Wow we’ve had an eventful couple of days.

Cruising is truly a rollercoaster. You’re on top of the world with joy one minute, and instantly brought back to the realities of the fact that you’re at the mercy of everything around you.

An example, on yesterday’s passage… We had the head sail up, it was a beautiful day, we were moving along, just lovely. We decided we wanted to put the sail away and start motoring. So we fired up the engine to put the sail away.

Starting the engine caused a freak incident, and we lost all electricity to the boat.

Chart plotter (which is like GPS, but also tells us depth)… Gone. VHF radio which allows us to communicate and ask for help from others… Gone.

Now… Do we need these things? No, People have been cruising without electronics for years. But that’s not to say that it’s completely alarming to lose all power, instantly when you’re used to it.

I was really really proud of our triage to follow. Step one, keep putting the sail away. We do not need the distraction of the sail at a time like this. Step 2. Rachel stays at the helm, mounts a cellphone with a chart plotter to maintain course, while Brian investigates and trouble shoots. Step 3, remember that we’ve done a great job this year at having our handheld VHF radio available to communicate, so grab that, and notify the buddy boat 1 mile behind us what has happened and if they can standby for assistance, that would be appreciated. To which they said not a problem, and they began to prepare themselves for anything we might need, which they anticipated a tow.

I began looking for a place to emergency anchor. Brian quickly looked at the engine and tore up the bed to have access to our house battery inverter and electronics. He manually re-set our electronics and that seemed to do the trick.

We updated our buddy boat behind us that power has returned to which they responded they would maintain standing by until we are secure at our destination.

To know that we had SOMEbody, even though we don’t know them that well… But somebody to help us… Provide a tow, troubleshoot, might have tools we don’t have, was the most comforting thing imaginable.

Last year, we had that for just a bit here and there with our friends Jennifer and George, but not like this.

And now today, it’s time to get back on the horse, and travel to our next Destination. Sheesh!

This is just 1 of several things that went wrong these last few days…

Soo… What went wrong with the electrical?? We are still troubleshooting what exactly went wrong and how to prevent this from happening again.