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| Egret stalking us at the dock of Barber Marina |
Sometimes on The Loop (and also in life in general) things just come together perfectly.....that is how today went for us :-) You might say, we found our happy place!
After a 'hard reset' of our inverter/charger system last night and being plugged in all night to shore power the control panel still read "Think'n" when we awoke....lol, we are pretty sure this Magnum unit was manufactured in Alabama based on the language it uses. Upon reading the detailed direction book closely Renee discovered that after a hard reset it can go into this "learn" mode of the battery bank for up to 3 days! Wow....now we know it was a unit built in the South! As soon as people started showing up to the service department at the marina Erik walked up and talked with the management (Tim and Steve) to see about arranging for an electrician to take a look and give advice on the inverter/battery bank as well as to potentially install the 'Smart Start' capacitor on our new A/C unit. The folks here are incredibly friendly and accommodating and we were told that someone would be down to take a look shortly. After some investigation and conversation with the electrician it was determined that since all four of the 6V golf cart batteries are reading at 6.4 volts currently that they seem to be ok even though the battery monitor is not currently allowing us to get a read on % of charge. We were advised by him to not do anything and to just wait out (up to 3 days) the 'Think'n' mode. If necessary, we can call tech support at Magnum. The electrician stated that he was not familiar with the 'Smart Start' capacitor system and that they typically do not mess with HVAC systems. Fortunately, we had found on Youtube a couple of pretty detailed videos on the installation of the unit we have specifically on marine A/C units. We decided to give it a go and started opening up the control panel, disconnecting and cutting wires....yikes! Thanks to Renee's detail orientated mind and ability to read and follow directions (Erik lacks these skills!) things went smoothly. Following directions to the tee, we stayed at the marina for another couple of hours in order to cycle the A/C unit on and off five times while connected to shore power while waiting at least five minutes in between each cycle in order for the 'Smart Start' to do it's calibration and learning of the system. After the fifth cycle we fired up our portable generator and unplugged from shore power and into the generator to give it a test run (holding breath, crossing fingers and saying a prayer beforehand). Success!!!! We now are able to run our A/C unit off of our generator if we want for times when we are at anchor or at free docks without power. This should prove to make our stops much more comfortable.
After our slow but productive start to the morning we departed Barber Marina at 1:47pm. The sun was up and hot! We cruised briefly back through Ingram Bayou in hopes of getting another dolphin show....no luck today. We set our course toward our planned destination for the day (Redfish Point) which was only 16.8 miles down/over the intercoastal. After about 10 miles or so the intercoastal came to a spot which had only a very small sliver of dunes separating it from the Gulf. This area is called 'Gulf Islands National Seashore' and is absolutely stunning! We cruised along the the dunes and islands for about 6 miles until we came to a known popular anchorage where we dropped the hook and proceeded to swim to shore, walk along the Gulf dunes and beach, and explore. Hermit crabs were all over the place; some small, some large and everywhere in between. We made a few crabby friends :-)
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| Just after passing into Florida....the colorful houses give it away |
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| After this bridge the GCICW took a left turn and followed along the Gulf Islands National Seaway which was just a small section of dunes/islands separating us form the Gulf.....beautiful section! |
The walking on the soft sand (calf workout!) and the couple hundred feet swim back to the boat had our appetites up and tummys growling. Erik grilled up shish-kabobs to eat and almost immediately after dinner we were blessed with a stunning sunset that we enjoyed from the comfort of our zero gravity chairs on the bow of the boat. The colors that God paints in the skies are simply amazing and we can never get enough of them! After sunset the temperature dropped to be very comfortable, particularly with the nice breeze coming off the Gulf. We determined that our new ability to run our AC off our generator would not be necessary today.....we will save our gas for another day ;-) It was hard to break ourselves away from our resting spot on the bow where we were now enjoying a perfect starlit night but eventually we both were ready to give in to the yawns and drooping eyelids.
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| Aquaholic has made it to the Gulf....The old girl has been a trooper! |
We have quite a few days and stops that lie ahead of us still, but this one will be a challenging one to top. We will give it our best college/Looper try though!
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| No words needed! |
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| Our Happy Place! |
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