Stuck in Charleston

It is now the 16th and the seas off Cape Blanco are still not acceptable to venture out. The next possible window, and I stress "possible," is not until next Tuesday. This will give us time to do some extra work on the boat such as installing Judy's new hot water heater. This will also free up some badly needed storage space.

Since my last post I have discovered more electrical problems that had to be dealt with. The house batteries wouldn't take a full charge. At first we thought it might possibly have something to do with the installation of the two new solar panels' control box, as we had to send it back to the manufacturer earlier due to it being a faulty unit. I had avoided checking the house batteries with my new hydrometer due to the fact that all of our spare teak wood supply was secured above the battery box in the quarter berth and the quarter berth was being used for storage and was therefore packed full. We finally gave in and pulled everything out of the quarter berth and upon checking the batteries we discovered that they were in poor condition. We called the local Battery Exchange and procured 4 new Trojan 125s which they actually delivered to the marina and our boat at no charge. The gentleman who delivered them was extremely nice and carried all the batteries down to the boat and carried the old batteries back up the dock. We were very surprised at the great customer service we received from this retailer. When I disconnected the batteries I had to follow a strict procedure written down by the electrician who installed the new solar panel control box and had to reverse that procedure upon installation of the new batteries. Upon completion of this procedure I connected the solar panels and again to my chagrin there was no input and the light would not come on. At this point I was extremely frustrated/pissed off wondering WTF was going on! I was so angry that I told Judy "I'm finished for the day and will deal with this tomorrow!"

After a good night's sleep and several cups of coffee I received a phone call from Steve and Lodie, our friends from Canada who are several days ahead of us on the water. I explained the situation to Steve (who is also a shipwright) who advised me to start at the control box or the panels and test for voltage until I located the problem. I decided to start at the panels which were only putting out one volt due to the lack of sun but I followed this meager current back to the control box without discovering any change. I then checked the wires from the batteries to the control box and still could find no faults. I then disconnected the control box, referred back to the hook up instructions and repeated them exactly the same as I had previously. This time, voila, they worked! So as to the problem I don't have the foggiest! Fortunately we now have power and are ready to go, unfortunately the weather isn't cooperating. We get conflicting reports from NOAA and the VHF(WX). So we went to the Coast Guard Station and asked why we were getting conflicting reports from NOAA and the local VHF reports. We asked if they used the NOAA weather reports online and were told no they used the U.S. weather info. They then brought us a hard copy of the report which was favorable. Upon walking back to our boat we were discussing how similar their report was to the good report we had from NOAA. When we reached the boat, fired up the computer and used the site they gave us it turned out to be the same NOAA report site that we had been using. All in all the coast guard doesn't seem to know what report they are using.....

Tomorrow I will install Judy's new water heater. That is unless our prayers are answered and there is a miraculous change in the forecast, and we are able to sail around Cape Blanco to Crescent City or beyond.
Judy and I are doing fine, but it would be nice to have another crew to help on watches.