19 January 2014, Sunday
Arose early for this 46 mile trip. We would stop tonight at Spooners Creek Marina.  We had stayed there on our way up the coast in June.  A very nice place.  When running on only the starboard engine, several days ago, I had noticed that we were not getting any electrical output from that alternator and we were not anywhere close to getting a replacement till we got to Spooners Creek. We refueled while that was in process, I mentioned to "John" that I needed to bicycle to the local West Marine for an alternator, hoping that he would take the hint and offer me a ride.  No such luck. We removed the offending alternator, unloaded one of the bicycles and off I pedaled to West Marine. (1 mile away)  As I got to the top of the hill, I checked my trusty google maps on iphone and followed the directions.  Two miles later, google changed its mind and sent me back to within 1/4 mile of where I had last checked the google map.  Now, this was a Sunday, around 4:00 in the afternoon and I was worried that the store would close before I could get there.  So, now pedalling my asoij%4 off, and taking a shortcut behind a shopping mall, which did not work, I reached the store only to discover that it would close at 7:00.  I was wearing my heavy coat, stocking cap and was sweating like a pig.  The girls asked me what I was looking for and I said a couch.   After resting, I showed them the old alternator and they said they did not have one.  Ah Ha, I replied, the West Marine store I had called previously (which did not have one) had checked the stock at this store and told me they had two on hand.  Then the girls decided that they should do a better search, and lo and behold, they had them.  Amazingly enough, they did not want the old alternator and there was no core charge, so now I had to tie both alternators onto the bicycle, along with some other necessities, and wobble back to the boat. So after 5 miles of pedalling I was ready to rest.  a couple of hours later we had successfully installed the new device and it worked. There are no pictures of this event because of the censor.