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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

The rocky edges of Seal Cove were there the following morning, August 1, as were the fragrances of pitch from the spruce and pine that grew above the rocks. But the blue sky was gone, replaced by a low cloud that blew from the south, curling over the trees at that end of the cove and dipping down closer to the water, flowing above all like a magic carpet. We put the dinghy over the side and, with our morning coffee in hand, we motored south, toward the seals we knew to expect.

I kept the outboard quiet in hopes of blending in with the exquisite scenery. In minutes, the fog swirled around Robin, wrapping her in its gauze until we no longer could see her at anchor a few hundred yards away.
At the head of the cove, I stopped the outboard and we watched the fog lift and dip and felt a faint breeze that pushed us toward the ledges on the western shore.
The tide was rising, filling in the several mud-bottomed smaller coves that slit the edges of Seal Cove, in the middle of which were two clusters of rocky islands.
On the larger island, there was what could have been a stump. But as we drifted, we realized it was a bald eagle, standing motionless.
We drifted closer and the eagle spread its wings and flew toward the far, eastern shore, dipping toward the dark water and then rising in one powerfull swoop to perch part way up a pine tree.
It was a few quiet minutes later when we noticed another bump on the smaller of the rock islands. We looked through the binoculars and saw what appeared to be a face -- a white face -- just above the rocks.
We drifted closer.


The white face was that of a seal, staring directly at us. We waited for movement, and it came when the seal felt the tide rising around its fat flanks and wriggled a bit.
There were other bumps, in time revealing themselves as two seal pups, apparantly hanging close to Mom.


In time, the tide rose enough to float "Mom" off her rock. We drifted past the two "islands" which were rapidly becoming submerged. As we floated, the seals came up to port, dove, then came up to starboard. They rose at twelve o'clock and then at seven, always 100 feet or more away but clearly not startled to have human visitors.
Robin was back in view and the fog appeared to be lifting, so we returned to her to see what the morning would bring. If we timed it accurately, we could pass through the "boiling" narrows at slack tide around 11 o'clock and be on our way to the next stop, in Booth Bay Harbor.

On Sunday, July 31, Monica and I filled Robin's tanks at a Rockland marina and headed toward Owl's Head Lighthouse, on the point of land reaching out from the southern side of Rockland Harbor..

We had decided to chance going through an inside passage to save a few miles leaving Penobscot Bay and to see some new territory. The passage runs between the mainland south of Rockland and Owl's Head and a string of rocky islands just offshore. The chartplotter made us more confidant than we'd been in the past, and just the day before, Tom Gilmore had negotiated the same passage.
Sunday morning was picture perfect -- temperature in the 70s and a clear, blue sky and bright sun. There was no wind should our engine fail, but we were pretty confident.
I'd taken John to the Manchester, NH, airport on Friday morning in a rental car and met Monica's flight there that evening. We'd spent Saturday provisioning Robin and getting settled in. Now we were aiming to get as far as Monica's two week vacation would allow.


