June 29, 2008.

It’s Sunday night and we’ve been here in Manteo for 2 days. I’m not real sure where to begin, so I’ll start with the town,
which is a neat old time town which has been revitalized, so to speak. There are lots of really awesome old buildings sporting great little stores, boutiques, art galleries etc. There’s a free town dock for daytime tie-ups, which is really cool. We’re out at anchor so we use the dock for the dinghy but it’s nice to see a town that has a space for boats to come in and spend the day in town without having to pay for a marina. It’s easy to walk the dogs here and the town is wired so there’s free wifi as well. There are lots of places to eat and drink along with the touristy shops and even a great bookstore. Food shopping, laundry and a hardware store are all within a half mile. Manteo rocks.

The refrigeration has proven once again, to be an ongoing saga. After the last repairman (our third) left the boat the unit was not leaking refrigerant (knock wood) and once again cooling. What wasn’t apparent to us, since we were plugged in at the Small’s dock, was that the unit wasn’t cycling like it should be. Once we were back off the grid it became apparent that the unit was running practically non-stop, which is a battery killer.

After exhaustive research the probable cause revealed itself to us, the unit was probably overcharged with refrigerant. The reason why too little refrigerant or to much refrigerant is bad is just one of those headaches you have to overcome when dealing in the black art of refrigeration. The remedy, hopefully, is that a bit of refrigerant has to be bled off. Easy enough if you know what you’re doing, I might need a net, I’m pretty much clueless. The low side of the system is supposed to run at no more than 7 PSI and we’re assuming that we need to bleed some pressure off. Fine, but just how many PSI is a pssst, is it 1 PSI or 6 PSI, we don’t have refrigeration gauges so I have to guess.

The big danger is that if I bleed too much off, then I have to get the system recharged yet again. So we’ve been trying to round up a set of gauges to use as a crystal ball to see into these dark arts. We found a local NAPA on Google Maps and when I called the guy said he had 3 sets in the store and that they close at 1300 hours, its 1125, shit, Google maps show a 3 mile walk north.

If you’ve been a faithful reader then you know how Google Maps has screwed us twice. When you’re on foot it can be a major screwing. After those occurrences it was decided that before we trusted any directions from Google we would call ahead to confirm that they were correct. Evidently I didn’t get the memo. Because after walking 3+ miles in the 90 degree heat Christy called NAPA to see if we were getting close. It seems that Google was wrong yet again and we were now 6 miles from NAPA and it was 1215. F**k me. We started to backtrack south, and even tried to hitch a ride, but apparently we are not in the Bahamas anymore, people might have even thrown shit at us so we stopped in at a convenience store to grab a drink and see about calling a cab. One of the clerks took pity on us and loaded us into her car and drove us to NAPA. I hope she wins the lottery.

We arrived at NAPA at 1250 and were once again confronted by the witchcraft known as refrigeration. It seemed that the hose connections for auto refrigerant are different then any other type of connector. Marine refrigeration guys have a different style gauge, but we can’t find any marine gauges for sale within a 2 day walk. So now I have to reinvent the wheel and cobble together an adapter to make the auto gauges work on our boat. Well, call me Gepeto because we came up with a combination that would work. Since it was only a 3 mile walk across the surface of the sun back to the dinghy, we bought a gallon of oil to throw in my backpack for the trip. I thought I heard Christy say that we needed a case of oil…..not sure.

While walking Christy spotted these freshly planted trees. Do you think they were considering job security when they put them directly under the power lines? They'll be trimming those things every year until they die.

Evidently Christy was a little pissed that I had marched us off in the wrong direction because on the way back we were passing a grocery store and she decided we had to stop in and grab a few things. While in the market we did see a great sign that was hung in every checkout line. Steal from us huh?, the south is so much fun. Now with my 2 ton pack and an additional bag full of groceries we headed back to the boat. We did take the time to grab some air conditioning by perusing a bookstore and stopping for a light lunch.

Back at the boat I had to modify one of the adapters in order to attach the gauges. Once hooked into the system the gauge showed that the low side of the system still had 20 PSI even though I had given it the old pssst several times. Now that we’re enlightened by the gauges, it turned out that a psssssssssssst was needed and viola, the fridge seems to be working correctly. Gepeto, master of the dark arts, practitioner of the black science of refrigeration. Of course now that I’ve put this in print I realize I’m doomed.

While I was dealing with the fridge we became aware of a family in their speed boat making a nuisance of themselves. Alright, I can’t really blame the 4 kids and probably not Mom either. Dad was towing the kids, 2 at a time on a tube behind the boat. The bay that we’re anchored in is at least a mile wide and over 2 miles long but this guy thinks that the best place to try and cripple his children is within 80 feet of our anchored boat. We’re anchored just off the marina and his wake is rocking the crap out of the boats tied up in their slips and us as well.

They’re at it for about 20 minutes but we
board the dinghy and head off for a little “explore the creek by dinghy tour”. I figure by the time we get back they’ll be exhausted or one of the kids will have broken something and they’ll have gone home.



After we pass by the marina there’s a low bridge that we go under and into an ever narrowing creek. It’s real pretty and after 15 minutes we come to a tree that’s fallen across the stream so we turn around and head back.

As we’re approaching our boat, Speedboat Guy is headed towards our boat from the opposite direction, still dragging a float full of kids. Then he gets the brilliant idea to rocket through the gap between Veranda and the shoreline. This left him with the shore to port, Veranda to starboard and us in the dinghy headed right at him. So he veered towards the shore, I figure its time for a chat, so I turn towards shore as well. I stand up in the dinghy and scream at him to stop. Instead of slowing he waves me off and tries to cut back and blow between Veranda and us in the dink.

This is where that whole physics thing came into play. That’s right he forgot about the kids on the float. You’ve all seen that instance where a ski boat can use centrifugal force to make it seem that the skier is actually going to pass the boat. His turn was so abrupt as he dodged us that he hung his children out to dry so to speak, they were not going to clear our dink. His wife didn’t forget the kids and she screamed at him to stop. He stopped with his tow line under our dinghy and his kids on their float 2 feet from us.

That’s when it all went kinda grey for me. Ya know how they tell you that its important for you’re lungs to enrich your blood with oxygen and then the heart pumps it up to your brain? Well evidently most of the blood pumping to my head was stopping at my mouth to help feed the demand my wagging tongue was creating. I went off…….

He tried to start with “What’s your problem?”
I started with “You’re killing those people in the marina and making it miserable for us out here!”
He counters by spreading his arms and looking around saying “What, you see any No Wake signs out here?”
I countered with a quick, very loud monologue “You need a sign to tell you to use common sense? What about common courtesy?” Pointing at his kids bobbing at my feet “What about teaching responsibility, CAPTAIN?”
He mumbled something back that I couldn’t hear so then I went with “You got the whole fucking bay and this looks like the best place to be doing this, CAPTAIN?” Then came “Use some common sense, CAPTAIN” “Try and act like you’re responsible, CAPTAIN”

When somebody screws up and they know they screwed up, you throw in enough ultra sarcastic CAPTAINS it’s better than punching them in the testicles. Alright, maybe not better but it’s on a similar plane. I was aware of the children so I only dropped one F-Bomb so it was kinda like a surgical strike as well, very neat yet yielding his total capitulation. I should teach a class……

After I was done he towed his tube off to the far end of the bay and they went back to their merriment before retiring for the evening. Although, now with a better understanding of boating etiquette and consideration for those around them. Helping people is really very gratifying.

My work here is done so weather permitting, it’s off to Elizabeth City, NC in the morning.