" When Pigs Fly"

Two Days and Holding

“Houston, we have a problem”.

We are starting to feel like NASA, last minute glitches…and delays.  We’ve found a storage spot for just about everything that has to be on the boat before we take off.  The car was transported back to Missouri and we’ve given notice at the marina.  But it looks like the final countdown for Tuesday has been interrupted. 

For the last couple of weeks we have been plagued with low voltage issues.  One of our first clues was the Garmin genius, who now turns himself off when you honk the horn or drop anchor.   Then we started having trouble with lights and the engines wouldn’t start.  The Captain and our trusty mechanic Dale, here at Buzzard Rock have been tinkering and tried a couple of inexpensive fixes but our problems have prevailed.  Yesterday we lost all 12 volt battery power.  Now, when you’re tied up to a dock with full electrical hook ups this might not sound like a big deal, except the heads are 12 volt and don’t flush…that’s a big deal!  And of course, you have to think about being away from a dock, hopefully sometime soon. 

So, Frank charged up all four batteries with his portable charger and we were temporarily back in business.  The purchase of a new marine battery charger seemed to be in order.  But when we got up this morning we were once again completely out of 12 volt power on the house circuits: this with no load on them for the 12 hours since they had been charged.  It seems we have two issues.  The battery charger needs to be replaced and though the batteries are testing  ok, something is bleeding juice off the batteries.

The Captain ordered a battery charger this morning and hopefully it will be here tomorrow.  We’ll get Dale busy tracking down the unauthorized battery use, which could be a trick with all the wires in the bilge.  In the mean time we’re also waiting for the new Garmin radar to be delivered to the marina.  That started last week too when, instead of turning on in the usual way, an error message appeared.  It seems there is some sort of internal problem with the radar that was installed just a few weeks ago.  Garmin readily agreed to replace it so the Captain will change that out and get the old one on its way back to Garmin before we leave the dock.   

We’ve ordered everything on rush so we’re still hopeful that things will come together for our new planned departure of Wednesday or Thursday.  The river is calling to us and though we’ve enjoyed our time at Buzzard Rock, we’re both tired of “preparing”.  With any luck we’ll get the official countdown moving again and soon, very soon, we'll

See you on the water