July 17, 2014 The Second Day of Discovery,

Today, Dave made phone calls for our wifi booster, wiri, and to the xantrax dealer (voltage & current monitor) and waited for their return calls, of course.  They talked him through trying to reset, but no luck.  For the Wiri wifi booster, they told Dave how to test the booster antenna and the router.  He opened the box mounted outside and removed these two items.  The booster antenna had an USB plug that we put into our computer.  But the computer didn’t recognize it as a device, so we knew it wasn’t working, probably a short.  Then he found an adapter to plug in the router to 120.  We had to turn on our inverter for the power.  There was no luck here, so the router wasn’t working either. 

Dave also climbed the mast today about 3:00.  He replaced a burnt out light bulb and didn’t see any sign of a direct hit by lighting.  He had a job years ago climbing radio towers for repairs.  So he knew what to look for if there had been a lightning strike.  At the time we all just thought Dave took the job for a thrill, climbing those towers.  But there is a reason for everything. 

We ran the engine for about an hour to charge the batteries again.  At that time, he realized that the radar and autopilot were not being recognized.  When he went to shut off the engine about an hour later, he noticed it was reading low voltage.  Also when he shut off the engine, the alarm and the display lights wouldn’t shut off, even if he removed the key.  So he disconnected the engine battery, still wouldn’t shut off, so reconnected that.  We shut off the DC Main switch on the switch panel in our navigation station, still wouldn’t shut off.  We turned off the ground kill switch and that did it.  Of course we had to turn that switch back on, and when we did, the alarm stayed off. Yeah!

After checking through what Dave could think of, we decided to give the insurance company a  call tomorrow.  We waited to see if just simple tweaks would set things right.  I had sent an e-mail to the claims department on Wednesday asking for a claims report if we would need one.      We will also move our boat to a marina tomorrow for the necessary repairs. 

Since we would be leaving this area tomorrow, we decided to take the dinghy to shore and go out to dinner.  We walked to a great little Mexican restaurant.  After dinner we had a nice walk on the beach to clear our heads.  This is a beautiful tourist spot.  It reminded me of Gulf Shores, Alabama but on a smaller scale.  

Our sailing friend, Gary, continued north on the ICW today and made it half way to Beaufort, NC.  He anchored near Camp Lejeune military installation and could hear machine gun fire from his boat.

Hap and Alice did decide to have hospice care come into their home.  He has cancelled all future doctors appointments. He and his family are very comfortable with this decision.  He has 2 sons and 3 daughters that live in the area.  Dave was able to talk to him on the phone today.  Kind of puts our problems into perspective. 

"selfie" taken on Wrightsville Beach, NC