And so we headed down the passage with the foreboding name Muscle Channel. I was glad to have Monica aboard and not all that sad that we were heading home instead of cruising north past Bar Harbor. The stress of the trip to Rockland was still gnawing at me, and although I'd dropped some earlier thoughts about selling Robin, I wanted to complete this voyage before determining the extent of our future together.
We had tentatively chosen to head for Seal Cove this day. Tom had spent a couple of days there and recommended it highly. On an earlier trip to Maine, I'd sailed up the Damariscotta River as far as a small cove without a name on our nautical charts. Seal Cove was a couple of miles upriver from that cove, and the cruising guide said it was also past a narrows where, on the ebb tide, the water "boiled" around a red buoy.
Once we were out on the ocean, around Burnt and Allen Islands, we picked up some wind, and we had a strong breeze when we rounded into the Damariscotta. We also had many, many lobster pot buoys. I wanted to sail up through them to avoid the risk of wrapping a line around our propeller, but Monica was concerned with the threat of the boiling water ahead so we doused the sails and began motoring.
About three miles up the river, we rounded the point near the cove where I'd stayed once before. In another mile or so, we were approaching a big, red buoy and the current was swift. And then we were beside the buoy, which leaned downstream under the thrust of the river pouring through a narrows just above.
Robin's speed dropped rapidly. Beside the buoy, we were making about 2.5 knots. With it off our starboard quarter, we were down to 1.5 knots.
We stayed at that speed almost all the way through the narrows and were still very slow when we were abeam of the point of land to starboard which marked the entrance to Seal Cove.
And then, quietly, we were in the cove, where the cruising guide warned of all sorts of hidden rocks and ledges. Emotionally exhausted, we set the anchor -- we had a debate concerning how far down the cove to go, and Monica won the contest. We knew there were seals to be seen near the head of the cove, but we put that experience off until morning and settled in for a quiet evening.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Jonesy arrived by launch about 9:30 a.m. Thursday but he didn't board Robin immediately. Instead, he got out a clipboard and began sketching.
I looked down from Robin's rail, with John and Tom Gilmore peering over my shoulder, as Jonesy, a man in his 30s, I would guess, drew a diagram of the wires connected to our Beta Engine. Here, he said, is where he expected to find our problem. Here, in the harness with the two plastic connectors that I'd already, at Stanley Fiegenbaum's suggestion, inspected.
I don't recall if it were at this precise moment, when Jonesy was declaring his expectations, that I emphasized my desire that he check every possible point where our problem could originate. It probably was.
I remember Jonesy saying that in the vast majority of cases matching ours that he encountered, the problem was corrosion in those couplings.
Jonesy wonder aloud whether the engineers that designed electrical systems for boats ever were aboard boats. If they were, he thought they should know about the moisture in which their elecrical systems had to function.
In any case, Jonesy assured me that he would check everything, even if he found what he expected in the wiring harness.
He explained that a poor connection that didn't allow the current to flow where it was designed to go could actually result in the current finding another path -- one that could, in essence, confuse the alternator, making it work too hard. Enough bad connections and reversing currents could drive the alternator mad, burn it up.
He drew these reversing currents on his clipboard
John and I had unbolted the cockpit sole and removed it before Jonesy arrived, so he had complete access to the Beta engine. Once he boarded Robin, Jonesy settled in the cockpit, at the rear of the engine where, as I could have told him, the harness coupling was thoroughly corroded.
I took up a position inside the cabin, where I'd removed all of the companionway ladder steps and could watch all his movements.
I'd imagined that Jonesy -- his name is so close to Jonesport, a Maine harbor -- was a Maine native, so I asked. No, he said, he was from California. Grew up in Wassila, Alaska.
John and I had the same thought simultaniously.
"You and Sarah Palin," one of us must have said.
"Yeah, and I'm a conservative, too," Jonesy said. I don't know if it was a warning or a challenge.
Jonesy kept up a constant patter as he worked, so at this point he told us that Palin was a year ahead of him in high school and was in the glee club. "I was in the 'Don't tell my parents' club," he said.
We laughed.
Having seen the corroded connectors in the harness coupling, Jonesy began hard-wiring them together, bypassing completely the coupling, one color-coded wire at a time. First, he snipped one wire free from the coupling and trimmed the insulation back about a quarter inch. Then he crimped on a connector before snipping and trimming the end of the wire on the other side of the coupling. After putting on a piece of shrink-wrap tubing and sliding it down the wire, he crimped this second end into the same connector as the first, then melted the shrink-wrap over the whole crimped assembly with a butane lighter so that no moisture could penetrate the crimping.
Jonesy repeated this process until every wire was removed from the coupling. Then he wrapped the whole assembly with black electrical tape.
Jonesy worked methodically, steadily, occasionally having to relieve a cramped muscle as he crouched in the cockpit. Then he moved into the cabin and replaced the alternator with one that I had ordered from Beta, explaining as he went why he made each move.
I'd like to report that I'm such a fine student I remember every detail of Jonesy's instructions. He was a fine teacher, but I don't.
In the end, I felt Jonesy was the finest boat mechanic I've ever encountered. He was confident of his analysis. That's not particularly unusual. What was rare was that he went beyond the first thing that worked -- and would have even had I not insisted he do. He was systematic in his diagnosis and when he finally left Robin, she was in shape to complete her voyage.
He left initially so that I'd have two hours to run the engine and charge the batteries. He returned and performed what I believe he called a load test and found that the batteries -- they are four years old and their condition had to be questioned -- were strong.
At one point, he noticed the new pump I'd installed in Robin's air conditioning system and remarked that he had one just like it back on his bench that he'd removed from a boat that was changing AC systems. When he came back for the load test, he brought the pump, almost new, with him and gave it to me, along with instructions to get the old alternator rebuilt and keep it as a spare.
Compare Jonesy's time on Robin -- about three hours in all -- to the time the mechanic in Cape May spent -- maybe one hour. Jonesy's bill was less than $150, compared with $462.24 in Cape May.
You can guess which mechanic impressed us more.
Which is not to say that I wouldn't worry the whole way back to the Chesapeake.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

