thought was going to get pulled is about ¾ inch in diameter, about 6 inches long, and goes through the anchor and anchor roller mount bracket. The one that got pulled is about ¼ inch in diameter and sticks out of the clutch cover itself maybe half an inch. But pull on that thing when the motor is engaged and bang, a solid steel, spring loaded locking pin pops out and jams hard against a lock block. All of the actions recommended by the operations manual to move the clutch proved useless as the assembly was completely jammed. One must remove the lock block itself, located at the 6 o'clock position below the clutch and held in place with two hard to reach bolts, to release the pin. This allows one to use the motor to spin the clutch so the big locking pin is at 12 o'clock where it can be pushed back down into its hole to be held in place by the little locking pin that should never have been pulled in the first place. 

The whole debacle was entirely the captain's (that would be me) fault. I was simply not careful enough to rehearse what we would be doing to deploy the anchor. A simple process, pull the big pin and push the anchor off the deck to be lowered into the water. But all I said was “pull the pin”. The one that caught the eye of the puller was the little one. Easy mistake that could have been avoided if I had been more careful. So I learned two things. The first was actually a re-learning: there is no such thing as being redundant and annoying when it comes to explaining to someone who is new to a system what needs to be done. The second, I now know the 5 minute fix. 

In any case we are back on the dock for tonight. By the time I pulled my head out of my butt and got the thing fixed, the sun was nearly set. Call it a day. The crew is enjoying one more shore side shower. Deb in particular as she has been cleared to remove her brace as long as she is not walking or the boat is in motion. Me? I'm typing this and sipping a glass of my favorite rum while trying not to be too embarrassed by my poor showing for the day. Tomorrow we will give it another try.

Maybe?

Deb is out of the big cast and the stitches have faded away. She has a fancy new brace on the arm and a list of exercises to do to limber up the joints. Normally there is another check-up in three weeks. But when told of our need to be on our way her doctor agreed to just one more check after a week. We are making a cautious assumption that one will go okay so, tentative as they may be, we are making plans and starting preparations to—finally—drop the dock lines and head north. Chart apps have been updated, route planning has begun, final boat projects are getting finished, and each day we look for appropriate weather window.

It has been several years more than we expected since the last time we were underway as long distance cruisers. We have never been underway as long distance trawler dwellers. First Light is a far more complicated machine than was Kintala. Truth to tell, and even being pretty sure I know what happened, two fires in a few weeks have not left me with warm fuzzies. We have owned this thing for a while working hard to get it into acceptable cruising shape. And it isn't like we don't have a clue as to what we are doing. We have crawled all over the engines, generator, water, waste, and electrical systems. We have poked our noses into every nook and cranny we can find, combed through the wiring, replaced a bunch of things, fixed a bunch of things, and modified a few other things. But the boat is not going to feel like “our boat” until we put some miles under the keel.  Having spent as much time as we have on the hard and then at the dock, First Light hardly feels like a boat. She is more a tiny fixer-upper house that shuffles around a little bit in the wind that offers a fantastic view out of her "living room".  It is also the house we were living in while being felled by a couple of events that have left their marks. I have a pace maker in my chest that is keeping me alive. Deb has a plate and screws in her wrist after an ugly fall that could have turned out much worse. Neither was even remotely thought a posiblility when we left St. Louis back in April. Such things tend to have one looking over one's shoulder just to see what is sneaking around waiting to pounce.

The crew of First Light is not the same crew that piloted Kintala out of Oak Harbor Marina all those years ago. We are far more at ease with our own abilities and experience, and far, far more wary of the environment we have chosen to live in and explore. I guess one way to put it is I love and enjoy the cruising life, but don't trust it at all. Expect anything, begrudge nothing, and do the best you can to make it safely to the next protected harbor. In any case ours will be a happy departure even while knowing that rouge waves lurk in an uncertain future. As the sages of any worthy ideology teach, thus it is with any journey, particularly the one we call "life".

