Mer Sea

We left Grand Harbor Marina on a beautiful day, headed for an anchorage that was recommended in our cruising guide. It was sunny and warm – welcome after some chilly, rainy weather that can get quite depressing on a boat if it goes on for too long! The Tombigbee Waterway is easy to navigate, and there were lots of beautiful great blue herons, kingfishers, and other water birds to entertain us as we made our way down the river/canal.

 

Our chosen anchorage was a place called the “five fingers” – a bit off the waterway, and tucked back in a very well-protected cove. It was stunningly calm and beautiful. We used our fine new generator to give us much-appreciated heat as the sun went down, and cooked a delicious dinner and went to bed. It gets dark very early in these parts at this time of year, around 5:00, and light at about 5:30 or 6:00 AM, so it behooves one to get a jump on the day and travel early.

 

The next morning was again clear and predicted to be warmer (we’re talking in the high 60s to low 70s here, which is delightful!), and I woke up early and turned on the generator to make some coffee and tea and breakfast. I cranked her up and let her warm up, then went to the electrical panel and switched on the battery charger, and the generator died. Really, just died.

 

Roy called from bed “Leslie, did you do that?” and I had to tell him no, I had not turned off the generator. SHIT! I looked up the error code, and it was again something to do with irregular voltage. Well, might as well try again…So I cranked her up, and she caught, and seemed to be running fine. Quick, turn on a couple of outlets, leave off the battery charger (who needs batteries anyway?) and get us some tea and coffee made!!! I was able to accomplish that, and then Roy got up and we decided, heck, why not throw caution to the winds and try to warm up? Our heaters are what are called “reverse-cycle” units, which I don’t really understand, except that the same unit is both heat and air conditioning, and uses some kind of a compressor that really draws a lot of juice, especially upon startup. We turned everything else off, and hit the switch. After all our lights dimmed and an unusual buzzy sound came from the compressor, we quickly turned off the heat before we ruined the unit. Seemed like it wasn’t getting enough juice. We tried the same thing with the other unit, with the same results. Instead of ruining our heater/air conditioners, we decided to just be cold. It seemed that we could run a few things, but just not really tax the generator.

 

We got showered and changed, and left the anchorage with heavy hearts. We’d spent such a long time battling with the other generator, and had finally gotten what we’d been pushing for: a new generator. Now, to have similar problems so soon was more than discouraging. Was it time to get off the boat? We’ve always said that we’ll either run out of money, fun, or health, and then we’ll know it’s time to do what’s next. Well, we’ve finally gotten to a point where we actually feel like we have a pretty good idea of what we’re doing both in terms of mechanical stuff, and piloting and navigating, and now to be robbed of the fun of being able to relax and enjoy it, it’s just darned discouraging.

 

We made our way to a small marina that had come highly recommended by other “Loopers” and found it to be just as friendly and good as advertised. We called our “friends” at Onan, and made arrangements for a mechanic to come to Columbus, MS, where we’d be going next. We hung out at the marina for the weekend, enjoying the camaraderie and the fresh, full, hot breakfast they cooked in the little restaurant on Saturday morning, and headed over to Columbus on Sunday.

 

In the meantime, just to add a little fun to the whole package, our computer went on the fritz. I was able to temporarily fix it so that we could use it for navigation, but it still was definitely not running correctly. When we got to Columbus, I set about backing up every bit of data we’d saved on the baby, making notes about all the settings for our internet connection, email account, website, etc., and then wiped the computer clean and reinstalled everything. What a chore! It turned out to be a 2-day process by the time I was able to get a fast enough internet connection so that I could download all the windows updates, etc. So we used the computer for a day, and then it crashed again! Same problems.

 

Okay, now we had a generator guy coming on Tuesday morning, why not add a computer guy too? The marina owner was able to give us the name of someone who came out on Tuesday morning as well, and we’re going to have to buy a new computer. The screen on this one is shot. Oh well, it’s only money, right? Now the Onan guy is waiting to hear back from the factory about what he should do…he found burned brushes, the exact same problem that plagued us with the other generator. Roy got the guy at the factory to admit that on this new generator, the only thing they’ve changed is the electronics, but the power generating equipment is the same. That’s the part that was always breaking down on the other one, and they have obviously not repaired the problem. Stay tuned…

 

So, we finally hear back from Onan, and after tossing a bunch of possibilities around, one of which was putting in a completely new generator, this one a 9K, (which plan was nixed by the engineer at American Tug because of TOO MUCH power – what we’ve got now is a 5K), they have proposed hand machining a new rotor “to specs” (so, is this an admission that all the other rotors aren’t machined to specs?) and paying the mechanic (our new best friend, Sidney) time and a half to come out on Saturday to install it and the new set of brushes. The engineer at Onan that Roy spoke with wasn’t able to confidently assure us that this would actually solve the problem. Roy has proposed that we get in writing from them that if this genny fails again that they simply give us $10,000.00, and we’ll go away. We’d use the money to buy a Northern Lights and have it installed. Haven’t heard back on the proposal yet…

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our new computer is great, works like a charm, and we’re really loving it. Mike, the computer guy, didn’t really get how big our old big screen HP was, and thought he’d replaced it with one of equal size, but it’s actually smaller. Since that was one of our stipulations for the new one, Mike went out and bought us, at no extra charge, a 19” stand- alone monitor that we’ll hook up to the new system. It makes for a bit of a crowded chart table, and we’re still trying to sort out the jumble of cords that connect to the various things, but we think it’s going to work, and it certainly is BIG!

 

We’ve also had time while here (actually, nothing but!) to work out the rest of our trip, based on our new “leaving” date of the 20 Nov. That information is posted elsewhere on this site. We’re really hopeful that the repaired generator will make it at least to Punta Gorda, because it’s gotten really cold in these here parts, and we’ll be anchoring out several times enroute, and will definitely want some heat, not to mention hot food, coffee, tea, etc. So cross your fingers and keep an eye on the float plan page to see what we’re up to. I anticipate some areas of no connectivity, and possibly no phone service, either, but I’ll post when I can!