There was wind from the east at 6 a.m. Tuesday when I climbed back on deck. To the west, we could see Monhegan Island, a gray specter under dense clouds.
We turned Robin to fill her jib and resumed sailing into Penobscot Bay, where the wind seemed to turn to the northeast and make sailing straight toward Rockland a matter of pinching, of squeezing as much as we could out of close hauled sails.
We placed phone calls once we were within cell phone range. Monica was glad to hear from me and, I think, hadn't been too worried. But she issued an ultimatum. She would fly to Maine on Friday, as planned, only if I would agree that instead of cruising north as we'd planned, I'd agree to head back toward the Chesapeake with her as my crew. She didn't want to spend time frivolously cruising and then leave the stressful chore of the return voyage to me alone. And at that point I had no other crew.
I didn't know what awaited me in Rockland as far as mechanical assistance, so I agreed.
Tom Gilmore, up ahead in Rockland, was relieved, having expected us the night before. He warned us that we faced a thicket of lobster pot buoys. But thanks to the fact that we had no engine, I didn't need to concern myself with getting the propeller snagged on a buoy line.
At one point, we came up behind a lobster boat tending its pots directly on our course. Because we were squeezing every bit of northerly way from the wind, I didn't want to fall off to go around the boat, but I was certain I would have to.
In this instance, we were engaging a thoughtful lobsterman who noticed our predicatment and, when he'd deposited his baited pot overboard, moved his boat out of our path with a smile and a wave.
A bit farther up the bay, we saw a ketch coming from our port through a break in the chain of small islands there, and as it drew nearer, we saw that it was not just a ketch, but a magnificent example of classic yacth design, with long overhangs bow and stern that tapered exquisitely. It reminded me of Cotton Blossom, the William Fife-designed 72-footer on which my friend Richard Griffiths once served as captain. This prompted me to call Richard in Oxford, MD.
When I described the boat, Richard named it -- Belle Aventure, an 82-footer with a solitary doghouse cabin amidships.
We watched he sail past our transom and then were able to remain on a starboard tack all the way to a point about three miles west southwest of the Rockland jetty, off of Owls Head lighthouse. Then we began steering toward the harbor. I had decided that we needed to get a mooring in order to have a mechanic come aboard. I've found anchoring in Rockland Harbor tricky due to an unpredictable bottom.
But I didn't think it would be wise to sail into the vast mooring field to take a mooring. Robin is a cutter, which is a fine offshore rig. But in close quarters, it can be difficult to tack the Genoa around the inner forestay -- difficult and slow. And sailing with the staysail alone, which can be tacked easily, is best done with a steady, strong breeze.
I didn't want to risk either method, so I'd called TowboatUS and they had arranged for a local towing company to bring Robin to a city mooring once we had sailed into the harbor.
The tow cost $150 and took us perhaps 500 yards to a mooring. The towboat operator was a bit rough, banging into Robin's hull twice, roughing up her cosmetics.
Once we were secured to the mooring, I called the local Beta Marine dealer, Johanson Boatworks. Stanley Fiegenbaum at Beta had told me they were good people, and that their mechanic, Jonesy, was excellent.
I scheduled Jonesy's visit for Thursday, his next available opening, and John and I settled in for a couple of days of decompression. All the while, I reminded myself to make sure this Jonesy didn't settle for the first solution he found to Robin's problems.
Make him check everything became my mantra.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

That was it. The engine was gone. The alternator has a pulley at one end over which a belt runs. The same belt that turns the alternator also turns the water pump. We knew of no way to take the alternator out of commission to run the engine without also eliminating the pump that brings the water to cool the engine.
The issue was settled. We had to sail.
But at 5 a.m, there was no wind. The sun was about to rise when we both decided just to nap for a while to see what would happen.
Some time later -- perhaps nine o'clock -- there was a faint breeze on my cheek, just a kiss. I went below and hauled the big red spinnaker bag on deck and began the arduous process of sorting out the tangled lines. Robin has a cruisng spinaker which has four permanently attached lines -- two sheets, one downhaul at the tack and one line to control the snuffer or chute scoop, a long skinny bag or tube that holds the sail together until you want to use it. Then you pull its control line and the bag rises to the top of the mast and the sail billows in the wind.
It was this snuffer line that I got tangled on the first try. But once I had that line where it should be, the sail went up and began pulling Robin ahead.
We weren't heading where we needed to go to get to Rockland, but we were going in the general direction of Maine, which was acceptable.