Waiting

One of my granddaughters' favorite books to read is Dr. Seuss' Oh the Places You'll Go! One of the parts of it has been rattling around in my head these last two months that we've been stuck here, and I thought you might enjoy it:

"You can get so confused

that you"ll start in to race

down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace

and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,

headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

                                            The Waiting Place

...for people just waiting.

    Waiting for a train to go

    or a bus to come or the rain to go

    or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow

    or waiting around for a Yes or No

    or waiting for their hair to grow.

    Everyone is just waiting.

            Waiting for the fish to bite

            or waiting for wind to fly a kite

            or waiting around for Friday night

            or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake

            or a pot to boil, or a Better Break

            or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants

            or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

                                Everyone is just waiting."

I confess - the last two months have been pretty frustrating with all the waiting to get on with our travels, but when I think how close I came to losing Tim, it's made me realize all the more that I need to live each moment as if it was the last, because it may very well be. Clancy's Marina in Oriental NC will not be The Waiting Place, but the place to squeeze out every bit of life, not waiting around for the time when we can leave to head north, but instead stopping on the dock on the way back from the head to admire the utter stunning beauty of the great blue heron as it lifts off to rest on the piling, scolding me for disrupting its breakfast. The place to meet new friends, to play music with our grandson, to enjoy an iced coffee, to savor the simple joy of having Tim brush my hair because I can't do it myself.

Dr. Seuss goes on to say, "NO! That's not for you! Somehow you'll escape all that waiting and staying." But life isn't a Dr. Seuss book and none of us is promised tomorrow. So if you find yourself in a Waiting Place, it may just be that you can find a way to make it a Living Place instead, a little bit like our Oriental stay.

Again!?

There I was sitting up in the flybridge enjoying the view and a morning cup of coffee while reading about some of the new things discovered by the JWST (James Web Space Telescope). Cool stuff that, enough to keep one's attention. So the first whiff of something getting way too hot didn't really register. The second snootful however, clearly hot rubber smoke mixed with electrical fire stink, set off every emergency warning bell in my brain. Within seconds I was down the ladder and in the salon, startling Deb with the worst words one can hear on a boat, “What's on fire?” But my brain, informing my feet without bothering to inform my head, already knew what was wrong and had them (my feet that is) heading out the side door and onto the dock. Sure enough our brand new shore power cord was smoking, turning black and, even as I moved to throw the dock-side breaker, bursting into flames. It wasn't a big fire. Grandson Eldest, having been rousted out of his berth when the AC went down, was right behind me, fire extinguisher in hand. A quick squirt was all it took to go from “EMERGENCY” mode to “What the hell was that all about?” curiosity. 

Two fires in less than a month? Something is clearly amiss. The first thought was that the “Y” splitter, 50A > dual 30s, was the culprit. That side of the connector to the 50 foot shore power chord was clearly the most heavily damaged and the original source of the way-too-hot. But that particular connector was brand new, one I had replaced after the first fire. I'm not perfect and may not be any good at a lot of things. But I am pretty good around electrical work and putting a connector on the end of a wire is not exactly brain surgery. But discretion is better than arrogance. Something was seriously wonky and I didn't know what is was. But, whatever it was, I was at least in some way clearly responsible for it.

We went out and bought a fancy new Marinco “Y” adapter complete with EEL connectors. No more splicing a new connecter onto an old chord. And though the damage was limited to the last six inches of the brand new (Marinco again) 50' 30 amp shore power cord, it also went in the trash and was replaced with new. (Yep, Marinco.) But I went poking around some more because something in the back of my my mind was telling my brain that I was being stupid and missing something obvious. Prodded by that feeling, we powered up the Air Con side of the AC power panel and brought the units on line one at a time. With just the forward unit running the amp gauge showed 12 amps. With both units on line I was looking at 28 amps, maybe a touch higher. More musing and I felt like was was looking right at the problem and not seeing it. Then...

