Technology Implosion

At about Mile Marker 100 on the ICW, turning into the Alligator River/Pungo River Canal, Serenity suffered a voltage spike on the house side of the 12 volt system.  The engine kept running fine, however all of our navigation gear started cycling on and off.  As Pollie said, it was very Twilight Zone.  We shut down everything and reverted to paper charts and a hand held VHF radio, until I got the problem resolved.  Really not sure what happened, but I think the battery isolation relay that allows us to charge both battery banks while keeping them isolated from each other hung up.  I have not been able to recreate the problem.  Other than replacing a few fuses and having to reset everything, it appears the only thing we lost was our WiFi enhancer:

We had this unit mounted on a spreader, then connected to a router (see: http://www.keenansystems.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2&products_id=315). We loved it.  We never had to rely on the cell card that is like a dial up connection.  So, we have a replacement unit ordered and the old one sent in for warranty that we will keep as a backup.

The next casualty was my old Dell laptop.  It went DOA in Washington, NC, so we visited the local Office Depot.  Because it was not plugged in, I do not think it had any nexus with the electrical spike, just managed to find the end of its life cycle.