Headed out Dean Channel in fog and clouds, soon to be followed by – you guessed it – RAIN.
Along the way we reached the Alexander Mackenzie Monument (52° 22.799’ N / 127° 28.533’ W), where we took pictures and saluted Mackenzie for his valiant effort to be the first to cross North America by land in 1793, about 10 years prior to Lewis and Clarks’s epic crossing of the western United States by land. The mountains are high and forests are dense… it is hard to imagine what these hardy men endured on this venture to expand the fur trade.
By the time we reached Fisher Channel it was raining and continued raining for the next
few days.
We stopped at Troup Narrows (52° 17.023’ N / 127° 59.629’ W) and anchored for the night in a beautiful, secluded cove.
The next morning we went into Shearwater 52° 08.843’ N / 128° 05.278’ W). When we tried to contact the marina we discovered our VHF radio had died.
After getting tied down we were able to rent a 10-amp battery charger from the yard and start the lengthy process of getting 200 amps back into the batteries.
We were able to get some sun on the solar panel Sunday to help out the situation, until some time during the afternoon when George discovered the solar panel charge regulator we had replaced in Bellingham just two months ago had also died. He rewired to bypass the regulator and rig the solar panel directly to the batteries with a disconnect so we can regulate the charging time ourselves, an effective smart regulator. We were able to buy a new VHF radio, the same model as we had, so that was an easy fix.
Monday, July 30, 2007
After numerous phone calls both north and south we worked a warrantee replacement of our battery charger with West Marine at Nanaimo. It will be mailed express post to us general delivery Prince Rupert after they receive our old charger that we packaged up and mailed today.
Later we had a wonderful visit with Don and Trudy on the Hunter 336 "Emma Marie" docked in front of Teal. They are heading to Roscoe Inlet also, so we may cross tracks yet again.
Oh, and by the way, it rained today… in case you had not figured that one out yet. We have promises of sunshine tomorrow.
More to come
George & JoAnne
