Charles W. Moore

What a Nice Day – Cool, Clear Skies, Moderate Winds & and a early rise

The day dawned early for me – got up, padded to the stove & made 3 day supply of Oat Meal, 6 cups of coffee and shuffled to the computer to “what see” then over to the notebook I am updating.  There is a reason I am early:  I forgot to update a computer at church to the new IP configuration and I wanted to check it out.  I have spent a lot of time this week tending to all those things that go awry in four months absence.  Well, it is more than that but I think I have already blogged about those details.

I was on my way home by 1130 hrs local and got most of the way home before I remembered that I left the notebook with all my brains inside.  Back to the church I went to retrieve the  little yellow pad.  Ok, it was exactly where I left it but I did have to look for that exact place.  All during and before, I was on IRLP node 8783 making chatter and attending nets for the whole morning.  I like the ham radio thing on the worldwide IRLP link of repeaters and reflectors.  For example, late last night around the bewitching hour Steve and I were talking like he was right here but the fact is that he is in Treasure Island, Florida on his repeater with a tweeny, weeny handheld transceiver talking to me here in the NE Indiana local where I have my IRLP node. It is really cool technology and has an interest to me.

By 0930 I was on my way to Angola Assembly of God church to finalize all the stuff I forgot yesterday when I was fatigued from long hours of multi-tasking.  I put all the new IP stuff into the sanctuary computer, checked its functionality, updated the virus scanner database ( that had the last update a year ago) and initiated a scheduled update and scan cycle,  made a full scan of the computer (which was clean thanks heaven).  Late yesterday I implemented bandwidth policies for both the Office and Guest groups on 4 levels of service and today I checked these out just to make sure there were no cracks in the policies: AOK. Then went over to see if the deep virus scan of the teenage group sound booth computer found anything and it had not since yesterday when I eliminated 4 major but notorious trojan and xxxxxx virus that were present at the time I cut the system off from everything.  It was time to add it back into the network with a few new policies.  I think I may be unpopular next Sunday when all of the 52 wireless devices try to connect and find there are a whole new set of blocked, censored and limited devices: I am tired of hearing about access issues.  A lot was done in a short period so maybe a few things need to be tweaked.

I did manage to check into the “Say Good Morning to Radio Net” via the 4049 node.  For some reason, my node has an issue with “Pam” on her node that cuts her off after a few packets.  W9LKI does not seem to have this problem so I check in there on their wide area system.  After the Net the system followed the scripts I wrote and logged back onto reflector 9050 but two of the principal guys said I had an issue so I changed simplex frequencies that has seemed to be more clear: I have a new home frequency.

Keystone Pipe Line political BS

Just posted to my Facebook:

Charles W Moore Personally, I do not think most people know what what the Keystone XL is really all about. The Democrats have staked their reputation on it and the Republicans of course oppose anything the D’s are doing. The USA and Canada are in a position to supply the world with energy in to the next two or three centuries and the K-XL is part of the lynch pin to make our balance of trade with China much, much more equal ( China needs energy to the point of war with anyone who restricts it). I am for the USA and our continued existance in a position of power and strength. A vote against the K XL is against the USA. Please do not let a shortsighted political argument obscure the facts above! Thanks for letting me speak freely and this is still a right we possess.

Energy supplies will rule the world to the point we no longer need to remain on our small blue globe and therefore we need to make well found strategic and political use of our three centuries of supply of Natural Gas and petroleum. K-XL is just the tip of the iceberg.

Church Internet – Do NOT Mess with

Well, the week started ok with Monday, except, the “Check 4WD” light came on almost as soon as I started the truck for a little run into Angola – I have vowed to run it more often now that the camper is off and safely ensconced in the Building. So, late in the day I drove it down to Steuben Auto & Electric.  They read out the code and only one came up but it was a full page check list with 20 items on it: ok, so I made an appointment for this coming Monday for them to look at it.  They have a lot of expensive electronic test equipment.