The something floating around was a vague memory that the amp rating is for intermittent loads, not continuous loads. Thirty amps intermittent would be roughly 20% lower; 24 amps in this case for a continuous load. Both times we have smoked a shore power cable was with the Air Con running full blast for days on end. But it was (is) only a vague memory at best. So I went looking, starting the search by pulling up the Marinco Operations manual for the ELL shore power cords: ZX449 MAR_TL_032_0112. I read through it several times and didn't see a word about the 30 amp rating being for intermittent loads only. Not even under the “overheating” troubleshooting guide does it suggest that the cord is not rated for 30 amps continuously. Other Marinco literature also suggests that overheating is almost always a corrosion problem, not a word about amp draw over a long period of time. In addition a West Marine DYI shore power post also suggests that almost all cord failures are due to corrosion, not pulling too many amps. So running a 30 amp system at or near 30 amps continuously, at least for all of the official documentation that we could find, should not pose a problem.

And yet, now that I am deep in the rabbit hole of this whole ordeal, I am sure I remember picking up somewhere along the years that the amp carry ratings are always intermittent. After several hours of both Deb and I swimming through the murky waters of the internet we did find a post on the Sailboat Owners dot com forum that talks about the difference between continuous and intermittent.  (We also found and interesting read with USCG Safety Circular 81. It says nothing about continuous vs intermittent ratings, but it is still a good read.)

So, I'm going with I was stupid (or uninformed, or forgetful, depending on who is reading this). I smoked two cables and nearly burned the marina down by running the shore power at its max intermittent rating rather than at max continuous for long periods of time. For now we will run the salon (aft) AC in the day and the berth (forward) AC at night. The inside of the boat is about 15 degrees warmer both night and day, but I've had enough fires for one summer.

My bad. But being stupid (or uninformed, or forgetful, depending on who is reading this) is not the same as staying stupid (or uninformed, or forgetful, depending on who is reading this). And now you know what (I think) I know.  

Ps: I'm still going to ask if the Marina owner will check the output voltage at the dock. We are at the end of that circuit. Though this is a bit of a reach, low input voltage could cause or exacerbate an overheating problem caused by amp draw. I'm feeling pretty confident that running just one AC at a time will keep us out of trouble. But I would really like to know that I have scraped every side of this rabbit hole, and actually grasp how it is I nearly burned down the marina...twice.

 

Boats, Water, and Curiosity

Why is the bilge pump running?

It was a valid question. Over the months that First Light has been in the water I'm not sure we had ever heard the bilge pump run. But there was the water pouring out of the side of the boat. The pump running nagged at Deb for most of the day, prompting her to open the bilge cover and, sure enough, there was still some water in the forward part of the bilge where the pump is located. (The cover is an easy lift with one hand.) We talked about it for a bit and my thought was that the Air Con units make water that has to go somewhere. Into the bilge was the obvious choice. But the Air has been running for weeks now. Would it take that long to make enough water to trigger the pump? I really had no idea. Then Deb reminded me that she had spilled a bunch of water in the galley the day before, water that had to go somewhere and would be added to that coming from the Air Con. So there was the answer, Air Con water plus spill equals bilge pump running. Except that Deb wasn't completely satisfied that was the complete answer. Me? It works. Don't fix it. There are lots of other things to fix. Water collected in the boat. Water got pumped out of the boat. It's all good. 

But she wanted to look further into the system. Even though I was pretty sure all was well, looking into it further was also okay with me because; a) over the years I have learned that when Deb wants to look into something it is probably something that needs looking into and, b) it would be a “looking into” performed inside the air conditioned boat. I'm all for working inside the boat, especially when both the temperature and dew points outside the boat are hovering around triple digits. 

