At the Zeisings - Out to dinner at Cafe Duo

Bill and Pat Zeising at Cafe Duo

I pushed the start button this morning on the genset - nothing... Hum, we've been here before. I tried switching out the starter relay, no luck. it was in the 50's outside in the cockpit where the genset is located so I gave up for the moment. Ann was nice and toasty with the bed warmer turned up. It works off 12v so the genset is not needed for that. Ann was not anxious to get out of bed...

We dinked in to the Zeisings for a homemade breakfast. They were going out for golf at noon so we were going to use the time to do laundry and I returned to the scene of the crime on the boat to continue my long standing conversation with Jim at Panda technical support - we know each other well. First I tried a few things along the lines of the old knock-knock routine. Jiggle a few things in the electrical relay area and hope for the best. Pushing the start button again, it started right up! Clearly there some kind of poor connection problem. I then called Jim and he said, yes, they've seen problems with the plug in relays. The female plugs relax over time and don't make good contact with the male relay prongs. "Take a small screwdriver and push the sides of the contacts back together", yes, he said that. So I dutifully did so and the genset started again, so far so good. All this stuff is mounted inside the "soundproof" clamshell, firmly attached to the engine which is vibrating like 3600 times a minute. It's a wonder anything can keep working in such an environment. It's shake, rattle and roll inside the engine enclosure. For now it's working again.

After Bill and Pat completed their round of golf, they were going to the Cafe Duo for dinner along with Frank Dwyer from the Poughkeepsie Yacht Club. I must say the prices were about half of what we were used to paying along the ICW - and the quality was very bit as good.

Frank leaves Thursday morning and we'll do some provisioning before leaving on Saturday - hopefully it warms up a little - we are down south, right?