As Tuesday came around I made a trip into the church and they said they had a little problem with the internet: so, I checked it with Speedtest.net and sure enough it was 0.13Mbps which is really bad.  I told the Pastor to call Frontier and get a tech out to check out what is wrong.  The tech came out on Wednesday and sait it was our wiring and left. This was not what I wanted to hear so I promoted the idea of going to Mediacom since we could get 20Mbps plus two telephone lines for the same or a little less than what we were paying Frontier.  After consultation with the pastor, I called Frontier Tech and told him I wanted to know what made him think it was our brand new wiring into the modem that was causing the problem.  We had a nice chat that resulted in me telling him we were moving to Mediacom and why.  To his credit, he said – Hold The Phone – would I wait and hour or two for Sales to get back to us and I said Yes.  When Sales called she said she could do some price and speed matching so we started listening.  Bottom Line – we will be receving higher speed for less money than we were paying before and cheaper than Mediacom’s best price.  We had a Win – Win going here.

Wednesday late a new tech arrives and opens the Demarc to find a broken wire in our brand new cable on our side of the fence.  Ok, so we quickly pull a new cable into the IT Room and connect up the new modem that we have to have for better service.  He does his Techy Thing and says the the internet works to the Cisco Router.  He leaves but I find we have no internet in the whole building except for the Wireless.  I knew it was a Static IP Addressing issue but was really too tired to get into it today and went home.

Thursday arrived and I went into the church and started to fix things but ran out of time and we had a “Pastors Appreciation Dinner” at Lake James Christian Assembly scheduled for 1800 hrs and it was now 1715 hrs and time to go – NOW!  I raced home grabbed SAM and threw on the suit and tie and off to PAD @ LJCA.  It was a nice get together with the area Pastors that the Gideons put on once a year.

I did not sleep too well and Friday AM arrived too quickly but I was up and at them and ready to go to the church.  I arrived and I changed the IP for the IT Room from static to DHCP and the Internet worked on that machine.  Now I had to figure out what I could do about migrating the static IP’s of all the wired devices.  I called Frontier to find out some minor Modem Information for accessing the device.  To my everlasting surprise, I described our set up and the tech said “why do you have it like that?”  I told him and he said with the new box I no longer needed the Cisco Router since the new box had all that built in.  Bottom line – we pulled the router and the wireless still worked except the Family Life Center.  Bingo – he stayed on the line for two hours while we worked through all the Main Sanctuary machines and I thought I could handle it from there so I told him to call back in two hour.  He did this and by that time almost all the system was running so I grabbed lunch at the Chinese and finished up by about 1500 hrs – a tired but happy dude.  When I arrived home I went Whoops – I forgot one computer in the Sancuary so I will be going back tomorrow to fix that little glitch.  A day well spent I say.

Easter Weekend and Monday, Monday & Tuesday

Monday –I’ll start by saying that I spent all last evening with Audacity, Youtube and massaging various renditions of Hallelujah  I have the start of a collection of good ones but I like Leonard Cohen one the best.  I did tweek his by speeding it up 4% and to me it sounds better.  It is like a dirge otherwise.

A & V came up from Ohio since Tony A’s funeral conflicted with the PL crowd going to his house.  They had a great time running around Satek Winery, Allen, MI Antiques and the Buffalo Farm.  SAM went with and I stayed home to work on off loading the camper and moving a lot of stuff around so it would all fit in the building: it fit! Camper, JKM car, car dolly plus all the normal items all fit and with room to spare. PTL.   Saturday evening was topped off by a meal at the Great Wall Buffet: An Angola upper scale Chinese that has a lot of seafood and Sushi plus a so-so Mongolian Grill.  Sunday was a meal with the brothers and sisters of HJM/KLM clan.  I think we enjoyed A&V’s spiral cut ham from Aldi’s best.

