Friday the 13th started with a scream from the Admiral: "The cord; the cord!" as Katahdin pulled away from the dock. Yep, with more than 5000 miles under our hull and after casting off hundreds of times, we had somehow gotten distracted after disconnecting the water and forgot to disconnect the shore power cord. I jammed the poor bateau into reverse and, thanks to the pods, sideways too. A helpful dock master ran to the pedestal, pulled the proverbial plug and handed the cord to the Admiral. Thankfully, no harm done.
Sadly, that was not our only Friday the 13th Whoops. Before leaving the dock, the Admiral and I had collaborated on a slow cooker beef stew which, thanks to our power inverter, was quietly burbling away as we traveled north on Lake Champlain (probably soon to be called Lake Trump). When it was time for breakfast, the Admiral put a bagel in the toaster oven and all our alternating current (AC) circuits immediately died. Of course, we thought at first that the circuit breaker for the galley outlets might have blown. Nope. The ground fault circuit interrupter the slower cooker was plugged into? Nope. The circuit breaker for the inverter? Nope. Running back and forth between the salon breaker panel and a panoply of breakers in the engine room, I couldn't find the culprit. Time to call Carolina Coastal Yacht Sales wonderful electrician and electronics guy, Jeff Collier. No answer. Bright idea: Start the generator. Ok. At least we've got power even if the inverter (which converts DC power to AC) wasn't functioning. Jeff called back a short while later and reminded me of the 300 amp fuse that protects the inverter circuit. One more run to the engine room. Yep. Toast. Fortunately, Jeff had left us with an extra and, when we reached the days destination, I easily replaced the blown fuse and we are back in biz. Lessons learned. Don't overload the inverter and, spares are handy. We've ordered two more that will catch up with us in a month and hope to buy one at a marina 12 miles into our travels today.
After solving those problems, the rest of the day treated us pretty well. The highlight was cruising around the southern tip of Valcour Island and up Valcour Straits. On October 11, 1776, one of the first naval battles of the American Revolution took place there. The British were trying to reach the Upper Hudson River valley via Lake Champlain and were intercepted by Benedict Arnold while he was still one of the good guys. The Brits defeated Arnold and his fleet at Valcour Island but their effort to reach the Hudson nonetheless stalled. The rest, of course, is history.
This morning, luck (at least so far) seems to be treating us better. Only a few miles to our south, it is dark, gloomy, and, according to weather radar, raining heavily. We meanwhile are enjoying mostly sun as is the area to our north where we are heading today. We'll take it!
Let me leave you with three images from Burlington that captured my imagination.
Another great post. I am in awe of what you two are doing!