Ah Ha!

Sorry I missed posting yesterday.  Dave and I needed to blow this town and shake things up.  Don't get me wrong, we love this town.  But we found the space between our eyebrows was getting pretty small.  We'd been squinting at things a little too long.  So we headed off to the big city on a shopping excursion.  Yep, Seattle baby.  The land of Starbucks and epic traffic.

If you're going to be stuck in traffic, you should at least have a view.  Note the Cascades on the horizon.

So we hit the road Jack.  We were in search of a new water heater.  Yes, we did replace the water heater in our fifth wheel, Booner, this winter.  No, we have no idea how we accrued such water heater karma.  But we have.  Mind you the water heater on the boat hasn't failed.  Yet.  But it is imminent.  The surveyor said it wasn't required at the time (October) but "best practices" would mean replacing it sooner than later.  Last week a rusty chunk fell off the bottom of the tank into Dave's hand.  If it goes, six gallons of water will dump into the bilge.  Yes, the bilge can handle it without sinking the boat or ruining anything.  But it will be a mess.  So yesterday we went to the city where we could look at a few of our options up close in person and bought a replacement.  That was an item we could scratch off the list.  Okay, once it's installed.

But let's digress.  Down by Lake Union we have driven past this Italian restaurant for years.  It's always intrigued me.

The neon in this window says 'Birthdays. Anniversaries. Bowling Banquets."

Gotta stop here sometime.

Okay, back to real life.  One of our dock neighbors offered to come by and help us trouble-shoot the problem we've been having with our instruments.  Specifically the problem is that they were working, and then they weren't.  When Heidi and Laura arrived a couple of weeks ago they texted when they were checking into their motel and asked what the wind was like in the marina.  Quite often it feels temperate in town, but when you get down on the docks it will be blowing and not as comfortable.  So I flipped the switch on our power panel and checked the wind meter so I could tell them.  Sometime in the next week I threw the same switch and ...nothing.  Normally when you flip that switch you hear a "Beep!" and you know that you can turn your head and see how deep the water is, how fast you're going and how hard the wind is blowing and from where.

Yeah, I flipped the switch and heard nothing.

"Wha...?"

And so the project from hell started.  If any of you have tried to trace an electrical problem you know it can be like trying to chase a rabbit down a hole.  You get very lost and very uncomfortable very fast.  Well this has been eluding us for about a week.  There are thick bundles of wires that all look alike and disappear through holes.  Then reappear.  Then disappear. 

So yesterday our wonderful neighbor was walking down the dock and I waved him over to ask him if he knew of anybody we could call before all of my hair was pulled out (we all know about Dave's).

He said didn't know of anyone, but he'd be willing to look at it this morning to see if he could see anything.

This morning he knocked on the hull and stepped aboard.  He tested the two ends of the operation.  Yep there's a problem with the power supply.  He kept saying "I'm thinking there might be another switch in this system."  We kept telling him all we've ever done is turn on the power on the panel and they come on and work.  Now they don't. None of them.  So he tore in with his years of experience that we don't have.  We learned all kinds of interesting things about how stuff has been installed.  

*So I should say at this point for all of the folks who trouble-shoot electrical in other settings - on a boat you don't want to test the wires like you might in a house or RV where you poke a probe into the wire to test for voltage/continuity because you've now exposed the wire to salt air/moisture.  So you do your testing at the extremities.  And choose those other test points carefully because it will mean you have to cut and splice and wrap the connection for protection.* 

******Wow this is getting boring*******

Anyway we had reached a point where things weren't making sense.  We had pulled out two of the three instruments to find the power source wire.  

At one end we had two wires and then there were three wires instead of two-so our hero sat down with the installation instructions for the particular instrument we were looking at and said "Is there a remote anything for this knot meter?"

(Knot meter = speedometer)

I think of "remote" as something I use to adjust volume and channel.

"Nope.  But now that you ask, there is this distance meter at the navigation desk, but I don't see how that would affect anything..."

As I said this I found that the distance meter had a power switch on it's face which I turned on.

"Beep"

Hey Look!  All of our instruments work!

Our friend and I blushed at the same time.  Actually I blurted out an expletive first.

He was embarrassed that he hadn't looked harder for another switch.

I was embarrassed that I'd insisted there was no other switch in the system.

He told me I couldn't mention his name in the blog. 

Let's just say it's a biblical name.

And as far as Dave & I are concerned he parted the Red Sea.

So my wish for all of you tonight is that you have a Moses step in for you when you most need them.