Today I spent a lot of time just putz’ing around but in the afternoon A&L came over and we moved a rank of wood from our driveway to their wood rack out by the patio pad in the back yard.  Afterward I putz’d again but managed to remove the three blades from the lawn tractor and check out replacements (ouch – $14 x 3 ).  I also spent most of the day, intermittently, updating the Toshiba Protege M400’s and posting them on Craigslist for $45.  This is a bargain if I do say so myself.

Now, as the evening wanes, I am listening to ham radio IRLP conversations from all over the USA and ignoring the dull aches of an abused, arthritic body.

Tuesday — With Chondroitin and Ibuprofen I felt great today– Tuesday.  Bought new lawnmower  blades, Yikes, $ 50,  for a couple of pieces of steel.  Then greased the joints, organized a lot of stuff. cleaned out the cockpit of ocean kayak in prep of offering for sale, put tailgate of trunk back on , washed truck with SAM, and now cruising the net while listening to IRLP radio world.  A great day indeed, one of cooling temperatures (in to the upper 20’s t0night) and clear skies of NE Indiana and home of everything good and wholesome.

Moore later.

Deja Vu

Here we are back in Indiana.  Since the last post we have done a lot of exciting things: (1) We drove over to Green Cove Springs, FL for the first time to look at a Whitby 42, (2) the sunset dinner with a HAM radio friend, W3RX, was a real treat, (3)  visiting Steve in Marathon and Roger in Miami was quite interesting, (4) re-visiting a Irwin 43 we were shown in Green Cove Springs, visiting grandson Mitch in GA and (6) making an offer on Con El Viento.  I will write a paragraph on each subject but this will take some time since there are pictures to be added and the new WordPress 3.9 is supposed to handle drag and drop so I first need to get the pictures on this machine. Our winter past time in FL has been to look at boats, more specifically boats that you can live aboard and do a little cruising in FL, Bahamas and The Keys, so our search has been Pearson 424, Whitby 42 and more recently Irwin 43. A Whitby 42 took us to Green Cove Springs which is about 3 hours NE of St. Petersburg.  The Whitby did not suit SAM’s fancy so the broker showed us an Irwin 43.  SAM immediately liked the airy interior and I like the enclosed cockpit.  The Irwin was quite a departure from my ideal boat so I had to think real hard about what we would really be doing with a boat.  Our boat must be a live aboard that has sufficient fuel and water to stay on the hook for at least a week or two severed from dry land, have airconditioning for the impossible nights, a genset to power the aircon and be a solid coastal cruiser with occasional open water passages in fair weather but stron enough to handle the occasional blow on open waters.  In the end, I reluctantly had to agree that a blue water cruiser would not be our next boat and that an Irwin 43 would probably be a better boat for our use.  It is all a matter of compromises.  So, I came to the conclusion that we would need to see Con El Viento again in a few weeks if she was not purchased by some other lucky person.  Here is a link to Irwin 43 specifications .  And here is a picture of the type.

Over the ham radio via IRLP I met a node owner in the are in which we stay in St. Petersburg.  After a few weeks we were invited to his place on the beach for a light dinner and a walk on the Treasure Island Beach.  We had a good time with Steve and his girl friend.  His repeater is kept in top-notch condition and the same applies to the IRLP node.  The visit ended too soon and we counts this as one of our highlights for the trip.  Any ham can look up W3RX and even see his beach cam.  On a similar note, we met Fred & Karen Beck down on Longboat Key while they were down.  We saw several sights and toured some real expensive homes (the home hostess was quite gregarious, entertaining and a genuine nice person.  Quite an eye opener all-in-all and arrived tired but happy.

Marathon, FL (Vaca Key) was a winter destination.  We took the whole rig down there and stayed in Steve B’s front yard.  The car and bikes came in quite handy and we rode them on 7 mile bridge several times plus used the car to get around.  Last year we really missed having the car there.  It is interesting that our camper just fits between two of Steve’s palm trees perfectly.  We are connected to power so we had all the facilities to stay a long time.  However, by tradition we stay only a week so we get invited back but I think SB would tollerate us for a bit longer. We were introduced to a wonderful fresh fish shop.  We returned several times and bought shrimp, tuna and other.  Prices were very good.  It is a definite must return place.  We toured the marinas in preparation to the days when we will take our boat down there for a couple of months in the coldest parts of the winter.  We like the mooring in the city marina for about $350/month so here is the webcam of the moorings.