Since we were cleaning out the bilge anyway, cleaning out the shower sump  (located in the forward part of the engine room aft of the main bilge section) seemed like a good idea. We haven't been using the boat shower much since we have access to unlimited hot water showers just steps away. So finding a bunch of slimy water splashing around in that box was a bit of a surprise at first. But then I noticed that the Air Con drain tubes actually run into that same box. So...where did the water come from that set off the bilge pump? It could not have been just the spill, that happened the day before the pump came on. Also, it seemed like there was a lot of water sloshing around in the shower sump. In fact the water level was over the top of the float switch. Mmm... I pushed the little test lever on the side of the switch and nothing happened. Closing the “Manual Sump” circuit breaker in the main DC panel had the pump clearing the water in just a few seconds. So, good pump, bad switch.

I have no idea how many float switches I have replaced over the years, but add another to the tally. The Inland Waterway Provision Co. located just a quick trot away had one in stock. (I loves me some Inland Waterway Provision Co. Good folks and lots of stuff in stock that boats seem to chew through.) Wiring in the new one was a pretty easy task, and although the air in the engine room is not nearly as conditioned as in that in the rest of the boat, a fan was brought down to facilitate a cooling breeze. Still, insofar as boat projects go, this one was pretty straightforward. But poking around in that system also answered the water in the bilge question.

In First Light, the bilge area and the sump area are separated by a wall about six inches high.. If one of the pumps should fail, or the water coming in be more than one of the pumps can handle, the overflow will have both of the pumps doing their best to keep the boat from flooding. But that takes a good bit of water. With the shower float switch not working, the Air Con water filled that space and, eventually, overflowed into the bilge area enough to trigger that pump. But it took a couple of weeks of constant use to do so. Without Deb's curiosity being aroused who knows how long we would have been putt-putting up the ICW with only a single pump armed to move water off the boat?

It is said that curiosity is fatal for cats. But it is a good thing to have around on a boat.

I loves me some dry bilge :)

Tissue Paper Plans

Ed note: We have been criticized in the past for philosophical and political musings on what was supposed  to be a voyaging blog, but true voyaging is not just about the boat, the travels, the weather, or the practical methodology of cruising. True voyaging is about the human spirit and its desire to explore and to gain knowledge and wisdom through new experiences, the rest of it just accouterments picked up along the way. As a result, you will often find philosophical musings here on The Retirement Project. if it's not your cup of tea, then scroll on by. The next practical post should follow shortly.

Things are a bit slow on First Light. It has been a few days since our latest visit to the OR and everything is going well. A few weeks from now is the post-op doctor's visit where the cast and stitches will be removed and an assessment made as to how things are going. The plate and screws are far stronger than the bone they are supporting, making the condition of that bone and how it reacts to the the surgery the deciding factor in recovery.

With the history of this trip in mind, any plans we make for departing are written on tissue paper that is then left out in the rain. Even each day's plan is more of the make-it-up-as-you-go variety. There is a vague idea that we might be leaving Oriental around the end of July or early in August. That will leave roughly eight weeks to make it to our scheduled haul out north of Annapolis. We will have spent more time in Oriental than traveling this trip. Not exactly what we had in mind when we pulled out of St. Louis back in April.

It is tempting to be discouraged. Life-threatening cardiac arrests, a pace maker install, multiple broken bones, surgery for plates and screws? Not exactly a cruising dream. Between challenging boat projects and  completely unexpected medical issues, this is a trip that will be long remembered as one to forget.

Our life is full of good people who have stepped up to help out any way they can, and we are grateful for every supportive offer and thought. Many have allowed that “everything happens for a reason”. It is a common meme spoken with the very best of intentions, usually after the original misadventure has passed and the aftermath is being brought under control. But it is a meme I don't happen to share. 

I think things just happen. “Reason” is something we read into an event after it happens to try and make sense of it all and to take comfort in the idea that someone (or something) far more capable and knowledgable than us, is in control. But when I look around I see little reason to think that is the case. What happens, happens, often without warning or obvious reason and usually outside of our control. (Not always, but usually.) All we do control is how we choose to react to what has and is happening.

