Paul & Sima
11/08/2007, Jersey City

Yay! We’re on the road again!

We had fixed the engine, after all, and hadn’t realized it. The temperature sender, which tells the dashboard gauge how hot the engine is, was reading incorrectly. So we were running at the normal 185 after all, not the gauge reading of 200. Replaced the sender, and that fixed that problem.

Except that we then got too cocky, and decided to tighten the connecters leading to the starter solenoid, at the suggestion of a local mechanic. In taking off the old connecter, it came apart.
Raced to get a new one before the chandlery closed so that we could leave in the a.m. Cut away the old one, put in the new one, and went to sleep. The next morning, a big spark at the sight of the repair, combined with a failure to start, told us that something was wrong. Took apart the solenoid and cleaned up the contacts. Reconfigured the connector to make sure that it wasn’t arcing. It worked, and we were off sailing again.

This is Sima taking over. I must share an excellent moment, even though Paul does not mention it. When the above mentioned big spark at the sight of the repair happened that morning we were both incredibly frustrated. After having lost so many days trying to repair one thing we were not ready to lose any more days on any more engine problems! As he was trying to figure out what might have caused the problem, Paul called me into our aft cabin and opened the engine compartment. Waving his imaginary wand in his hand he exclaimed “Reparo!” That kind of sense of humor is why I love him! We were both laughing so hard at his joke and our situation, some because it was funny but also because we were at wit’s end.

In the end, a three day stay in Jersey City turned into ten days. The result is that our pleasant Fall cruise down the coast has turned into a prolonged frostbite sail. 48 in the day and 31 in the night two nights ago. But it is adding to the enjoyability of it, actually. We are getting a few extra degrees of warmth with each day that we sail South. We noted that the forecast for this Tuesday in Marblehead is 50, for example, while we’ll be enjoying 65 down in Maryland.

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