After leaving Steve B’s Atlantic ocean front beauty we proceeded up to Miami to Larry & Penny Tompson RV Park near the Miami Zoo on SW 184th to meet up with Roger S, who like Steve B was an old D&L workmate, fo his daughter’s 1 year birthday party  – Latino Style. There were about 100+ people at the party, some from Roger’s side and most from Cecilia’s side: Pinata, lots of presents and great food. The wind was up and it was hard to contain the table coverings and decorations.  Coincidentally, the party was the same park where we were staying so we rode the bicycles over early to help with the setup.  After the party (for us at least) we rode back to the campground and had a good rest.  WE STARTED TO PACK for the trip North to  St. Pete. Life is always good in South Miami.

The trip north was interesting.  After reaching Fort Lauderdale, Florida and onto I75 West than we needed to stop for fuel. This proved to be a big deal since they had blocked off major areas of the filling station. Wow – we sweated for a half hour inching forward at an opportunity and finally everything opened up so I made a tight turn and two then just sort of took off with SAM running behind and finally jumped on the running board and we were off again on the cross Florida I75. Whew – this was the closest call we have had to getting stuck with our rig in a very small station area.

The rest of the trip to St. Petersburg was long but uneventful and we arrived back at M’s house, dropped the car then the dolly and moved everything into place at the home QTH of the winter.  This leads us into the final phase of the winter event and this is a BIG DEAL.

As we made preparations for the trip back home to NE Indiana we were conversing with the broker for the Irving 43 and we set up a schedule to stop by Green Cove Springs again.  This time the owner were on board of Con El Viento and wanted to meet with them.  An uneventful trip to GCS brought us to the marina camground so we hooked up, set up the site and headed out to eat a southern style bbq.  Afterwards – quite stuffed – we hit the hay and had a pretty good sleep.  At 0700 we were awakened to a general hubub of activity and sure enough the workers for the building of the steel big boat started. I was sort of in dreamland so managed to remain horizontal until 0800 hrs.  I got up and heated some previously made oatmeal then added walnuts, cranberries and raisins all topped off with Fall Season honey ( the honey has a distinctive rural flavor that is hard to describe but has a pungent, eucalyptus aroma).

By then SAM was awakened and we started the day with promises of visiting our future boat.  I can only say we had a great day of bike riding to pier 11 and lunch at Brickyard Cafe and this was memorable in a positive sense.  The Brisket was wonderful as was the chicken and pork.  It was well worth the $ in a downtown quaint atmosphere of sidewalk cafe style.  We were so stoked with everything as to be overwhelmed and not ready to be treated as Kings and Queens by the owner of our future boat.

We finally met up with then about 1830 hrs – they were at a dock party as we rode by on our bicycles – and they introduced us to all their Canadian friends just back fro a winter in Bahamas.  From there it just degraded into an affair with our future boat.  By the time the evening all our doubts were gone and serenity reigned as we made our way back to the camp site.  We were stoked and that is an understatement.  The Host and Hostess were quite gracious, intelligent and informed.

With the coming of dawn and the work activity we started to get ready to pack out on our trip North.  We were on the road on schedule about 0900 under clear, warm and dry skies.  The trip North to Florence Marina State Park was pretty much uneventful.  These were beautiful stretches of road in rural Florida and Georgia and for the most part were quite good roads.  We arrived at the park on schedule in the afternoon and quite whipped.  We set up camp and after a few FUBAR’s were ready for a wee nap.

