Avoiding Hurricane Maria, Working On Electrics

Back in Reedville, Virginia, we secured ourselves to the dock just two days before Hurricane Maria was scheduled to touch the coast south of here. Fortunately she lost some of her "oomph" and stayed well to the south, so we only saw winds of 20 knots or so and little rain.

While Maria blew herself out we decided it was time for a little electrical therapy. Mastervolt had replaced a three year old inverter for us, under warranty, when it started to show signs of not starting our AC refrigeration system. Excellent support from them, as usual. The new unit was delivered to us back in Rockland, Maine, and this was our first chance to swap the old unit out for the new. While working in that (difficult to access) part of the boat I also wanted to replace some of our battery interconnect cables - we had a good supply of size 4/0 (107sq.mm.) tinned wire and all the necessary lugs, so we spent an afternoon making up interconnect cables to measured lengths.

It took us two days to swap the inverters over, upgrade the battery interconnects and also to replace a bilge pump sensor switch. That was just long enough for hurricane Maria to bounce off the coast and head away from us.

Right now we're preparing for the boat to stay here while we head off on our road trip, so we're checking all the bilge systems, shutting down and preserving the watermaker, servicing essential equipment etc. In case another hurricane sneaks in we've doubled up on all the dock lines and removed both the furling headsails and stowed them below.

We've been warmly welcomed back into the local community, the weather has also remained warm (at least in the daytime) and the social life has been great. Importantly, we're getting a good share of "dog time", walking the neighbours dog and even graced with a visit from our favorite sailing dog, the lovely Flaco, who as you'll see below is very interested in all things "boat". 

Three Boys Looking - Image By Chris Burry