Folk Dancer 27
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June 28, 2004
Gandalf was launched back into the water on Friday evening around 5:00pm just before rain showers came (view pictures). That night and the following day it rained and rained and rained some more. But then finally around 8:30pm, just before Jenny (my fiancee), Michelle (our good friend) and Eben (my brother) came up, the rain subsided and a sunset could just be seen through the parting clouds.
Since we were all really hungry, we drove to Blue Hill for some dinner. We had planned to go to Ellsworth, but due to their late arrival - I think it had something to do with taking a wrong turn? We ate nearby. The food was pretty good and the music, well it was pretty mediocre. There is good karaoke and there is bad karaoke. This was the later. We tried to talk Eben into doing his special rendition of Love Machine - I'm told he's wild ability gets the crowd on the dance floor. Unfortunately, he decide the crowd was a little too tough. It appeared that they took their karaoke pretty seriously. We departed for the boat around 11ish.
The clouds had moved offshore but some low lying fog moved in. Without a flash light or any real sense of direction to the boat, Eben and I got into the inflatable dinghy my father lent us, and took a guess at the right direction. We could only see about 30 feet in front of us. We approached a boat which appeared to me to be Gandalf. I said to my brother, "I think this is her." "Wow," he replies "nice boat for what you paid." It turned out to be a 35 foot - probably in the 30 to 50 thousand dollar range boat.
After bumping into a couple other boats, we finally came upon her. We went aboard and turned on the interior lights so I'd have some to guide me back on my second trip. I went back. Picked up Jenny and Shelly (Michelle's nickname) and realized that the fog was so thick we couldn't make out the interior lights until we were only a several yards from the boat.
We got settled in and the gals got a chatting and my brother and I went to start of the engine. Since I used up a lot of the battery power during the day I figured it would be a good idea to recharge them a bit. I got out the key, put it into the ignition that should have been, but found the switch had broken free from it support. Great! After some trouble shooting we got the key to fit into what was left of the ignition switch and started the engine up. It ran fine for about 5 minutes and then the alarm, the high pitch sound that is made when the key is first turned and then shuts off once the engine is running. I turned the engine off and tried starting it again. Again after now only a minute or so the alarm came on again. I figured the key wasn't making the right connection so that's why the alarm kept coming on. I let it run for about 10 minutes more, and than shut it down.
After a good time of chatting and laughing until the wee hours, we decided to get some sleep. It was pretty hot in the little cabin with 4 warm bodies, so Jenny opened the hatch over the V-birth we slept in. The cool night air and a sky full of stars filled our view. It was so beautiful. Jenny and I had finally done it. We had our own little piece of water front property.
The next morning we has some breakfast at the Morning Moon Cafe in Brooklin. Then we got the boat ready for a day sail. The sky was deep blue and a few clouds that looked like wad of cotton blew by in a south-westerly breeze. We got the jib in place on the roller furling and made sure the mast bolt were secure and motored out the Benjamin River. The alarm again came on after about 5 minutes, but than this time I realized I hadn't opened the seacock for the water intake. Shit! This whole time the engine was over heating and I had thought it was the result of the break in the ignition switch. I quickly opened up the seacock and kept the engine running. In about half a minute the alarm went off. Phew! I'm not sure how much longer before the engine would have seized up.
We got out side the river harbor and set the sails and shut down the engine. It was wonderful to be back on the ocean. There's nothing quite like shutting down a loud engine and only hear the wind in the sails and the ocean on the hull. We quickly sailed down the reach and back in just under 2 hours time. It was a perfect day to sail.
The next day, after we returned to Portland, I talked with my father about the engine episode and he gave me all the information I'd needed. On Thursday I'm heading to Gowen Marine to replace the parts that may have been damaged. Speaking of damaged parts, see the images of the broken ignition and the running lights I'm going to be replacing.
