Well, we finally made it away from being connected to the dock (with all the comforts of electricity, lights, showers and heat)....to venture into the unknown wilderness and high seas adventure of "anchoring out." Unfortunately, our adventure didn't last long. Like college students recycling to home to get food and do laundry, we chose to return to the dock after only one night.
So here's the story one that we're sticking too anyway...
It's change-over time in Poulsbo marina and in live-aboard speak that means "attention-boaters...your-winter- time-luxury living-is-over. It's-time-to-get-out-as-summer-traffic-is-coming-and-we-have-money-to make!" So, it was that we checked over out systems (especially the anchor and anchoring equipment)...said our "Oreee Wores" to our our friends (who were also busy trying to get out...cast off the lines...and away we went. Mind you, we've never anchored this behemoth before so we figured it might present some challenges. We were prepared; however, as we had changed the old anchoring systems on the boat, of small chain and rope lines (called rode) to 3/8 inch galvanized HTchain and our new 60 lb Manson Supreme anchor.
We taxied out of the slip...decided to take a little journey out to get our sea legs visit the big world of a couple of other bays, and then return to anchor some two hundred yard from whence we started. Everything went backwards from there. The journey out was great...water calm, weather warm, all boat systems "go". When we went to set the anchor I found that I had pulled the anchor and chain in too tight when we were testing the anchor hauling device (called the windlass) while we were at the dock, and now it was stuck...frozen solid in place. In effect, we were anchorless. Sandy, who was piloting, was forced to make several "go-arounds" at our chosen anchoring location because we couldn't get the anchor down. She managed to weave her way around, and around, and around (3 times...steering clear of d other boats while I worked at getting the chain loose. Finally Ho-La! Success! I was ready, the anchor was ready, and we were ready...Sandy approached the designated "X marks the spot anchoring position", only to find she had no reverse! In fact the shift lever came clear out in her hand...not a good thing. With quick thinking...we let the anchor go...and it went...down...fast. To our relief the Manson Supreme anchor lived up to it's name and in microseconds we were stuck to our spot unmoving. We turned the engine off and it got quiet...nice...peaceful even. After a few seconds of basking in our success, and breathing a sigh of relief, I set out to diagnose what the hell had happened to the shifting lever. Checking below revealed that the problem was on deck, in the cockpit pedestal (the place where we "drive the boat). Upon inspection I discovered that the shifting lever had come loose from the connecting block in the pedestal. Fortunately, it was just a re-connect job but it left me with lowered self-confidence as thought I had checked and re-checked that part of the system...obviously it had worked itself loose...repair involved tightening an Allen screw....but it did make me wonder how it ever came loose in the first place...we shrugged it off...this was a shakedown cruise an we knew stuff was going to happen.
Next ,we had a series of events occur that drove us back to the dock...It all started when our batteries were getting low and we wanted to test the water maker. We fired up the diesel generator to test it out and run the water maker (which requires the generator to be operating because it's 110 volt power hog!)...anyway, after about 20 minutes of running the generator shut down...which of course caused the water maker to shut down. The issue turned out to be a burned out fuel solenoid (as opposed to a starter solenoid on the generator). Next, we decided we'd just start the main engine and charge the batteries that way. As a storm was coming in tomorrow and we wanted battery power etc. Sandy noticed, however, that we had low oil pressure on Old Blue (our main engine)....then she noticed we had "zero" oil pressure! We shut down immediately, although I knew we had oil pressure because the warning Klaxon hadn't come on...we just had no oil pressure on the gauge. Next came the calamity of calamities...we got the dink down off the davits (to go ashore, get some parts, and do some laundry)...and WA-La the dink motor wouldn't start! Now the winds were picking up while the batteries were going down, and we were getting really tired of "one thing after another...and unable to get to shore on our superdink. Dejectedly, we elected to weigh anchor and take the whole boat back to the dock.
Today, we're still at the dock...storm has stopped (60 knot winds BTW)...and we have repaired the generator (got it running in "manual" pending arrival of a new solenoid from California),..ordered and waiting for new oil pressure sending unit and gauge from NAPA which is due in the morning "special order"...(we had to go with NAPA as it seems the world doesn't seem to make Perkins Diesel oil sending units any more). I also replaced the foot switch on the anchor winch (called the windlass)... and will begin diagnosis and repair of outboard that let us down... As the say... "cruising in just having more exotic places to do boat repair!
So what we learned was...(1) We need to make a mind-shift about leaving and going out on the hook (or leaving and going anywhere for that matter). I'm not sure how to be more prepared because we have double or triple redundancy on all systems...just that we're going to have to lower our expectations and be more mentally prepared for multiple disasters and calamities. Secondly, I learned that we are going to use far more battery juice than anticipated. With two refer's running, computers, lights, and radios we found we could not bank on the solar panels to help (no sun in a storm) nor the wind generator, as, in this situation, there was either too little or too much wind to let it run free and generate power...(it shuts down in winds exceeding 40 knots). I also learned that even having 3 huge house batteries is not enough to manage our extreme power requirements and all equipment must be kept up and running for us to be comfortable.
That said, we're at the dock, recharging ourselves and our batteries. Our plan is to leave tomorrow (Wednesday) morning and head out again...hopefully with a little better luck in the "let's not have so many break down department. "