Ignorance isn't bliss

With the alternator (and Kirsty's parents) on a 4 hour drive from just south of Stirling, Kirsty and I got up early to make the rendezvous. The tide ran north through Kyle Rhea until 0834 this morning. Kyle Rhea is a narrow stretch of water separating Skye from the mainland. This meant we had to be in Kyle Lochalsh by 0900 ish. We dropped the moorning off the Duisdale Hotel at 0615 and motored up to Kyle Rhea. There was no wind, so the tidal eddies and streams south of the narrow channel were hardly noticable, we avoided them non the less. We had over two knots of tide with us as we went up the impressive channel. The sun was breaking through the could occasionally lighting patches of green with a warm yellow glow. When the sun does come out the countryside is more beautiful and impressive than it's possible to imagine.

We arrived just before 0900, a Sadler was leaving the pontoon when we arrived, so we stood off and waited for them. They motored past before doing a U turn and coming back for a chat. They has recognised Pixie from Yachting Monthly and wanted to know how were getting on. After a brief chat they headed south.

We tied up and went off to the shops. I can't remember the last time we went in a shop much bigger than Pixie, to walk into Kyle Lochalsh's Co Op was like being a kid in a sweet shop! A full selection of vegetables, rather than a few tired green potatoes, a squidgy onion and a wrinkled pepper. We had choice again! Lord knows what I'll be like when I get back to our local Waitrose!

Kirsty's parents and the alternator arrived around 1100, so we had lunch together before I set about fitting the alternator.

It should have been an easy job, 3 wires, two bolts, job done. Sadly like any job on a boat, a 5 minute job will take around 2 hours, this was no exception. I wired it up and started the engine, and no charge was coming out of the alternator.




There was only one man to call, Kevin from Marine Electrical Services. Kevin has said I could call him any time. I'm sure he had meant it, but on a Sunday afternoon, with a grand prix and an England world cup game? It didn't matter to Kevin, he took the time to understand my babbling about different wires, tried to get to the bottom of why my "amps" light wasn't lighting, helped me test with a bulb looking for voltage that wasn't there. The previous alternator has the negative taken from the casing, the new one didn't. If I was more familiar with the workings of a 12v system, it might have been solved faster. But Kevin, on the end of a phone, managed to talk me through how to go about solving the problems. I really cannot fully express my gratitude for the time he spent on the phone today.

When we started the engine, and the volts went up and the amp needle went off the scale, Kirsty squeeled with delight, I was almost in tears of happiness. Before, we'd run the engine for an hour to get 1% of charge into them. With the engine running for an hour 10% of charge has gone into the batteries now.

If the Smart guage from Merlin wasn't so accurate, we'd probably be non the wiser. Yes the little magic black box has caused us no end of grief, and made us slaves it the battery status, but with out it we'd be blissfully unaware we had a charging problem. Ignorance is bliss, until you're up a loch with no power.