18 Sep 15

Last night when we got anchored and stopped the engine, the Admiral commented again about the smell of rubber coming from the engine. I agreed and gave it a good look-over, but could find nothing, although I did think that the smell was not quite right for burning rubber, but I could not quite figure out what it was. This morning when I got up, the smell was even stronger, or at least not dissipated from the night before, so I did a more extensive search, including a look at the starter battery, which is under the stern cabin bunk. When I pulled the inside mattress off, the bottom side of it was hot. The wooden top of the bed support was even hotter. I fairly ripped it out of the stern cabin and the plastic battery box cover was very hot. I got it off and the battery was gassing off big time. I crawled out and checked the battery monitor and found that the SOC on the house batteries was down to 64.9% from a full charge the evening before. I quickly disconnected the leads from the battery and poured a bunch of water into the cells, which were way low. Then, I checked the voltage with the multi-meter; 6.15 V - this battery is dead. When I looked further, there was about half a cup of battery acid (or some liquid) in the bottom of the battery box. Not sure what the root cause was, but I guess it got low on acid and started boiling off the rest when the house batteries continued to feed power to it. At least, that would explain the low SOC on the house batteries. The starter battery was pretty hot and gassing off; not sure what would have happened next, but I guess it was pretty close to catching on fire before I disconnected the leads and poured in the water. We got the engine started on the house batteries with no problem and motored all the way to Port Washington. 

We spent an hour this morning trying to re-calibrate the flux-gate compass, following the same procedure we used last week in Buzzards Bay, but after 6 complete slow circles, it still would not complete the swinging/deviation calculation process, as it did before. So, I will have to call Raymarine in the morning and see what they say. I’m afraid the flux-gate compass may be toast. 

Ain’t cruising fun?

When we got into Brewer Capri West Marina in Port Washington, I pulled the old battery out and hauled it to West Marine, where I bought a replacement, which I then installed. All appears well. We also received a load of mail here, including my replacement cell phone.

40-50.121’N, 073-43.249’W

19 Sep 16

It was raining when we woke up and indeed, it rained all morning and well into the afternoon. After breakfast, I called Raymarine (on my speed-dial) and with help from the technician, we got the pilot controller heading to agree with the real world. But, the tech was not convinced that this was the final solution; he said if it continues to act up, it is probably a problem with the course computer, which will have to be sent into Raymarine to be sorted out. After that, we caught the bus up into town, thinking we would have lunch and a reunion at Finn MacCools, one of our favorite pubs in the world. But, when we got there, they were closed for renovations; well, I was just gutted, as I had been looking forward to this for weeks. So, we walked down to the local Indian food restaurant - Diwan - and got the lunch buffet. Then, it was on to Stop & Shop for a major grocery shop and a quick stop into West Marine. We got back to the boat in time for happy hour, but were too stuffed from lunch to eat dinner.

20 Sep 16

We were planning to head down through the East River today to go to NYC, but the UN is in session and President Obama, among others is scheduled to address the General Assembly, so I called the Coast Guard, and sure enough, the entire East River adjacent to the UN is closed all day until 18:00. We could get through, but it would mean arriving at a strange marina after dark, which is frequently a recipe for disaster. So, we decided to sit tight in Port Washington for another day, being on no fixed agenda. I finally tackled the installation of the small LED light under the binnacle tray; this will shed a discreet light on the table after dark. After lunch, we road the bus up into town to the AT&T shop to get a screen protector for my new phone and enquire about a replacement for the Admiral’s aging iPhone 5. 2.5 hours later, courtesy of the local geek salesman, we left with a new phone, plus a whole new phone/internet/TV/alarm package that saved us $168/mo. We had to come all the way to Port Washington to get a way better deal from AT&T, finally?!? Why did not the local shop offer us this deal. Anyway, we got the bus back home and had a light dinner at Marco’s Waterfront Restaurant, at the marina.