We were underway. On a trip that I had planned would be all sailing, no motoring, I was finally forced to live by that edict, and it was beautiful.
Slowly at first, Robin made way. Then she gained speed and strained at her lines. John frankly didn't think much of the lashings that held a block to the stern pulpit and which the spinnaker was now straining. To appease him, I added a few strands of thin line.
But soon enough, the spinnaker needed help from larger sails. The mainsail went up, and then the Genoa replaced the spinnaker and then the staysail joined its larger partner and in time we were pointing toward the mouth of Penobscot Bay, home to Rockland.
It was Monday, and we'd told folks at home that we were aiming to be in port this evening. But now there was no way. When the engine quit, we'd been 90 miles from Rockland. Now we were about 70 miles, and it would be well after dark when we approached the Penobscot. I wouldn't enter that rocky bay at night, so it would be at least Tuesday morning before we were ashore.
My concern was that someone -- Monica or John's wife, Fran, or our friend Tom Gilmore, who already was in Rockland -- would report to the Coast Guard that we were overdue.
I picked up the VHF radio microphone -- we were too far offshore for a cell phone connection -- and called:
"US Coast Guard, US Coast Guard, US Coast Guard, this is the sailing vessel Robin calling the US Coast guard, over."
At first, there was no reply. Then the Coast Guard came on the radio to the "vessel calling the US Coast Guard."
I explained our situation -- engine quit and we're under sail. Then I explained that I was concerned someone would report us overdue and asked if they could call Monica at work and let her know we were okay but would be in port when the wind got us there.
That's precisely what the Coast Guard did, and we sailed on.
To the south, the sky became overcast and we anticipated rain at least. But the easterly wind was steady and we were making four to five knots regularly.
As the sky darkened, we noticed to the east an unusual movement in the water. Then we saw the whale, larger than your average school bus, with a blow hole the size of a serving platter through which at intervals of perhaps 20 or 30 seconds we could hear his powerful breath, escaping in long blasts.
He was headed toward us, about 100 yards away, and we could look directly into the blowhole.
I reached for the camera, and we saw him turn to run parallel to our course, about 100 feet to the east.

I say he, although it certainly may have been a female and definitely was a humpback whale.
John, being older and wiser than I, knew what the whale was doing -- preparing to dive or sound. So I wasn't ready with the camera when he rolled forward and his huge tail came up in the air.
Then the sea was still and once again we sailed alone toward the north, with the light growing ever dimmer
It was about three o'clock in the morning and we could see various nautical lights -- buoys, lighthouses and so forth -- that indicated we were approaching the mouth of Penobscot Bay. I knew these waters in a passing way from three prior voyages to Maine, and I knew I didn't want to challenge any of the rocks that guarded the Bay's entrance, so I decided we should heave to. The current was running out of the bay, the wind now was from the east. And when we turned to let the staysail backwind against the mast, we were slowed to a drift of less than one mile an hour to the south. In the next three hours, until dawn, we would travel about 2.5 miles generally in a direction away from trouble. I went below and slept.
John, not entirely comfortable with my decision, stayed in the cockpit and kept watch on the various blinking and sweepling lights.
We were delayed in our departure on Sunday morning because we wanted to top off our gasoline cans, making sure we had enough fuel for the generator. And we needed ice. The Marina didn't open until 9 a.m., but then, when we explained our engine problem to the manager, he loaned us a can of spray used to clean electrical connections.
Through the tutelage of Stanley Fiegenbaum, the Beta distributor, I knew that there was a main electrical harness joining the engine's control pannel in the cockpit to the engine below. That harness, which carried about a dozen wires, was interrupted in two places by large plastic connectors -- each with male and female plugs and sockets for the dozen wires. I knew that the upper connector, in the back of the control panel, appeared clean but that the lower one, close to the bilge, had corrosion in at least half of its ports. I'd tried in Newport to use a fingernail file to clean the female sockets. But I wanted to try the spray, just in case. I dinghied back to the marina to return the spray, and then we headed out.
Earlier, while we were waiting for the marina to open, we'd stopped by the town dockmaster's office to pay for our mooring. There we asked for local knowledge to pass through Pollock Rip Channel.
"You don't want to do that," the dockmaster said, explaining that there was no need. Local fishermen avoided the channel, with its choppy rip currents, and simply hugged the edge of Monomoy Point. Just keep an eye our your depth sounder, he said, and you'll be fine.
Later, I was looking at the chart plotter, which showed a channel of deep water very close to the western shore of the point, and a depth of 27 feet when I happened to glance at the depth sounder. It read 2.7 feet. I steered abruptly to starboard, found deeper water out where there were small rips indicating current over shoals, and we made it around the point into the ocean at about noon.
The rest of the afternoon was unventful. The Beta ran smoothly, occasionally charging the batteries but not always.
We saved the leftover bluefish and had a simple dinner that night -- tuna sahdwiches as I recall -- and then began standing watch separately.
It was one of those clear nights when the stars are visible down to the horizon. Consequently, we kept mistaking low stars for the lights of approaching ships, too far a way to be picked up on the radar. Only when the stars rose from th horizon were we able to identify them and discount the possiblity of collision. But the stars and the moon, which at midnight rose as a huge orange scythe blade,kept us on our toes.
At the end of the 2 to 4 a.m. watch, I remained in the cockpit, dozing on one of the flattened cockpit seats while John stood watch. It was around 5 a.m. when he said: "What's that smell."
He and I both knew what it was: The odor of a heated electrical device.
I sprung from my pad and climbed down the companionway ladder, seizing the fire extinguisher mounted there before I opened the engine compartment and saw it.
Sparks and blue flames coming out the top of the alternator. I reached up to the cockpit and shut off the engine, then watched as the sparks and flames sputtered and died.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

