Our flight out of Charlotte last night was delayed a bit and we didn't get to the boat until 1am. I was alarmed to find that both our Asus nav tablet as well as my "boat notebook" containing all my notes from the calls with Mark were not where I expected them to be. When Lance and I left the boat 10 days ago I thought I stuck both in my overnight bag, but when I got to Atlanta a few hours later they weren't there so I assumed I had left them on the boat. Nope. I've looked everywhere. I called Myrtle Beach Airport as well as Delta and neither have them in lost & found. The one other possibility is that I put them in the rarely-used rear pocket of my overnight bag - I'll check that when we get back to MSP. I sure hope that's where they are, otherwise they're likely gone for good. I really don't know where they could have gone between the boat and the ATL baggage claim.
Our other surprise on arrival was that the freshwater pump wasn't working. There was still pressure in the accumulator and the water tanks were still full, but that was all the troubleshooting I did last night. I drifted off to sleep thinking of boatwork, and decided not to take off for Georgetown this morning as originally planned but instead fix the pump, do some other projects, take our time provisioning, and then take advantage of the later tide on Tuesday to make good time down the ICW. That decision was borne out when we woke to booming thunderstorms and pouring rain that lasted until nearly noon. It's been raining off and on ever since. The next few days are supposed to be a little better, though still not great.
I didn't really get a lot done this morning but was more productive after we came back from provisioning, lunch, and the obligatory visit to West Marine. I used my multimeter to troubleshoot the pump and quickly ascertained that there was power to the pump, the ground was good, and the pressure switch was working. Strange that the pump burned out in our absence without actually running, but that's apparently what happened. I remembered seeing a spare water pump somewhere so Dawn searched our boat inventory spreadsheet, which quickly located it in a hideyhole under a drawer in the aft cabin. This made me smile, as Judy told me that on the night Mark passed away he was mumbling something about a boat part in a drawer. Got it, Mark! I tore out the old pump and just hooked the "new" one to the wires without connecting the plumbing; it didn't work. But when I bypassed the pressure switch, it did. So I had one bad pump with a good pressure switch, and one good pump with a bad pressure switch. With a little parts-swapping and wire splicing, I had myself one good freshwater Frankenpump assembly! So we have pressure water again. I may see if anyone around here can rebuild the old pump & sell me a pressure switch, otherwise I'll have to buy a spare from West Marine ($175).
My other rainy day projects consisted of opening a messload of boxes from Amazon, mostly new additions to the ever-growing tool collection; reorganizing said tool collection; playing with my new Dremel; fixing my electric razor; making another futile call to our insurance company; measuring the boom, ascertaining the model (Isomat NB-40), and finding some parts for it; installing another all-USB DC outlet (the 3rd I've replaced, Tayanas came with weird Type-A plug DC outlets that are useless except for running some of the DC fans in the boat); and replacing the water pump circuit breaker, which was stuck on. I took apart the old circuit breaker, an ancient German Stotz-Kontakt 20A. A broken metal tang was jamming it open, there was no fixing it and they're very hard to find, so thank goodness Mark had a couple extras lying around to send to me.
We had a nice dinner of grilled steak & asparagus (the grillmaster got a bit soggy) and then walked up to John Schwab's to visit for a bit. I'm planning to get off the dock around 8:30am tomorrow, weather permitting, as the incoming tide will give us a nice boost down the ICW to the Waccamaw River. I have a nice anchorage picked out at Thoroughfare Creek, which will give us a short Wednesday to Georgetown. It'll be a long haul back on Thursday - whether via the ICW or offshore will depend on the weather.
Our other surprise on arrival was that the freshwater pump wasn't working. There was still pressure in the accumulator and the water tanks were still full, but that was all the troubleshooting I did last night. I drifted off to sleep thinking of boatwork, and decided not to take off for Georgetown this morning as originally planned but instead fix the pump, do some other projects, take our time provisioning, and then take advantage of the later tide on Tuesday to make good time down the ICW. That decision was borne out when we woke to booming thunderstorms and pouring rain that lasted until nearly noon. It's been raining off and on ever since. The next few days are supposed to be a little better, though still not great.
I didn't really get a lot done this morning but was more productive after we came back from provisioning, lunch, and the obligatory visit to West Marine. I used my multimeter to troubleshoot the pump and quickly ascertained that there was power to the pump, the ground was good, and the pressure switch was working. Strange that the pump burned out in our absence without actually running, but that's apparently what happened. I remembered seeing a spare water pump somewhere so Dawn searched our boat inventory spreadsheet, which quickly located it in a hideyhole under a drawer in the aft cabin. This made me smile, as Judy told me that on the night Mark passed away he was mumbling something about a boat part in a drawer. Got it, Mark! I tore out the old pump and just hooked the "new" one to the wires without connecting the plumbing; it didn't work. But when I bypassed the pressure switch, it did. So I had one bad pump with a good pressure switch, and one good pump with a bad pressure switch. With a little parts-swapping and wire splicing, I had myself one good freshwater Frankenpump assembly! So we have pressure water again. I may see if anyone around here can rebuild the old pump & sell me a pressure switch, otherwise I'll have to buy a spare from West Marine ($175).
My other rainy day projects consisted of opening a messload of boxes from Amazon, mostly new additions to the ever-growing tool collection; reorganizing said tool collection; playing with my new Dremel; fixing my electric razor; making another futile call to our insurance company; measuring the boom, ascertaining the model (Isomat NB-40), and finding some parts for it; installing another all-USB DC outlet (the 3rd I've replaced, Tayanas came with weird Type-A plug DC outlets that are useless except for running some of the DC fans in the boat); and replacing the water pump circuit breaker, which was stuck on. I took apart the old circuit breaker, an ancient German Stotz-Kontakt 20A. A broken metal tang was jamming it open, there was no fixing it and they're very hard to find, so thank goodness Mark had a couple extras lying around to send to me.
We had a nice dinner of grilled steak & asparagus (the grillmaster got a bit soggy) and then walked up to John Schwab's to visit for a bit. I'm planning to get off the dock around 8:30am tomorrow, weather permitting, as the incoming tide will give us a nice boost down the ICW to the Waccamaw River. I have a nice anchorage picked out at Thoroughfare Creek, which will give us a short Wednesday to Georgetown. It'll be a long haul back on Thursday - whether via the ICW or offshore will depend on the weather.
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