Still here! Good thing that we really like this place. Nice community, great people (except for some of the visitors - ask Barb), it's just that we'd like to get going. However, in all fairness, from every disaster you learn something. In this case we learned, as a no charge bonus, that we had been charging our batteries totally incorrectly. I had always interpreted the LINK 2000/ Freedom 2000 manuals to read that they could totally distinguish between two battery banks. Turns out they can and cannot. As soon as one of the banks reaches its max Ahrs at charge, the Link switches to float even though the larger battery bank still needs another 100 Ahrs to reach its full charge. The electrical expert that came to look at the boat recommended that we run the boat on the both setting on the battery switch for 15 minutes or so after starting the engine, then switch to the house bank from then on until the batteries are fully charged. Good to know.
But the crisis de jour? Turns out our alternator, or as the Brits refer to the one aboard Nelleke that came with the boat originally, a dynamo, had finally given up the ghost. So most of yesterday was spent getting the old "dynamo" off and believe me she didn't want to go! We tried everything: elbow grease, cussin', beggin', long handles for greater leverage, an impact wrench, and finally a torch to heat it up. The last finally forced her to concede defeat and begrudgingly come out. John at the John Deere marine dealership was the one that finally forced her into submission, plus he is letting us stay alongside at his dock with power and water for the day and night. He also found a replacement alternator in Florida which he is having shipped up here to install tomorrow, so maybe we'll be on our way on Saturday. We'll look for the weather. The new alternator has a lot more umph than the old one so we'll be running our engine a lot less time to recharge the batteries. In fact, I think we'll be running it more to make and heat water than for anything else. So, this was the final straw as far as being able to get at the forward part of the engine. Nelleke has a great Perkins diesel that has done exceptionally well by us since we bought her, but the one install flaw is that the front part of the engine block, which just happens to be where the temperature sender is located as well as little things like the alternator and water pump belts, were flush up against a bulkhead, accessible only with the greatest difficulty. There is now an access panel - long overdue. We made one with a deck hatch that we were able to get from the marine supply store just across the road. Convenient, eh?
Friday, we wait. Specifically we wait for the part to arrive from Florida. We have paid extra to have it overnighted, a wanton extravagance, I know, but we need to get the boat fixed. John has been good about letting us stay on the dock, but even that will come to an end.
Hopefully we will be repaired, paid off to John and on our way tomorrow. We have plotted out a more direct route to Isleboro Island, one that will take us through several island groups and passes and if the weather is good we'll get to see more of Maine.
There seems to be a mackerel run on in the harbour just now. Every night and morning old men and kids come down to the docks with fishing poles, bait and wet buckets and haul in good sized mackerel, much larger than I have seen taken from the shore at home for some long time. Perhaps one evening we'll give it a try. Barb doesn't really like mackerel but as she says, "If it's free - I'll eat it".

This from Barb - I came into town to the library to post the blog and happened on a Friday AM Farmer's Market - yumm - more carrots, corn, squash, cinnamon buns, and molasses cookies - good thing we are doing so much walking...