Two nights out on the ICW and we're back in a marina in Harbortown.
I keep wanting to call it Bartertown, but everyone here is so nice and helpful, it's a far cry from Mad Mad.
First night out went fine, we had a great day, and a smooth ride in from our anchorage, took the dogs to the park where they played like they've never played before, and we got back to the boat and promptly passed out.
Second night we went to start the dinghy and the quick-fix solution our mechanic came up with at the last minute for our outboard motor (which was not guaranteed to last for any length of time) failed, dumping gasoline out from a broken carburetor. At least it didn't happen when we were ashore, but it left the poor doggos without any time on the grass or land to do their business.
Mischa was fine with it, first peeing and then pooping not long after, but the schnoodle refused to do anything all night long.
Nor did the Fozzie Bear decide to relieve himself in the morning, even though we both showed him where he was supposed to do it. Stubborn little dog waited almost thirty hours to finally pee on the deck. He waited until he was alone on deck at anchor, but I caught him doing it and showered so much praise on him that it was literally minutes before he was pooping.
I've never felt such relief. So now we're back in a marina, getting the dinghy engine fixed and outfitting ourselves with supplies to help fix a whole host of other problems that have crept up in since we left our mechanic behind in Ponce Inlet.
Like the sinewave inverter, which isn't working, even with zero load on the system, indicating to me and others both on and offline as an internal short in the unit itself, which has meant no AC (i.e.. outlet power) since we left Ponce Inlet. I've tried customer service from Kisae several times, leaving voice messages and an email but haven't heard anything back from the manufacturer yet. Guess they must be on vacation.
Or how about when we plugged into shore power here in Bartertow. We had to use our 30-50 adapter plug ($90 from Amazon) just to reach the outlet (since someone forgot to order the extension cord). Only when we tried turning the outlet power on, nothing happened. Testing with a meter revealed the 30 plug on our adapter was bad, and of course it's out of the return window on amazon. I'm sure Andrea will get a full refund, she has her patient way of doing things, but it's just another thing that doesn't work that should work.
Whatchagonnadoaboutit?
When we finally get the power sorted out with a borrowed plug from the dockmaster and go to turn on our AC (which took way too long to install and cost way more than planned), guess what happens? It turns on and works for a bit but when the compressor kicks in the thing shuts down and starts beeping really loudly displaying an E1 error code. So we're back on the phone with technical support again, but when we pull up panel, turns out the duct isn't even attached to the blower.
So Andrea (AKA Miss Macguyver) has the bright idea to try and rubber band the duct onto the blower while I'm pulling up the floorboards and trying to estimate water-flow from the waterpump, and guess what, the rubber band worked! Keep it simple, right? We'll go and get a proper clamp for it tomorrow but for now, it's working and that's really about all we can really ask for with anything on a boat.
Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings...