Stranded at Solomons

After our vacation week, we returned to reality and Highwind in Baltimore, where we both promptly got sick with bad colds, David first and then me a few days after. Unfortunately that meant that we had to cancel David’s scheduled surgery (for the 2nd time…). Though we both tested negative for Covid throughout our illnesses, this was worse than a earlier in the year when we actually had gotten Covid! We laid low on the boat for the week.

We had been talking with Safe Harbor Zahnisers in Solomons, MD, for the last month, getting on their schedule to replace our two injection pumps as soon as we got back. So we headed down there on Thursday, the day they wanted us to arrive.

Thus began a 5-week debacle of Hinkley levels of epic failure, though at least didn’t end with as ridiculous of a bill. The story’s not actually really worth telling, aside from the incredibly usual bits for shitty service departments. Guaranteed they’d have someone working on us full time (they didn’t), poor project management causing delays in needing things worked on by subcontractors, failing to track shipments ruining timelines, ordering wrong parts, breaking parts while installing and blaming it on us, taking apart way too much of an engine and charging us for labor to put it all back together, and culminating in a stuck valve requiring us to rebuild an engine that sure wasn’t stuck when we arrived. What was supposed to be a week and a half job to check and rebuild injectors and replace the two injection pumps turned into just shy of a 13k$ bill, rebuilt injectors, non-replaced injection pumps, and an engine needing a head rebuild.

So, while we were incapacitated with no engines for 4 weeks, and only 1 engine for 2 weeks, we set about amusing ourselves in other ways. We completed several projects on our list including:

Building a pantry cabinet into the hole where one of our fridges used to be (a project Hinkley failed to even start…)

Finding and fixing the last known leak in the boat – right over the helm, which took all of half an hour with a hose to narrow down, another thing Hinckley couldn’t figure out and charged us hours of labor for. Then we reupholstered the leak-damaged wall/ceiling panels in the master bedroom window and above the helm.

Having a fun evening with Jan and Jim who drove to visit us. Incidentally, we also ate out at every single restaurant in Solomons. Luckily there are more restaurants here than there were in Deltaville. Plus, Instacart was available for grocery delivery.

Meanwhile, the weather was starting to turn and the days were getting colder. We were lamenting our lack of progress south towards sun and Florida for the winter! My office was permanently moved to the upstairs while the downstairs of the boat remained in disarray during the weekdays.

Thanksgiving was approaching and Zahnisers wasn’t making much progress (understatement of the year). Our friend Nick had planned to join us (originally in Charleston!!) for the holiday and the week afterwards. After some last minute changes to his flight, and due to a particularly epic mistake made by Zahnisers, we ended up with a rental car on the evening that he flew in, so we picked him up from the DC airport.

I had special ordered a tiny turkey that would fit into our convection microwave oven. With Matthew’s encouragement, we decided to spatchcock it, which helped it to fit in the pan, and we ended up with a full Thanksgiving feast with all the sides roasted on the BBQ!

Despite being stuck at Zahnisers for the entire time Nick was visiting, we still had a lot of fun hanging out and playing games together. We visited the local Naval Aviation museum, where we got to look up close at several different kinds of jets and helicopters. We also set a record at a local escape room :).

As we were approaching his time to leave, we also needed to make a decision regarding completion of the repairs on our Starboard engine. After Zahnisers strapped us with a completely unreasonable bill, we decided to cut loose and head back north to Baltimore where likely David would tear down the engine himself and we’d find a local machine shop to repair the head unit. On Friday morning, since David had the day off, we left Zahnisers on one engine, and after about 5 passes attempting to turn around in windy conditions with no maneuverability, we eventually made it up the river a little to top up on diesel. It only took us 2 tries to dock on the gas dock! That’s actually good – David is incredible at being able to drive the boat while it’s incredibly handicapped. Not an easy feat with something so wide and with so much windage.

We settled in for a long cruise (10+hrs at 6 knots) to Baltimore where we had arranged to return to Anchorage marina. The amazing dockmaster here, who lives onsite, had scrounged up some of his liveaboard friends, so we were received at 8:30pm, well after dark, by 4 guys to help us with the lines.

Since it was Nick’s last night with us, we decided to go out for dinner and found a lovely fancy restaurant which had an amazing view of the Baltimore Inner Harbor.

We settled in to our new slip in Baltimore, where we will likely be for the next month as we work on getting the starboard engine back up and running and head out for some work and holiday related travel around Christmas.