We spent a few MORE days
at AYB, albeit not voluntarily. The
weather wasn’t good and then we managed to break something else…namely the Simrad
autopilot. Shit. Actually it was the autopilot pump, a Simrad
RPU300, which suddenly decided to respond only to port turn commands. We’re trying to be flexible and adaptable,
but I didn’t like left-handed holding patterns when I was flying, even less so
in this boat.
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| Redundant Autopilot Pumps...Until One Died |
While we can’t be certain why it failed, one theory is that while
we were bleeding the hydraulics after installing the new steering ram some
small pieces of the old unit’s deteriorating seal fouled the pump’s cylinder and/or
small screening filters. The other
theory is plain old coincidental bad luck.
(This pump had less than a year’s service on it – it was the one we had
installed when we bought the boat to provide some redundancy.) Anyway, the unit is under warranty, so we
switched the valves to use the standby pump, test that thoroughly, removed the
malfunctioning unit, and are had it shipped back to Yacht Tech in Florida
(where it was purchased and installed) so they can process the warranty claim
with Simrad. No telling when the
replacement pump will catch up with us.
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| Chelle's Towing Rig for the LPG Bottle |
Amidst our maintenance challenges we have to celebrate the
small successes, right? Well, one of our
three LPG bottles was empty, and we wanted to get it filled -- reference the
adjacent picture to see how Chelle rigged our collapsible wagon as a trailer
attached to her bike….much easier than walking a mile with a 30 pound gas
bottle!
Since we arrived here we had been wanting to try a local and
nearby restaurant, “Vino” (http://www.vinoitalianbistro.com/),
and on Monday evening (01-Aug) the rain finally stopped long enough so that we
could ride our bikes there and back, enjoying an outstanding dinner in
between. We highly recommend it – good Italian
food and steaks, ditto for their fresh seafood specials, with excellent service,
enjoyable background music, and great acoustics – you could actually have a
normal conversation and hear each other.
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| It's Actually $1.80 When You Purchase Over 200 Gallons! |
On Tuesday, 02-Aug, we were mostly waiting out weather and it
was also the day we removed the bad autopilot pump & shipped it away for
warranty processing. Our main goal this day
was to move Ghost Rider over to the
fuel dock to take on a load of diesel and pump out the black water tank. While we really didn’t need the fuel-up, at
$1.80 a gallon (nickel discount for over 200 gallson) it was too good to pass
up….nothing gets less expensive as
you head north from here. Around 1630
the TRWs finally let up, so we were able to tank up (535 gallons of the stuff
plus the requisite Stanadyne fuel additive) and pump out the black water. After moving the boat back to our slip we
enjoyed a peaceful (and dry!) evening on the boat, including excellent
left-overs from Vino for dinner.
On Wednesday (03-Aug) we will head further north,
destination is Deltaville, Virginia. Since we have to negotiate at least one bridge opening and a lock, we think it will be a 10-hour sortie.
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