Getting Ready for the Big Trip

Captain's Log, October 19th:

"It has been challenging radically morphing from land life to sea life. Like we made the decision to get a boat and some deity of the seas snapped it’s fingers and we owned a Pearson 35.


Anyway, I retro to the day we left New Symrna. Now realize I haven’t owned an old cruising boat in 35 years. The difference between an old boat and a new boat is anything that makes new or extraneous noises is a cause for alarm. This boat cost $10,000. If the engine goes out, that is a $10,000 refit. The scale of calamity is magnified. I hate to put 10K in a 10K boat.

(PHOTO LEFT: Capt. Glenn playing his Taylor Acoustic while sailing)

Until now, the trip had been uneventful except for the imagined problems I fabricated the first day out. It has been a while. By the time we got to New Symrna, I was getting too know the boat better, her noises, her personal quirks. Every older boat has them and some new boats. The engine had been performing flawlessly. I was beginning to trust her. Like a new girlfriend that you have been going out with for a while. You believe she is the one and she pours out devotion to you. The next thing you know, you shockingly find out she slept with your friends. This engine cheated on me. I scan the engine gauges as you prudently do on an old boat and I discover the oil pressure gauge over 120 PSI. The engine would explode if
 the pressure actually got that high. Up goes the heart rate again.

As this happens, thick electrical wire smoke pours out of the cabin. Lindsey is below and seems unconcerned. Like Superman flying around the world in reverse to change the planets rotation, I zip down, dismantle the electric panel, anchor the boat, prepare fire extinguishers. All prudent actions but stressful.

The problem resulted from the age of the boat. I had tried to remove a fuse to check from the fuse panel. The holder rotated instead of the cap coming off. The wires in the back wound together, contacted and shorted out. It was the system that included the engine gauges."

(PHOTO RIGHT: 1st Mate Lindsey preparing a meal at sea)