Let the bitching continue...

 

... since that's all I seem to do these days.

Last weekend we motored out into the bay so we could spend the night at anchor. Everything went very well in that I got the boat out of the slip without scaring the bejusus out of our neighbors, our anchor dug in solidly, we enjoyed a peaceful breezy evening, played a few games of Yahtzee, slept like logs, had a huge breakfast including coffee with all the fixin's (a weekend tradition that involves hazelnut creamer, knock off Bailey's, and a lot of whipped cream), and executed a successful re-docking at our slip minus the drama of sucking trailing lines from our pilings into either one of our propellers.

 

For longer than I care to admit, we've used this green hulk as a one of our waypoints when anchoring in the bay. Only recently has it been brought to our attention that it's known for its frequent dragging.

 

Our systems played fair for a change; our solar panels soaked up the sunlight and our wind generator hummed in the breeze. We woke up to find our batteries still fully charged and Hans was then able to make our coffee thanks to our new (and cheap) RV inverter (remember, our marine inverter died awhile back).

So, what went wrong? Well, I hate to admit it, but I bragged on FaceBook about how much fun we'd had. Honest to God, I did. It was kind of like sending out that obnoxious annual Christmas Card letting everyone know our life is better than theirs. That's why I take full responsibility for the fact that when the electrician shows up at our boat tomorrow we will have been without electric for a week (but we did rig up a solution, explanation to follow).

What happened was, once we were back in our slip and fully hooked back up to shore power, I was down below taking a much needed shower when I heard an alarm go off. Of course this happened right when I had my hair completely full of shampoo. "Tell me I can rinse my hair!" I screamed out to Hans while keeping my eyes tightly closed. He told me I could and I did, but needless to say, we've been showering at the bath house ever since.

On a side note; Hans, who is first and foremost a scientist and believes if you can't see it, smell it, or touch it, it doesn't exist, is finally coming over to my side and is beginning to believe that there might just be something to my theory about an 'appliance union' wherein all the inner workings of the Knotty Cat are continually conspiring against us. Because (and this just blows my mind), our battery charger died on us. This was the remaining half of our inverter/charger that I posted about awhile back. When the inverter side died (it supplied us with AC power while at anchor) we were just thankful that the charger was still working.

And then it wasn't.

We (with my wet hair dripping down my back) sat it the cockpit and debated about what to do and decided to roll out our portable solar panels in hope that they could keep up with our daily demand. We didn't count on unseasonably cloudy and rainy weather moving in and the next day found me nervously monitoring our batteries like a mother hen and when they dipped down to 11.9 volts I ended up starting and idling our port engine two times. So we dragged our shore power cord into the boat and luckily we have an adapter and when Hans bought a battery charger on his way home from work we plugged it into our adapter and so far so good. And when I expressed my concern about what we would do if we were at anchor with no sun or wind, Hans reminded me that we have the Honda 2000 and it has an outlet we could plug the charger into.

However, on a positive note, our adapter has three outlets so we added a power strip and voila!! we have TV, a fan, and since it was ugly outside I was able to use my sewing machine all week long.

Our new battery charger fits perfectly under our companion way steps. A temporary fix until we get the boat repaired.

 

But even with all these wonderful solutions, I still don't have hot water. The only way to heat it is by running the engines and we're not going there. I now heat water on the stove for washing dishes and like I said before we have the bath house for showers.

 

Shore power cord on the left, adapter on the right.

Getting full use of the three outlets on the adapter.

And even more use thanks to this power strip. This all looks like something out of 'A Christmas Story' when Ralphie's dad overloaded the living room outlet with the tree lights.

An overview. Yes, that's our TV in the background.

 

Time to wash dishes.

 

And rinse them. I used our garden hose on day one because our water pump was draining the batteries. Now that we have the battery chargers I just rinse them with cold water.

Wilbur supervises from the stern while I repair our dodger.

Hanging up behind Wilbur is the quilt top I worked on all week. He thinks it's for him. It's not.

We originally replaced our inverter charger when we first moved on board in 2010 and I told Hans I feel like we've come full circle. Just when we felt like we had our ducks in a row, we're starting all over again. I'm just hoping and praying that our heads don't buy into the whole appliance union thing because I've spent more time on them than I ever dreamed I would.

 

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