On the mooring in Newport, we found a 3/4 inch stainless steel nut on the deck. We checked everything at deck level and found no missing nuts. Then I climbed the mast and checked all fittings. To this day, the stray nut case is unsolved.

Still there was no wind, so on Saturday Morrison and I steamed out of Newport early and headed east. We expected to anchor for the night in Vineyard Haven, a funnel of a port open to the north but protected from southerly winds that had been forecast. As we crossed the mouth of Buzzards Bay in calm seas, we trolled a silver lure. John was below when the reel began zinging, paying out line. I grabbed the rod from its perch on the stern pulpit -- the fish had nearly yanked the whole thing overboard -- and began reeling in.


It wasn't a record bluefish -- 31 inches -- but it was good, with lots of flesh. After thanking it for its meat, I slaughtered it on the starboard deck and took the carcass below for fileting while John washed the blood from the teak.
By noon, we were near the entrance to Woods Hole and not five miles away from the mouth of Vineyard Haven Harbor and I decided to check the charts once more. To my astonishment, the chart indicated that we were within four or five hours of Chatham, MA, at the very elbow of the bent arm that is Cape Cod, and very close to Pollock Rip Channel. We decided to spend the night in Chatham and then go for it.
At the same time, the sky to the west was changing, first becoming hazy and then folding into the most strange cloud formations -- smooth slabs of opaque gray against rolls of lighter gray and more slabs that appeared like ribs in a skinned animal's chest.
Then the lightning began, the thunder crashed and the rain blew in sheets that stung your eyes when you tried to look into it around the edge of the dodger. One thunder clap seemed to come from directly beside us. Had we decided to enter Vineyard Haven Harbor, we'd have been attempting to anchor in this blow, so we happily steamed ahead, the sky clearing and bringing back a brilliant sun about forty-five minutes later.
The entrance to Chatham Harbor seemed daunting on the chart -- a tight channel between sandbars -- but the actual passage was so simple that a large ketch handled by a man and woman entered before us under sail. We followed them well into the harbor, where we'd called for a mooring, and watched as they sailed beyond to their mooring.
More consultations with Beta Marine caused me to search the wiring thoroughly, trying to resolve the electrical problems. But I made no more progress, so as we settled down for the night after our bluefish dinner, we had the same plan.


