Last night before going to the berth, I was working on a writing project with our newly installed salon LED lights aglow. We had done all the pre-departure prep work we could. Come morning all that was left to do was close the hatches, power up the helm station, toss the lines, and go. We were feeling pretty good. But then Deb pushed the button to flush the head. The electric macerator pump groaned but didn't flush, accompanied by all the lights in the boat going out. They came right back on but still, something was clearly amiss.
Our first thought was that we had replaced the seals and impeller in a head pump whose motor was going bad. But while mulling over the fact that our morning's departure wasn't very likely (since an operative head is kind of important) the boat's main water pump came on and the lights went dim again. Then the fridge tried to power up with the same result. There was no choice but to power down the DC panel and, this morning, open another work order.
Once upon a time, I was a pretty good electrical tech. But a pacemaker and stray electricity are not particularly compatible. Also, a reasonable guess is that the house battery bank has gone the way of the engine start battery. Hefting those things out of the hole is another task I probably shouldn't attempt if that is, indeed, the case. No matter what the actual cause, it will, as usual, take some time to gather whatever parts are necessary to the repair. It may also be a day or so before a tech will be available. Weekends, when all the pleasure boaters are out performing their stupid boater tricks, the techs are around to help clean up the carnage. They get Mondays off. So we are going to miss yet another perfect weather window.
While poking around looking for some obvious reason the DC system croaked, Deb noticed that the ship's water system strainer needed cleaned. As usual, cleaning it meant leaking a bunch of water so, when she was done, she went aft to clean up where it tends to pool under the dripless seals near the gen-set. While there, she thought she smelled fuel and asked me to check. Sure enough, the pan in the get-set was, once again, filled with soaked fuel diapers. This time, rather than a low pressure leak at the fuel pump inlet, there appeared to be a leak at a plastic plug at the top of the fuel filter housing. I got about a half turn out of that plug and, as soon as the electrical system is squared away, we will run the generator to make sure fuel isn't leaking from somewhere else.
I've lost track of the list of items that have kept us on this dock. On the one hand, it is getting to be a bit of a challenge to just keep rolling with this seemingly endless string of punches. On the other, what choice is there? The boat is our second home. It needs to be in St. Louis. The only ways to get it there are by water or truck. After trucking Kintala to the ocean I swore I'd never make that mistake again. It was expensive and the boat was damaged. Damage that nearly sank the boat and took several hard days of work to repair. But, if we get delayed too much more, there may not be enough time to get off the Great Lakes before winter. First Light is the definition of the proverbial “slow boat to China”. We really need to start logging miles under the keel pretty soon. “Pretty soon” as in last week.
Putting the boat up on the hard for yet another winter is something we really can't afford to do again. It is expensive in its own right. Worse, every time we do, there is the additional costs of getting it back into running order again. It may turn out that leaving the boat in a yard for six months that wouldn't allow it to be hooked to shore power is what trashed all of the relatively new batteries. Maybe this current (no pun intended) problem is something entirely different that simply popped up in the last couple of days. Who knows? What we do know is that we will be enjoying the Delaware City Marina for a couple of more days, at best. We may yet end up with the truck option, but that is not a decision to make in the midst of a mechanical maelstrom.
There is another thought as well. Within the last 12 hours, two friends of ours have taken serious blows far worse than our mechanical glitches. One lost a Son to an act of violence last night. The other, a member of the LBGTQ community and a good friend, (who was also instrumental in me surviving a cardiac arrest about a year ago) received a hate mail threat that was serious enough to be passed along to the police. Another good friend is still coming to terms with having lost his wife and being badly injured himself in a boating accident.
All we are dealing with is a broken boat that is going to cost us some money and a trip delay or, at worst, a cancellation. Yeah, hardly something to get too wound up about. Drink some coffee. Toast the sunrise. Get on with the day.
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