The decisions we make in the present moment will help form the moment that is about to pass. We play a role (small as it might be) in the continuous flow of things happening that stretches back to the beginning of time. A flow that (in my humble opinion) has no ultimate goal or predetermined path. Rather It is a continuously unfolding experiment which just happens to include our human experience of being self aware and making decisions. Beyond that, pretty much everything is a mystery.

Every decision we make is done so with a scant amount of current information, usually near zero understanding of history, with no idea (or often thought) of unintended consequences, and with little clue as to what will happen next in the physical world and cosmos. The dinosaurs went about their business for 250,000,000 years then were destroyed by a big rock that fell from the sky. Tornados, lighting strikes, floods, hurricanes, wild fires, wars, the rise and fall of empires—we have about the same control over such events as did the dinosaurs over a wayward asteroid.  

This river-like flow of events (to use a common metaphor) is very “messy” in human terms. It is full of cross currents, back flows, eddies, rapids, rouge waves, and storms. The best we can do is simply accept what happens in this moment while making our tiny bit of the cosmic experience as positive as we can for ourselves and those we care about. It is also helpful to keep the upcoming moment in mind so as not to make it worse than need be. When we are making those choices, if possible, it might be helpful if we include the rest of the human family as “those we care about”. We might even throw in the rest of the biosphere that is this little island in the dark, the one that we all ride through the cosmos, as something to care about as well. If everything does “happen for a reason” that reason can only be to give each of us, in this present moment, a chance to live up to, and strive to be, the best excuse for a human being as we can manage.  On First Light, and at this moment, that means being patient, being grateful for the support and aid that has flowed into our lives from all directions, and making plans written on tissue paper that has been left out in the rain.

Keep on keeping on...

Long long ago in a galaxy far far away a saying was popular among the unwashed masses, “Just keep on keeping on.” It was an off handed way of shrugging off the lunacy that surrounded a time of protests, civil actions, and the violent reactions such sentiments often provoked on the part of those in power. But I'm going to pull it out of the mythology of the galaxy and hang it (figuratively speaking) on First Light's transom.

Next week Deb will be going under the knife to have a plate and screw repair performed on her broken wrist. We have come so far since my days of routinely breaking bones that such an operation is considered a pretty routine out-patient procedure. After that comes three weeks of recovery ending with a wrist that will be nearly 100%. The other option was six weeks in a cast to end up with a wrist that would never work right again. It would seem like a pretty easy decision but the plate and screw option includes a few additional risks that come with any cutting—specifically post operative infections and the complications inherent with any general anesthetic. It was still a pretty easy decision, but not a lightly made one. We have lost several family members to infections post trips to the operating room. Monday will be a tense day. Still...Keep on keeping on.

We will be another month delayed trying to head north. So be it. The dock owners here at Clancy's Marina have room and are happy to have us. Friends we have made here in Oriental have offered transportation and help over and over again. We get invited to various places for various reasons that are fun, give us a chance to be with new friends, and remind us there are far worse places to be than here. We keep on keeping on with help from some truly extraordinary people.

Eventually we will keep on keeping on while heading north. But for today we managed to get to the boat into the town for fuel and and pump out, then back to our pier. Some small improvements are evident in my boat handling skills though the touchdown on the pump-out dock was not impressive. There was no shouting or wringing of hands, so it wasn't that bad. But I still don't have an intuitive feel for how the boat will respond to engine and rudder inputs. The lack of feedback in the hydraulic steering leaves me a little behind the heading changes. I have yet to figure out exactly where the pivot point is on the hull with the shift levers split. And the view from the fly bridge, though one of my favorite things that come with being on a trawler, still has me guessing just exactly where I am in relation to any nearby dock. From the upper helm it looks like the hull is about to bump while people below tell me it is at least six feet away. But, as there was no shouting or wringing of hands at any point during our 0.6 km journey of two touch downs and a bunch of little boat traffic, I am going to claim making some progress toward being a competent trawler driver. Keep on keeping on.

