We awoke to dead house batteries. Again. Dave had to do the jump start with the screw driver trick again to get the house batteries charging after he started the engines. As we needed to charge the batteries, we took off early for Blind Bay Marina. We had to go slow to time the rapids just right, but that’s ok.
As Dave turned to head down the channel to Blind Bay, the auto pilot died. Thankfully when he turned the auto pilot off the wheel responded. Believe it or not, loss of steering isn’t actually critical. You would think it is, but it’s not – provided that the failure occurs with the rudder straight – the boat can be steered with differential engines. Provided, of course, that both engines are operational. In fact, when docking, Dave never uses the steering to control the boat – its all differential engines and bow thrusters.
None the less, Captain Dave is pretty frustrated. His comment, “things are breaking faster than I can fix them!”
Once we tied down at the dock, Jim and Dave ran the water maker for a bit to flush it. When it’s not “pickled” it needs to be run weekly to ensure it doesn’t grow bacteria that can damage the membranes.
The restaurant here at Blind Bay Resort is fabulous. We had an awesome dinner!
