.......that yours truly needs to grow a brain.

Yesterday I broke down and had a mechanic out to help me trace the problem with the wiring for the instruments aboard Nelleke. The boat has two sets of water temperature and oil pressure display meters, one set at the helm in the cockpit and the other at the inside steering station. I had the duplicate set below tied to a switch so I could turn them off when not using the engine while the ones in the cockpit are switched by the ignition key. Well, late last season I replaced the switch panel that had the on-off switch for the inside set and forgot which wires I had used for the meters and what they hooked up to. No matter what I tried I couldn’t find a combination of wires that either hooked up to the hot side or to ground would work. As I said, in desperation I finally called in a mechanic. Together we traced wires backward and forward and finally after about a half an hour he found two wires that had ring connectors crimped onto the ends of them that were carefully duct taped so as to be kept together but not having the contacts touching. “Hey!” says the mechanic, “How ‘bout if we just touch these together and you start the engine to see what happens?” I agreed; we did; and gloriorsky, they were the two wires that we had been looking for. Only then did I remember that the two wires that I took off had ring connectors on them.

Arrrrrrgh! How dumb could I have been?! I guess the problem was not only that I needed to recharge my brain, but also that having been away from the boat for ¾ of a year I have tended to be less in tune with stiff aboard.

Live and learn, I guess.

Now the meters are running properly, but not only that – he also got my warning buzzer working which I had never connected before. Now, like everyone else, when we turn the key to on we get that whine until the engine turns over and builds up the oil pressure. It is a much more satisfying feeling to know that if for some reason the pressure drops or the water temperature goes too high we will get a warning buzz to let us know soon enough to be able to shut the engine down to prevent too much damage.

Just in time for us to take out the three prospective doctors that we are trying to entice into moving to our town. The plan is for us to go out on a two and a half hour cruise and show them what great times that they could be having. I hope that it works. We could certainly use a couple of new GPs.

After making the repairs we went to see an opera in concert at the local arts centre as a reward. The production was of Mozart’s Magic Flute which I had been in many years ago so it was fun to watch some younger performers do their thing. The coloratura soprano, Jessica Chung, was very good indeed, and it was really nice to see an artist who was vocally superb and easy on the eyes at the same time. In addition, the baritone playing Papagano, a young black man from BC, I believe that his name was Jesse Welsh, was really quite excellent. He had the pipes for the part plus an outstanding stage presence. The staging was interesting in a positive sense as they eliminated a lot of to droning choral and recitation bits in favour of a narrator to move the story line along and concentrated on the arias, trios, quartets etc that are the really memorable parts of the opera. There was still a two hour performance that was well worth the time and price of the ticket and it certainly brought back memories.