We never lack for gorgeous sunsets

The grand finale of the fireworks show in Oriental NC 2023

All is well in my world

It was a good day of enjoying the Croakers Festival here in Oriental. I'm not sure what a “Croaker” is, but there was free music from a small local orchestra and choir in the afternoon. The concert featured much Fourth of July type music in a performance far exceeding what might be expected from an amateur group assembled from the residents of a small town. It was nothing short of a delightful surprise. Later that evening a more traditional band called the Southern Hellcats (Who hailed from Canada?) took the stage. They played old style rock n' roll, blues, and some original tunes with practiced professionalism and skill. I do loves me some live music. 

With the sun long set and a near full moon reflecting off the Neuse Deb, Grandson Eldest, and I headed back to the boat reviewing plans for heading north in the next few days. The last of the major projects, wiring in a charging port for our new cooler located on the aft deck, had been finished before heading off to the Festival. My six week sabbatical resulting from flirting with the grim reaper was about up. As much as we love Oriental it is time to get a move on. Pump out, fuel, water, and a night or two spent anchored nearby to run a complete systems check before abandoning the support of the dock and marine oriented Oriental were being discussed as we walked the familiar path along the boardwalk and back to First Light.

Unknown to us and invisible in the dim light, one of those boards had broken free at one end and was warped up several inches above the deck. It caught Deb in mid stride and mid sentence, sending her into a twisting fall where she stumbled off the nearby curb and ended with a heavy, face down, impact on the concrete parking lot. I knew she was hurt even as she went down. She was silent at first, not moving much, but breathing and with no readily apparent injury. But I had heard something snap as she landed, which turned out to be a bone in her right wrist. Very slowly we got her up sitting on the side of the curb, me holding the obviously broken wrist to keep it immobile. I have a lot of experience with broken bones, mostly my own, and know the drill. Blood at the sight convinced me it was a compound fracture, something not to be mishandled by an amateur. Friends, also out on their evening strolls, started to gather. Deb was dazed and in a lot of pain. A second call to 911 in the last five weeks was made. The ambulance seemed to take forever to arrive which was, of course, not true. A splint and some bandages later she was loaded into the back and they departed. Our good friend and Dock Master tossed me the fob to her car with barely a word. Grandson Eldest and I got going, following the ambulance to the same ER that had, so recently, saved my life.

Within minutes of arriving,Deb was settled into a room with an x-ray machine being rolled to her bedside. The images showed that the blood at the break sight was from abrasions, not protruding bones as I had feared. By 0300 in the morning (in my experience blazingly fast by hospital standards) she had been sedated, a closed reduction procedure had been performed on the broken bones, more x-rays were taken, her wrist had been secured in a more elaborate splint, we had reviewed the Follow-Up instructions with the medical staff, and were sent on our way back to the boat. By 0400 she was settled in the V-berth and, with the help of some pain meds, sleeping.

My experience with broken bones had me wondering why not a cast. But nowadays they use a splint first in order to give the swelling a chance to fade. An appointment with an Orthopedic Surgeon will be made as soon as the holiday weekend will allow. At that point we should learn what comes next. Plates and screws? Maybe a pin? Perhaps a simple cast will do after all. But until we know all other plans have been laid aside without bothering with disappointment or other “what-ifs”. Life unfolds as it will. The people here in Oriental have, once again, stepped up and put a dent in my generally  pessimistic view of our human family. This is still a beautiful place in which to recover. After a few hours of sleep Deb got up, settled into her chair on the back deck,  talked to family, reached out to friends, and rested looking out across the placid waters. A couple of hours later the night caught up with her and she went back to the berth. I am sitting in the salon, reviewing the night and coming to terms with another close call. She is not as injured as I had first feared as she fell, and that is the only thing that matters. All is well in my world.