We had a great visit and hike with Mitch and SAM made a good meal for all of us.  We separated happy for the events and plans for Sunday treks.  For us it was a Home Run of 16 hours with bad traffic stops and rough I65 roads via Nashville.  For Mitch it was church, study and sometime with friends. (continuing)

Big Storms Today

I awoke this AM to the sound of rain about 0500 but went back to sleep until 0730 and it was still raining.  Yea, since last night I put the downspouts on that leads to the pool.  The radar showed plenty of rain remained but SAM want to go to a few garage sales.  So off we went to Clearwater – the garage sale there was a bust but I did drive down to Clearwater Muni Marina.  The rain started really pouring so we headed for home.  As we were leaving the Tornado Watch turned to Warning in the Clearwater/St Petersburg areas.  A waterspout was seen offshore and was heading for Kenneth City which is pretty close to M’s house where we were staying.  Then a Severe Thunderstorm Warning was announced directly in our path: boy did it rain.  It rained so hard we could not see the road so we just slowed down and put on the emergency blinkers.  By the time we got home most of the rain was gone and so were all the warnings.  The pool was full to overflowing so I removed the fill pipes and we had lunch.

In the afternoon, I swept the pool and then back washed the filter and added some of the diacretaceous earth.  By the time the pump shutoff for the afternoon the water was noticeably brighter and blue:  A good end to the afternoon so to reward myself, I bought two new bicycle tires from Niagara Cycle to replace the cheap original Chinese OEM’s.  Hopefully they last and reject all the goat’s head burr’s 🙂

Now it is getting late and I have to floss and rinse so good night all.

My next cabin in the woods!

What a cool idea – a house built with a few pallets, 2×4’s and labor.  Hopefully the link remains active more than a few months.  I would like to scrape a few of the pictures from the link just to entice those reading this missive to go to the link for a look.

Voyage: Phase Three; The New Home – Clearwater

Clearwater Muni Marina

As promised, I was there at 1000 hrs ready to help take Nanita to her new home in Clearwater.  The Pelican poo on the dock was horrendous and the place on our pier head wreaked of the stuff.  On arrival at the boat I found the stuff tracked everywhere.  The Captain mounted a valiant effort to clean up – to my benefit – and soon the richly sweet smell of Pelican poo was a distant memory.  However, it clung to the decks and cabin sole like glue but the stuff was cleaned up by the time we cleared Boca Ciega at the Gulf pass. What a beautiful day it was as we passed St. Petersburg Beach, Treasure Island, St. John’s Pass, Indian Rocks, et.al. on the way to Clearwater Muni.  I spent a good deal of this calm time to right all the bogus pages and settings previously made while other people made attempts to learn the system.  I think it was finally ok and I did it without resorting to factory defaults.  I was a little ticked that someone other than the captain made these changes to fundamental system system settings but all turned out well. The final approach into Nanita’s slip was uneventful and made by the Captain.  Upon arrival we made sure she was resting nicely in her new home and then prepared to  depart Nanita while we waited for the Admiral to arrive to take me back to the mundane life of a landlubber.  It is a sad day for me but with a fun trip and memories to support my continued steps forward. Thanks to all that made this possible.

Voyage: Nanita Phase Two; Mutiny on the Nanita

The rest of the 24 hours was spent on the long trek across Florida Bay dodging crab posts and in relatively shallow water tens of miles away from the site of land. Meanwhile, our crew was becoming worn down by the lack of sleep cause by the absence of duty shifts.  I must admit I tried to get some sleep and think I was a bit better off than the others on-board since I

Almost night

insisted on sleeping after 0000 to 0400 & 1200 to 1600 hrs shifts I assigned myself. Tempers flared but nothing major but the tension was palatable due to excessively loud music being played by one crew member. Enough of that!

