Tarbert, the Kyles and treatment (of the good sort)

Although it is tempting to stay and spend money with the lovely Port Bannatyne folks, we felt that Anne should see more of the area. Initially she accomplished this all alone by going for a morning run around the waterside. Upon return, we headed off and around the pretty Kyles of Bute. A flybridge trip, not that sunny but not too chilly either, to enjoy the wonderful views. For the first time ever, the (slightly oversized for the traffic) ferry that goes across to the mainland didn't pull out in front of us either:

Somehow the trip around Bute never tires. Just such a pretty spot with ever changing views. We ended up in Tarbert and went for a wander up past the ruined castle and into the hills:

Where you get to enjoy a proper view of the harbour area:

If you are really bored, play spot the Nordhavn. Anne and the crew seemed in good form and there were no signs of altitude sickness:

The following day, we were supposed to have the delights of pouring rain for most of the time. Hence, the crew and Anne booked themselves into the Spa at Port Bannatyne (we hasten to add that there was an offer on the go, nothing gets bought from there at full price!) As morning dawned, so did the sun. The Captain is sure that they faked the forecast they showed him on screen just before booking. Anyway, we made the monster sea voyage across to the strange place. The crew had tried to ring and book a mooring, was told the marina was busy, left a message that was never returned. Calling them on the radio as we arrived elicited no reply, then eventually a very broken transmission from someone with a thick eastern European accent. It made little sense but we knew where to berth anyway. For such a supposed "up market" operation they continue to be shambolic in the way they run things considering how much they charge.... However, the treatments were excellent according to those who benefited from them.

Maintenance news:

Well, not really maintenance more troubleshooting. Whilst at Portavadie we needed to run the dishwasher. This is fed power via the inverters and since we were plugged in, the required 10 amps or so should have been passed through from the shore supply to the dishwasher. Only when the captain looked at the inverter panel it wasn't showing any of the the normal light patterns:

(This one says it is charging in absorption mode quite happily)

Instead it was suggesting that it was also using around 30 amps from the 24 volt battery supply to make up the 10 amps of 240v power required. Changing the settings on the panel to allow the inverters to take more power from the shore didn't seem to increase the amount being drawn (only 8 amps or were coming from the 16 amp supply). Then they went a bit crazy with a small light show - the overload, overheat warning lights came on, went off and the inverters generally went pretty crazy. Hum, they are expensive bits of kit, getting old now of course and so we feared the worst. A "warm boot" by turning them off and restarting them worked briefly then the same problem occurred. We have two inverters linked together like this one:

So, the captain turned off all the power on board, both AC and DC, bypassed them and just fed the shorepower directly to the panel using the inbuilt changeover switch. This gave inverters their first rest and "cold boot" since the batteries were renewed over a year ago. Once the dishwasher finished, the power was re-established via the inverters and they behaved normally, running similar loads like a kettle with no trouble. Are they OK? Not sure, they will get carefully monitored and once our guest has gone we will go "dead ship" with no 240v or 24v power to allow the captain to check the tightness of all the inverter and battery bank connections. Not much more we can do realistically.

Fingers are crossed that they are happy again after the cold start - perhaps they get bored. We will let you know. Our bank manager is also hoping that all is well with them.