The ALARM! The very Spawn of Satan!
02 August 2014 | Oceanside, CA.
Kimber
Ugh!!! Make it STOP!!!
I thought the "farting boat" was bad?! At least THAT we could make stop! We got back to San Diego, Mission Bay area, picked up Miss Q from the boarding place. I think she was very happy to see us! I was feeling bad, she seemed really stressed out and her little voice was horse. Poor baby, I don't think she got much, if any sleep, while she was in there? Little did we know, we were about to feel her pain?!
We tossed the lines once again and we were planning on a few days at Oceanside, then we were going to blast over to Catalina early in the week and hook up on a mooring before the place filled up for the 4th of July. The leg up to Oceanside was pretty non-eventful. We hardly saw any marine mammal life. I was hoping to see some of the giant Sun Fish that float around here during the Summer. Nope, not one! We pulled into a side tie in front of the Jolly Rodger. It was still pretty warm out, so I washed the boat down while Mike did a little check on some engine stuff. He went to turn the key off and usually there is an alarm that goes off briefly until you switch the key all the way off, but this time, the alarm stayed on, and on, and on.....then it would go off for a little while, then back on, and on, and on.....
The warning alarm ( low oil pressure/no charging/output alarm/high water temperature)
goes off at any and all phantom times of the day and night. There appeared to be an electrical short, somewhere?! Mike tried to chase it down for a couple of days. We finally had to call an Electrician, or five?! There also appears to be a huge shortage on Marine Electricians inSoCal?! Everyone we talked to was two weeks to a month out. That turned into almost three weeks with no results or sleep! Very broken sleep!! I swear, I thought I was going to completely loose it!! It would stop, then it would just all of the sudden go off at all kinds of weird hours. Mike would have to get up and get dressed, open up the boat, climb out to the engine switch, giggle stuff around or leave the idiot lights on to drain the power some and it would muffle the alarm a little, but the damn thing was right over the top of our Stateroom and exactly over our heads where we sleep! We were snapping at each other like two Dingos, fighting over the last scrap of the preverbal "baby" after awhile. I would try and sleep in the main salon some nights, but there was NO escaping that dreaded alarm!!! We had to stay in Oceanside because the one Electrician that we finally had hope for, wouldn't travel any further than Oceanside, but he showed up for about an hour, scratched his head, and left and never heard from him again?! WTH kind of professional is THAT?!!! Then, as mysteriously as it appeared, it stopped! Yaaaaaaay!!!
The 4th of July, came and went. In the late afternoon there was a dressed Dinghy Parade through out the whole Marina area. It was great!! Lots of cool costumes. There were some fireworks over at Camp Pendleton that we watched from the deck of the boat. Q had sequestered herself to her safety bed in the forward Stateroom to wait out the bombing. We missed the whole Catalina drama. I'm glad we skipped it. Mike was looking at the webcam that looks out over Avalon Harbor and the place was mobbed!! Plus, we couldn't afford to have the mystery alarm go off on us and just drain the house batteries down, while out on the mooring ball. That would really suck. So Oceanside, we stayed.
A friend of ours had mentioned that he would love to go out on the boat for a few hours sometime, so now seemed to be as good as time as any. He brought with him, this lovely lady friend. We had tons of snacks, wine, champagne and more snacks! I gave the short safety briefing (I'm a safety girl!) checked everyone out on how to use the head correctly and off went the lines and out of the Harbor we went!
It was simply "schmagical"!! (My word, say it out loud and you might like it?!) there were Sea Lions following us out, we saw a super pod of Common Dolphin that were just launching into the air all around us and then, the majestic Blue Whale sighting!! I caught a couple of shots with my camera for the first sighting. The second sighting was so fleeting that I barely had time to get the words "Blue Whale!!" out when it's small dorsal fin slid under the liquid gold colors of the sunset water, with a thrust of the fluke in a picture perfect moment, it had sounded. At least we saw it and it will forever be in my memory as one of the most beautiful sights I have had the honor to behold. Yep, "schmagical"!!
We were just entering the Harbor, Mike was weaving one of his wonderful yarns to our friends. It was pretty much a perfect day! We tied up, said our goodbye's for now and went to hit the engine switch to off, when........the high pitched squeal from the very nucleus of Hell pierced our ears again. Have you ever just wanted to say the"ef" word over and over again?! We were cursed by the Alarm God's, clearly!! Short of taking a machete to it, I damed the box and speaker with shamwow's!! Ha!! It seemed to subside, sort of and we left the stereo on all night as a noise canceler.
Oceanside was getting expensive, it cost more $$$ here per foot than any where else we had stayed ANYWHERE?! Weird, it's okay there, but nothing to write home about?! So we decided it was time to leave, without any resolution to the phantom alarm from Hell. We hit further down San Diego way, avoiding the Marina right across from $ea World, (because of the damn fireworks every single night!!!) and try some place new! We were told about a fairly new Marina, we had rented a car and went to check it out, along with making a pit stop at the North Sail Loft as well. It appeared that our Jib was losing its stitching. We were wondering what THAT was going to cost, to our shock and surprised... $149.00! Plus the guy threw in about 40 yards of Sunbrella scraps my way, for only $30.00!! Sah-weeeeeeeeet!!! I now have a project, another one anyway. We went home and as I was unrolling my new treasure colors of Sunbrella, Mike was all happy and singing in his high pitched Bugs Bunny voice (anyone remember the Bugs Bunny cartoons where Bugs is in the big Caldron with a fire under it, eating carrots from the soup he was about to be made of, singing and washing his armpits?!! That's what Mike does when he's busy in the Galley!) he even had me in on the tune, until......BOOM-ZAP!!! The micro wave blew up?!! Huh?!! A whole different tune came outta Mike at that point!!