Matt screwed around for most of the day trying to get the windlass to work. First he removed, took apart, inspected, reassembled, and reinstalled the control box. It appeared to be working before he started (we could hear the solenoids clicking in), but not after he was finished so he repeated the whole process and got it working again. He checked the connections. He checked for continuity. He checked the voltage. Everything seemed to be fine, but the windlass still wasn't working. He kept messing with it until it miraculously started to function properly, and now it seems to be working fine.
I still suspect we have an intermittent problem in the motor itself, perhaps worn or dirty brushes on the rotor. It is too tough to deal with that here, so we will keep our fingers crossed that the windlass keeps working. If it doesn't, no big deal. Captain Cook didn't have an electric windlass and he got by just fine.
Yesterday we traversed an area of very narrow channels that experience extreme tidal flows. I was driving during the afternoon in the worst of it while Matt was playing with his windlass. We were bucking an adverse current that was as strong as four knots at times. I worked hard to find the eddies along the shore for relief. The current would occasionally throw Thankful sideways, heel us over, and knock us off course by up to forty degrees. It was very exciting.
We got tired of fighting the current and looked for a place to hole up for the night. We found an interesting spot, Shoal Bay, in the cruising guide, just a few miles ahead of and pulled in. It turned out to be a real gem with a floating dock to tie up to, a beautiful valley, and a hike up to an abandoned gold mine near the top of the mountain. Matt and I hiked uphill for an hour and made it to a lookout near the mine before turning around. It was a great spot, and a great day. There are a few permanent residents in the bay, and they own a couple of big friendly dogs, Tulip and Taz. The dogs are the community's unofficial officials, and they have the run of the valley and pier. Last night as we were preparing dinner they decided to come aboard for a visit. Matt gave them a little snack, and then of course they had no interest in leaving... ever. He eventually had to escort them off of the boat and close the gate through the bulwarks to keep them from reboarding. Tulip sat on the dock and yowled to let us know that she wasn't happy about the new arrangement.
Today Thankful is still in an area of extreme currents, and we just went through Dent Rapids right behind a sailboat under power. We timed our arrival at this rapids to take advantage of a favorable tide. The sailboat was thrown back and forth by the swirling current in front of us, heeling and yawing as she went through. Matt was concentrating at the wheel to keep us aimed down the channel and out of the eddies. He hit fourteen knots of boatspeed over the bottom. That's six and a half knots of current. Matt did a better job of staying out of the eddies than the sailboat's skipper did, and we just passed him in an area of less turbulance. The rag hanger's skipper was absent from the wheel as we went by, the boat being steered temporarily by the autopilot. We joked that he probably had to dash below to change his underwear.
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