In the morning, we'd sail around Monomoy Point and enter the Atlantic Ocean, where we would head due north for Maine, about 30 hours away. We had the Honda generator as our backup, so we knew we'd have enough electricity to run our navigational lights, our radio and, in short bursts, our radar.
Robin's engine ran through the night, charging the batteries although at a somewhat lower level than I was accustomed to seeing. By Wednesday morning, we were veering offshore from Long Beach Island, NJ, aiming generally toward Vineyard Sound. Although I had planned this to be a sailing-only cruise, we had no wind and I decided to make up for the day lost in Cape May.
The forecast had been for winds of 15 knots gusting to 20, but at first there was nothing. Then, around mid morning, a breeze came up from the southeast and soon we were able to shut down the engine, making a good six knots under sail alone. I had visions of a silent passage all the way to Maine.
In six hours, the wind was gone, followed by haze tending toward fog and limited visibility. I turned the engine back on, then checked the volt meter for both batteries.
Nothing.
The alternator was not charging, and we were 24 hours from the nearest port. I decided to head for Newport, RI, the home of many boat mechanics, to learn what the mechanic in Cape May had missed.
The fog never let up, and by the time we were passing Block Island the next morning, we had about 200 feet of visibility. We ran the radar from time to time, using the Honda 2000 watt generator to recharge the batteries. Still, we missed the large object lurking in the mist just off our port bow. Suddenly, we were facing a large (maybe 90 foot) motor yacht as it crossed our bow within that 200 foot limit. The yacht disappeared to our east -- probably entering Great Salt Pond on Block Island, and then we turned around the green buoy north of the island and aimed for Newport.
It was about then that we heard the fog horn of a ship and then on Channel 16, the call of the ship's captain. He was steering a 600-foot tanker east on Block Island Sound, generally in our direction, and was gaining on us.
I called the skipper and gave him our location. He said he had slowed and that we would clear his bow.
We never did see the tanker, although we heard his repeated blasts on the horn. But now the wind came up and we sailed into Newport Harbor on a steep following sea, blinded by the fog, unable to see even an outline of the shore. With the sails down as we approached the inner harbor, we motored and navigated by use of the chart plotter. There were large sailboats moored everywhere, and I became disoriented for a few minutes, until I noticed the profile of the Ida Lewis Yacht Club and used it to find the channel.
Once we had taken a mooring, I called Beta Marine and got a number for their local dealer, who said they would be able to visit Robin the following week.
That would not do, so with the help of the folks at Beta in North Carolina, I began examining the engine myself and came up with a plan.
Using the Honda generator, we would proceed toward Maine, passing between Cape Cod and Matha's Vineyard and then taking the Pollock Rip Channel to reach the Atlantic offshore from the Cape. I'd wanted to make this passage for a long time, and I wasn't going to be deterred by engine problems.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

John and I awoke the next morning -- Tuesday, July 20 -- aboard Robin in Cape May Harbor, anchored off the Coast Guard Station. We started the ending and, to our surprise, the alternator was charging the batteries.
Fortunately, we looked again and found no charge. So I called across the Harbor to Utsch's Marina and asked whether they had a mechanic. They did, so I reserved a slip -- at $2 per foot (Robin is 40 feet overall) -- and we hauled the anchor aboard and motored across the harbor.
Utsch's mechanic borrowed my multimeter and determined that the job was beyond his ability. He suggested that we call Engines Inc. in Pleasantville, NJ, about 30 miles to the north.
I'd already called Beta Marine, the manufacturer of our engine, and determined that they had no distributors in New Jersey. But the Utsch's mechanic assured us that Engines Inc. was a reputable firm.
Engines Inc. dispatched a young mechanic, a polite and handsom young man who had his own multimeter. He looked at the engine and then laid on his hands. What he found was that our two batteries had wingnuts fastening the cables to their posts. Not a good idea, he said.
"You can't tighten wingnuts like you can a hex nut," he explained. And a loose wingnut could interrupt the charging of the batteries, damaging the alternator. He went to his truck and brought back four hex nuts, which he tightened on the two batteries. Then we started the engine and he checked the alternator's output. It was fine. Problem solved.
In the end, those four hex nuts cost more than $100 each, an expensive lesson if, in fact, I had learned that particular lesson. But there was an even more serious lesson to be learned.
The final bill from Engines Inc. is now lying on my desk. The young mechanic had spent less than an hour at Robin. The hourly rate was $120, he told me. I had to pay him to drive to Cape May from Pleasantville. The total bill was $462.24.
As soon as the mechanic was off the boat, John and I prepared once again to go offshore. We made good use of our time, getting showers at Utsch's facilities, and about five o'clock, we were ready to cast off the dock lines.
Joy's family was still in Wildwood, so once we made it outside the inlet, I called her and told her we were about to motor down the beach -- there was no wind this time.
We were the only sailboat off Wildwood when we passed, and the entire Butler family was able to see our limp sail as we kept parallel to the coast about a mile offshore.
And then we were on our own, steaming into the night on a northasterly course, aiming for Vinyard Sound south of Cape Cod and then an outbound passage to Maine off the coast of that cape.