Hoooweeee, sorry for the long, late post, but it has been a ride...
Let me start at the beginning. Getting out of town for a month takes some doing. There’s a flurry of work prep: Home office complete, stored in the dinette cubbies with portable printer, mobile WiFi, extra paper/ink, etc. and best of all, everything works....so far. Then, there’s a flurry of house prep: loads upon loads of laundry, fridge cleanout, putting everything away (not exactly in our skills column) so Carrie and Co can enjoy without tripping over our stuff as they kindly keep the pups. As I wrap up this process, the delightful little woman in Poltergeist warbles in my mind, “This house is CLEAN.”
Off to DC, we fly. Abe picks us up. Abe assisted us through the unaccompanied minor travel phase of Mason’s Episcopal first years and will be helping us through Meade’s upcoming departure. Love Abe. And it’s a good thing because we are in his car for hours...Everyone is headed to Ocean City. We’re not but have to go the same route and pick up groceries along the way. So we’re in some traffic. No big deal, we cool.
We finally arrive at the boat and unload. Robert Long and his new bride Alix come to say hello with a goodie bag. We have a lovely visit sipping their yummy Southsides and then off they go to a dinner. We want to try our new anchor line so decide to go find a spot for an evening swim picnic. We’re just living the Gatsby dream. But here’s where things go off course (badumdum).
Before I can blink, Wm has the boat cranked and is telling Mason to unplug the Shore Power. “Wait!!” I scream. “We have to deal with the f-ing switches!” I go turn circuits off, then the shore breaker, and we’re ready to unplug. Skip ahead where we are untied, bumpers stowed, and William is pulling away from the dock. He engages the bow thrusters and everything goes kaplooey. We are suddenly plowing towards some very expensive sailboats. Mason and I are frantically pushing off pilings. I scream at Meade to stay out of the way, picturing her being slammed between boats. (Side note, She did not appreciate this lack of confidence in her muscles.) All the while, we’re screaming at each other, trying to figure out what’s happening. (I expect to see some footage on Qualified Captain IG of this mayhem). Nothing is responding and all steering is gone. Every time Wm puts it in gear to go forward, the boat pushes backwards, moving aggressively towards other people’s toys. Mase and I scream at Wm to quit putting it in gear, and the boat slows to an uncontrolled drift. We manage to grab the last piling in the marina and quickly tie a stern line to hold us in place. Wm calls Colin, our Hinckley man of Annapolis, and explains what has happened. Colin asks if we can get back to the transient dock. That involves letting go of our precious piling, so that’s a no from me dawg. Thank heavens there is an empty sailboat slip adjacent to this piling so he says we can go there. Mason does some impressive lassoing of pilings, and we get the boat secured. Colin reaches out to a mechanic and says he’ll meet us at the marina at 9 am sharp.
All this time, my mind is racing, asking how did we screw this up. We clearly have not done the switches in right On/off progression and must have blown a fuse. The nagging fishwife inside me tells Wm he needs to spend more bonding time with the manual. We’ve reached a new pinnacle of the trip.
We need to figure out a plan for the night as the boat has no power and the sailboat slip only has 30 amp power (we need 50). All the fun spots in Annapolis are booked so we make the best of what’s available. We’re talking Convention center hotel with nearby Cheesecake Factory. Mason and Meade are fired up.
Dinner is what you’d expect and we get a great night’s sleep in the Arctic Circle of a hotel room.
I wake everybody up early to go find the fuse that we have definitely blown with our bumbling of switches. We are ripping the boat apart trying to find the fuse box when up strolls Superman, aka Randy. Randy is the mechanic and worked on this boat in its previous life as Rock Me. He says this boat was a demo and nothing is where the manual says it should be. Sweet.
Randy gets to diagnosing the problem. As he works, he talks about systems, how they work together, and what we should keep an eye on. I love this man. Even he does not know where the fuse box or the House batteries are so the ransacking continues.
Cut to Wm unscrewing the floorboard in the galley, and ooh la la, we have house batteries. Wm brushes against a connection and sparks fly. Randy says, “Congratulations, you just fixed your own boat.” The connection on the battery is not holding. The post has melted down due to the sparks (!). All I can see in my cavewoman brain is FIRE. Fire = BAD.
Randy starts explaining that we definitely need to replace the 1 battery and you should really replace both if you do 1. You can tell he feels terrible telling us this news. Wm looks at me, sees the Redrum sheen in my eyes, and says “We’ll take 2 if you got 'em, Randy.” Good call, Willy!
Luckily, Colin lives in Easton where our new batteries also reside. Also luckily, Colin slept in a bit so was still home when Randy diagnosed the problem and could collect said batteries. PSA: Running late can work in your favor, people. I applaud your liberal use of the snooze button, Colin, keep up the good work.
While we wait, we work on pulling out the old batteries. These things are 165 lbs and in a hole. Mason and Wm manage to deadlift these suckers out of the hole, to the back of the boat, UP onto the dock, and into a wheelbarrow. There are 3 of them because the previous owner had left a defunct backup battery in the engine room (picture a deeper hole). We are on a mission now, everything must go. We won’t talk about why these weren’t addressed when we did all the other maintenance, grrr.
Colin arrives with the new batteries. Wm and Mase reverse their deadlifts and get these onto the boat and down into the hole. Randy works his magic. We test the new batteries out by moving boat back to transient dock. All systems go.
Wm immediately wants to get underway. Randy looks around at the chaos and suggests putting the boat back together first. Again, I love this man. We profusely thank him. He says it never works out where you break down IN the marina so we should consider ourselves lucky. Stars are still shining on Fine Time.
I’ll skip ahead to a lovely run to Cape May, a dinner at Lucky Bones with yummy mussels for me, and a party on the boat in next slip (Stones, Petty, love it!). NYC tomorrow. Goodnight John Boy, good night Randy…it wasn’t the switches..
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