Tourist Chronicles: Carolina Nightmare

The never ending saga of the transducer continues. Following the arrival Wednesday of the wrong transducer it happened two more times. No joke! The correct one was to be overnighted so it would arrive on Thursday. It did but again it was the WRONG one. How does this happen? Then a phone call to the manufacturers rep who admitted he had misunderstood the application and what Garmin it was supposed to communicate with. Then he says that the correct transducer is bigger and the boat will have to be pulled out to install it. They'll ship the new one to the boat yard in Wilmington, NC where Tourist will be hauled out at 8:45 am Friday.

Friday 5/6/11 Up early and on the water to make the 15 mile trip to Wilmington. We arrived and tied up and went looking for Jim the technician. The yard was ready to pull the boat. Jim shows up and he can't even talk he's so upset. Yep. They sent the wrong transducer once again! Fortunately the yard knew of a place that might have a transducer that would work. Long story short. They did and we hauled Tourist to start the project.

The new transducer.

It'll be alright Pam.
Jim removed the old and installed the new. Next step, put Tourist back in the water which we did. Fortunately while still in the slings of the travel lift we checked for leaks. You guessed it. We found one! Back on the hard we go. Remove the transducer and re-bed it. Now after conferring with the folks at the yard Jim comes to me and suggests we keep Tourist out of the water overnight to give the caulk time to cure. I'm not making this stuff up! So Pam & I spent the night in Tourist hanging in the slings of the travel lift. Just like being in a cradle!

Our cradle for the night.

Saturday 5/7/11 I forgot to mention that the boat yard isn't open on Saturday. What! Fortunately one of the foremen came in to put us in the water. By 8:40 am Tourist was back in the water with no leaks. We now have depth and water temperature readouts. Mission complete, almost. We still have some minor issues with the communication between the plotter and some of the other instruments but it can wait till we get back to Florida.

We headed back down the Cape Fear River at 11:30 am. Unfortunately we were so ready to get out of the area that we bypassed what probably would have been a good stop in Wilmington. The waterfront was bristling with activity right by the city docks. Across the river sits the USS North Carolina. Plenty to do if we weren't so sour.