The final post

I'm at home, lying on my bed, yawning and yawning, and coming up with nothing to talk about. It was a normal voyage ending day. Transiting locks was typical.

Thankfully I've got a card up my sleeve.

I saved a pithy anecdote from yesterday. There was an undisclosed fourth pithy anecdote.

Even better, this anecdote has a backstory. Back in time we go. 2017. I'm still El Capitan. Kevin is still capable crew. We're cruising around Vancouver Island. Thomas was with us. Vi had had enough of us. Adiosed the pair of us.

One morning, against all precedent, Kevin decides he's going to start the engine. He does so and smoke comes pouring out of the engine room. I looked at him, accusation written all over my face. What had he done? It turned out to be a bad starter solenoid, but Kevin felt guilty as hell, and it was written all over his face.

Skip forward to 2025.  

Eight years is a long time; it's finally time to put eight years of shame and humiliation away. Kevin decides he will start the engine. He does and everything appears fine. The engine is running.

Except… The RPMs are zero. The alternator is not working. The batteries are being slowly depleted. Looks exchanged in 2017 are repeated.  The alternator manual comes out. We consider our options. Calculate when we think the batteries will fail. What did he do?

I get to blame him for it this time. After scratching our heads for an hour, it turns out he turned the ignition off after starting the engine. The question all inquiring minds want to know: why did Kevin sabotage his own effort? He knows how to start an engine. Why, with everything on the line, after eight years, would he start the engine and then turn off the ignition?  He'll tell us he just wasn't thinking. But is that the whole story? Or is this where the shot in the face comes in? Wait. What?

So anyway, I turned the ignition back on and saved the day. End of story. End of trip. 

The moral of the story is: don't let Kevin start the engine.