Sometime during my 0000 hr shift the wind piped up to 15 kts with gusts to 18 kts and finally a steady 18 kts  60 degrees off the port bow. It was time for sailing: first out came the full main and then jib.  That was the time all Hades hit the Nanita.  With Nanita idling and a forward speed of about 1.5 knots she heeled over to about 35 degrees and spun to the starboard. At this point, I applied lots of rudder but it was not too effective and the boat kept turning to starboard almost to the point of a jibe.  With the sails de-powered but a little more speed the boat started to turn to port and with this speed it passed through a beam wind with corresponding heel but at least we had a little speed and I got stopped turning just as we passed thru dead into the wind and started a back-wind to the sails. I nudged it to starboard slowly, accompanied to flapping sails but ast least we were stabilized and the speed built.  Meanwhile, the Captain was trying to reef the main but it was not cooperating and we called up the off duty crewman to help as Capt went to the mast to use the emergency in-haul to pull in the sail.  The jib was then reefed and the boat was in perfect trim and on went the autopilot. In the moment of adrenalin induced rush there was a lot of yelling but the moment of nighttime terror was over.  The rest of the night was uneventful except the blaring music below as the off duty crewman learned the chart plotter system and made a point.  During this night and about 0500 ( I was on duty until 0600 since the off duty crew did not show up for the shift) I told Captain I wanted off the boat and he said Boca Grande was the first place for me to get off.  It was about this time that we discovered a broken boat that cause our main sail reefing issue. We were heading for Boca Grande now for sure.

I went off duty as the crew shift came on duty and layed down on the salon port settee wedged between the table and the settee.  I had a fitful sleep but felt rested in a couple of hours.  That was about the time the on-duty crew came down and said a new day was dawning and that he was getting off the ship.  We were still heading for Boca Grande as I could see from what remained of the below deck chart plotter page. I went up to Captain to find out what was going on and he asked me if I was getting off too.  I was a bit surprised since I was the one who was supposed to depart.  Captain needed at least one crew to help get the boat home so I said I would stay but went below to finish packing just in case the fluid situation changed yet again.

As I came back up to the cockpit the wind was still about 60 degrees off the port bow but this did not last long!  All of a sudden – in a few seconds – the wind clocked around to dead upon the bow at 35+ knots and the seas started to build and build.  It is hard to really tell how big seas really are but they seemed large and were about 6 – 8 confused and steep.  We were getting slapped around quite a bit but were in no real danger as the jib had been rolled up a few minutes earlier. The main was left partially furled because we did not want to tempt fate messing around a broken rig but since the wind was dead upon the nose all we had to do was tighten the sheets and Vang. The Hunter would rise to the waves and then slam down the other side as the broad bottom hit (sort of like a ski boat crossing rough waters). The time passed slowly but we were making progress into Boca Grande pass and finally were in calmer waters.  By the time we headed for the first marina the water was calm but the wind was still about 15 kts.  As we entered the marina everything was calm and we had no further issues.  The crewman departed and we filled ourselves with fuel and departed the marina.

We attempted to anchor, in a stiff breeze, in a little cove where some other sailboats were anchored with stern end tied to mangroves and anchor off the bow.  We could not seem to get the Delta anchor to grab, probably our fault, and after 4 tries gave up and started up the intercoastal towards Venice.  We had had our excitement for the day so as we passed a nice looking marina (name here) we called and they said they had room at a convenient pier so we reversed course and returned to this great little spot with shore power, restaurant and full amenities.  This was a wise choice as we were in dire need of sleep.  After a nice meal we hit the bunks and were dead to the world until 0530 hrs the next morning.

Being renewed by sleep we charged into the day with a 0630 departure that was uneventful.  We were headed towards Venice and Tampa Bay.  We took turns at the helm and I learned a lot about inter-coastal Florida navigation along the way.  The trip to Tampa bay was uneventful, beautiful and sort of boring when I was not at the helm.  Somewhere in the process of getting to Tampa Bay we knew we were pushing the time of closing of the Gulfport Marina so we made reservations and the dockboy gave us instruction as to how to find our berth.

