After some work with the multi-meter and jumper cables, we appear to have pinned down the hard starting problem. It wasn't the engine at all - it was, believe it or not, the battery switches. If we bypassed the switches entirely, the engine would start without a hitch.

We were supposed to go out fishing today in TB2, buddy boating with Capt. Scott Leon who was hosting Ray Hutchinson and Keith Nelson from Sea Level Fly Fishing. But no dice - the boat refused to start! The motor was very slow cranking, and refused to start, even with both batteries hooked up via the battery switches. We wound up spending the day on Capt. Scott's boat, a 26' Jones Brothers center console, with twin 150s. A nice ride, and will be featured in our profile on Jones Brothers Marine.

Fishing was slow, with only a few small kelp and spotted bay bass. But the company was great. Now we just need to figure out what's wrong with the motor...

After last month's success, we decided to try rock codding again, same gear. This time, however, the tides were not as good, and there was little current flow. We started at the South 9 Mile Bank, in the same spots as before, but activity on the meter was much less. Instead of the large clouds of fish, we saw just small groups hunkered closer to the bottom. We still managed to catch a few, but they were all smaller, in the 2-3 lb range.

We worked our way towards the Coronados, and stopped on a couple of rockpiles with fish on them about a mile north of Pukey point. Imagine our surprize when this 17lb yellowtail nailed the 200 gram mackerel finish long Butterfly jig about 100 feet off the bottom. The fish put up a good tussle on the Shimano Butterfly jigging gear, although we had some trouble with the drag on the Torium 20 backing itself off during the fight. We had the drag set for around 12lbs, and it was frustrating to have the drag lighten up during the fight.

We switched to our deep-jigging spinning rod, and worked our way to another rockpile in about 180 feet of water, and was startled to pick up another yellowtail, this one weighing around 22 lbs. Both fish were caught on the long Butterfly jigs, the first fish hitting a 200 gram long Butterfly jig in a mackerel color, the second fish hitting a 120 gram gold/chrome green.

The boat started a little easier this time, but it did take a bit of cranking. Once again, it ran fine the rest of the day. We should take some time to troubleshoot the problem, but after we get the motor started once, it runs fine for the rest of the day, and we can't reproduce the problem.

Another day of no false oil alarms, but it was, of course ANOTHER day of flat water. Didn't think I'd ever complain about flat water!

Took another solo trip, this time for deep water rock cod in Mexican waters (the season is closed in US waters). Fished the South 9 Mile Bank, in 350 feet of water, using Shimano Butterfly jigs and River2Sea Rock Jigs.

The cod were thick, and active. We could see big clouds of fish on the meter, and the bigger fish were hitting the jigs about 60 - 80 feet off the bottom.

The bigger fish were all in the 6lb+ range on our Boga grip, and were a lot of fun to catch on the Trevala rods, even with the 50lb Spectra. The hot jig was the 200 gram long Butterfly jig, in a mackerel color, next best seemed to be the River2Sea Rock jig in 200gr.

The boat was hard to start again, even with the new battery. We're hoping this is not an engine problem, but we tried switching to the second battery with no luck, which would normally indicate a problem with the engine. Once again, once the motor started, it was fine the rest of the day.

No false oil alarms, but the water was, once again, pretty flat, so we didn't get a good test.

Took the boat out on a solo trip to the Coronados North Island. Put in a Chrome Green/gold Yozuri Hydro-mag about a mile north of the point and got a hit almost immediately from a 6.5lb bonito. That pretty much set the tone for the day, although the rest of the fish were not nearly as large: 1 - 2 pound fish were thick, we averaged a fish every third or fourth cast on a small gold mushmouth fly. No yellowtail, although we did see the sport boats get a couple on jigs by using their side-scanning sonar.

We had a hard time starting the boat in the morning...the motor acted like the battery was almost dead, even though the Guest charger indicated they were fully charged. We put the boat back on the trailer and drove over to West Marine, where we purchased a house brand AGM battery. Put the boat in the water, and it still acted like the batteries were down, but at least this time it started after a few cranks. After it started, the engine started fine the rest of the day. This could be a hard one to figure out.

The good news is that we went the entire day without a false low oil alarm. The water was fairly flat, however, so it wasn't really a good test. Encouraging, but not conclusive.

Noticed the left tail-light and the red left marker light were out. The tail-light was the original incandescent light, the marker light was one of the ones we had replaced with a new incandescent light. All of the LED lights we have added are still working, so we'll probably bite the bullet and replace all of the lights with LEDs.

After some conversations with BRP Tech support, we were convinced that we needed to take TB2 back to a dealer to have them take a look again at the false low oil alarm.

We dropped the boat off at Boat Depot in San Diego this time, and Head Mechanic Bryan Sturn bit the bullet and replaced the entire oil pump assembly, which contains the low oil sensor. He reported to us that he had taken the boat out into San Diego Bay and tried his best to get the low oil alarm to go off by driving over wakes and getting the boat to pound, to no avail.

He also reported that there was no indication of the software upgrade that we were told had been applied earlier, and there was no record of a false low oil alarm report in BRP's system. So...apparently the other dealer who had worked on this had not actually done any work. We know where we're taking our business from now on...

We'll keep our fingers crossed, but now that someone has actually done something, we're feeling more confident the problem is fixed...