Snowbirds trip to paradise stalled due to boat issues

Well, today did not go as expected. 

Timeline (as best I remember):

4:45 a.m.:   I woke up and stayed in bed for a bit.

5:05 a.m.:   I got out of bed and started getting things ready for our trip. Put the Jamaican flag up, took off some of the lines, turned on all the equipment at the helm and double checked our route in the chart plotter. Triple checked the weather. Did full engine room check, oil levels, coolant levels, valve settings, hydraulic fluid, etc. All good!

6:15 a.m.:   Ann wakes up and tells me how noisy I was being.

6:16 a.m.:   I turn on generator and main engines, text our friend Bill at the marina who graciously comes over to help with the lines.

6:35 a.m.:   We are off the dock, all is good. Heading for Rodriguez Key.

9:30 a.m.:   Spotify is on a particularly good channel. I'm singing along and dancing a bit. Never been happier. Off to Bahamas!!!

9:45 a.m.:   Ann says, look at the air handler. It's off. Do you think there's a problem?

9:45 a.m.:   I know we are not having a good day.

9:45 a.m.:   I hurry down to the engine room. I see that some AC power breakers are off. I try resetting one and get a huge spark. Then I smell the smoke. I look in the engine room and smoke is billowing from the corner, not where the engines or generators are. I smell burnt tires. 

9:45 a.m.:   I yell up to Ann to stop the boat.

9:46 a.m.:   I'm not happy anymore.

9:48 a.m.:   I'm on the phone with the mechanic, Theo.

9:49 a.m.:   Theo is in his car heading towards us.

10:30 a.m.:   We finally find a marina that can take us to check out the problem. They require an overnight stay. It's almost $500/night. I think we got the emergency rate. We're about an hour away.

11:35 a.m.:   We are docked at the marina in Marathon. Not our scheduled destination

2:15  p.m.:   Theo arrives and starts diagnosing the problem. Seems our generator, which had just been "repaired" by Theo a couple of days ago in Key West was outputting over 400 volts. It's supposed to be 240. It fried a bunch of our electronics including critical parts of the air conditioning.

While we are pretty unlucky today, I'm looking at how much worse it could have been. Had I run the other generator, this would have happened tomorrow. I like to alternate generators every day when traveling. Tomorrow, it would have happened as we were in the middle of an ocean crossing on the way to the Bahamas. Also, the high today is 72. If it was 85+, life would be a lot worse. Also, this happened when we were just a few miles from Marathon, the last place where we were going to find a marina. Any further North would have meant backtracking. Lucky we weren't in South Carolina or Maine for that matter.

Anyway, I guess when boating you have to be prepared for everything.

Theo doesn't think it's safe to travel to the Bahamas with the boat's current condition, and of course I wouldn't have anyway. Our plan is to go to Ft. Lauderdale now where Theo is based. He's already ordering parts and arranging for the generator guys to come out and finding us a marina. It will take us two days to get there, and we'll anchor along the way tomorrow night. Probably at Rodriguez Key, which was our original destination today. Or maybe we'll stretch it out further and anchor at Biscayne Bay.

Bahamas will have to wait.