Last bridge we need to open for Boca Ciega

Crossing Tampa Bay from the Manatee River mouth to the West side of the North shore at St. Petersburg (near the Sunshine Skyway West of the Bridge and at the North end) we entered the channel to Boca Ciega Bay.  The waters were at almost low tide and were dangerously shallow at the green marker 1 but we made it into the channel with only a small incident and the Captain did a fine job of getting around the potential situation.  At this point we knew we would be arriving well after complete darkness and we took our time in these shallow waters cruising about 3 kt or less.  We were very tired as we cleared the last bridge into the bay and started the complex maneuver into the Gulfport Marina in Boca Ciega Bay.

We proceeded very slowly, zigzagging the channel looking for the “range” lights of the marina.  However, once found it was obvious the course to take into Gulfport Marina.  A picture perfect instrument approach arrival was made and soon we were tied to the dock with all lines secure.  Since were so close to the place where I stay in the winter, I had SAM pick me up and I stayed the night at home while the Captain stayed aboard.  With promises to return at 1000 hrs tomorrow and a complicated scheme of lowering the dingy and rowing me across to the gas dock I was soon home asleep and dreamed of big waters and rocking in my bed. Thus ends Phase two of the trip.

Voyage: Nanita Phase One; Electrical Problems

Nanita has wonderful electronics that would make you drool.  Not everything I would want but most of it.  We left St. Petersburg at about 1200 hours on Monday 10 February for the three or four day trip and drove via rental car to the marina in Fort Lauterday Marina. We were to meet our professional Captain named Jeff at the boat for the trip to Marathion Key at which point we were supposed to be proficient at running the boat.

Our first marina at Ft. Lauderdale

Our first mistake was to not start the boat on arrival because when we did start it at 0530 hrs 11 Feb 2014 the red alternator light would not go out no mater what the RPM.  The trip from the marina to the Atlantic took about two hours and required many bridge openings to get there.  We stopped for fuel at the  (marina name lookup) and filled the fuel and water tanks as well as getting some coffee.  After that it was out to the open seas, perhaps 7 miles out, but not far enough to hit the Gulf Stream that would slow us down.  The intent was to get into some eddy that would propel us faster to Marathon Key.  This did not happen and it was pretty much 5.5 knots all the way.  The more we learned about the electronics the worse it got.  Nothing was charging – even with the onboard genset – so we were running on batteries the whole time (24 hours).  I know the Link 2000 system and the Xantrex 2500 system from my boat and nothing made any sense as to why there was no current going into the batteries with either the engine and genset.

We motored the whole way and Capt. Jeff ran the boat the whole way so the crew did not get any experience at the helm – a mistake that later was to cause and issue or two.  We motored all day and all night in endlessly calm, boring waters down to Marathon Key arriving in treacherously shallow waters into Marathon Key Marina and we docked at the gas dock waiting for sun up. Everyone hit the bunks for some sleep and after waking up we all went to breakfast and by prior arrangement Jeff departed with his SO for the Miami Boat Show.  This left us with the problem.

I was pretty sure the Alternator was bad so Capt. Kim hired SALT to check things out, at $100/hr, and Fernando came up with the same verdict – a bad alternator.  After much discussion and deliberation the Captain decided to spring for the replacement alternator which was a Balmar 100 A unit at $800 plus labor.  After installation on day two in MKM things were pronounced AOK so we planned our departure for the next morning just after sun up.

The Captains

Later in the day, I discovered more gremlins in the electronic system because the Captain was messing around the subterranean wires I saw the charging rate go from normal to abnormal rates and voltages .  Dock power was not charging us nor was the genset nor the alternator.  I looked around at length and after much discussion, Captain decided to delay departure because something was wrong that he wanted fixed.  This was the correct decision.  As I was checking around the wires that morning early I discovered a lose main buss wire – bingo! In the morning we called SALT and Fernando came out pronto and took apart the panel that I did not want to tackle without my tools and found a major loose main buss wire.  He tightened it and the generator and genset were charging ok.  Time to go!  Fernando was paid and we were fueled and watered up and blasted out of Marathon Key at 6.5 knots for the Moser Pass, under the bridge back towards the East and the left hand turn into the Florida Bay.  And so ends the electrical problems of this trip and so ends this phase.

Looked at Whitby