Murphy strikes again - Days 208 & 209 - Fernandina Beach, FL

Murphy's Law: Every thing takes longer than you think, everything is harder than it look and if anything can go wrong it will (and with a vengeance and at the worst possible moment). 

Mechanical problems and the Shrimp Festival.

Wednesday at 10:30 AM, while tied to the dock, our peace was shattered by a loud siren that we quickly determined was the engine alarm under the control station.  All attempts to shut it off by rational means met with abject failure.  Shutting down the 12, 120 and 240 volt systems failed to isolate the problem and neither did closing the master switches as the alarm is hard-wired to the batteries.  Note: This alarm is designed to alert the operator to engine overheating, loss of oil pressure and activated bilge pumps. Even when running at full speed you cannot miss the alarm.

Since the engines were not running, the problem had to be related to the bilge pumps, which we determined with the help of my fiend, Tom Tobin, our salesperson at Skipper Buds.  A quick check of the bilge pumps revealed that the high water pump was dead and, perhaps, the cause of the problem.  With the help of marina staff we located a technician who arrived in 30 minutes and quickly found a poorly executed butt connection that had leaked allowing salt water to corrode the wire.  It was quickly repaired. 

Unfortunately, this did not solve the problem.  The alarm was still blaring (and frazzling my nerves).  Another call to Tom and we were connected with Floyd, a tech support person at Sea Ray.  Floyd helped us determine that a black box, called a Systems Monitor, located at the control station on the starboard coaming had gone to failure.  Further, he helped locate the System Monitor breaker in the engine room and explained how to trip the nonintuitive breaker switch.  Alas, the alarm was silenced.  The bad new: A replacement System Monitor costs $1,000 not including installation (another $500 including labor and travel expense [$200]).  Repair is scheduled for Tuesday (May 3).

Oh, did I mention the isolated shower that hit while all of this was going on?  It hit at just the wrong moment when I was not in a position to put the camper canvas windows in?  More Murphy.

Decorated Shrimp Festival Statue at Brett's Restaurant

Thursday evening, Murphy decided to strike again.  The Shrimp Festival started at 6:00 PM with a parade through the historical district on Center Street.  Rain struck just as the parade started (Note: It had not rained for weeks).  We stayed on the boat until the rain let up and then ventured out with Kodi to see the last half hour of the parade.

Note the large puddle under the float

Diana poses with a pirate and his wife

As ususual, Kodi, our unofficial social director, connected us with new people, in this case a women and her husband who had dressed up in period costumes to watch the parade.  A discussion about the pirate's pistols caused his wife to alert us to the cannon and pistol firing that would occur at the parade's end.  We beat a hasty retreat knowing that load noises upset the Furry Kid.  Unfortunately, we were not quick enough and Kodi got a bit traumitized.

We've been out, as of this writing, for 209 days and had experienced rain on no more than 10 days.  Murphy changed that.  Wednesday's rainshower caught me unawares (soaking the cockpit) and Thursday' rain "rained" on Fernandina Beach's parade. 

Note: The rain on Thursday was associated with the massive cold front that moved across the midwest  (Tuesday - Thursday) with numerous tornados, some Force 5 (winds at 200 MPH), that killed almost 300 people.  We were fortunate to be in Fernandina Beach, which was at the southern end of the front.  All we experienced was heavy rain on Thursday night.

Tommorow, I leave for Chicago while Diana stays behind with Kodi and tries to cope with the noise and hundreds of thousands of people visiting the Shrimp Festival.

Written by Les.