Well we figured out that the coffee pot had the wrong time in it. As it woke us up early with the coffee being done. Renee’ goes right back to sleep, and I don’t. She takes a while to go to sleep at night, whereas, I typically go to sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. Just one of those differences.
We eventually got out of bed, checked our messages, and downloaded the weather (all via satellite). We saw that none of the other three boats have left yet, so we will stay in this somewhat rolly anchorage.
The following is an excerpt from my notes on the new batteries and our charging system.
Today 12/6, we are in San Juanico, we will be here two days, I am going to see what we do with out the generator for a longer period of time. We ended the day yesterday with the generator running until about 4pm (running the water maker) which meant the battery was fully charged at that point, then used the engine to get into the anchorage (which kept the battery fully charged as well). Then about 5:30 or so the engine was off and we were draining the battery. As of 8 am, we are down to 67%. We will see what we have when we are at the end of the day, but we know that tomorrow the plan is to motor (due to no wind) south for about 50 miles, we will also top off the water tank, and perhaps do some laundry both of which require the generator to be running. We will see if we can go a day without the generator. I don’t want to go below 30% on the battery, even though Battleborn says 0% is OK, and everything I have read says LiFePO4 is good down to 20%. So, the limit I will use for running the generator is 480 AH discharged.
Since this is about the time we will be getting underway tomorrow, I can expect that we will use about the same amount of battery capacity from 5 pm to 8 am tomorrow, we are at about 220 AH discharged, so we need to have less than 260 AH discharged by 5 pm or run the generator. That means the solar has to do some charging!
Well, the best I saw out of the solar was about 20 amps. But, all bets are off, as two of the boats left, and we moved the boat. Since we started the motor, I am charging batteries and heating water for showers and washing dishes. We are debating staying here an extra day so that we can go ashore, as the wind is supposed to die down tomorrow.
We have noticed a drop off in the wind! We are staying here tomorrow, to go ashore and get the dinghy working. I am hoping for a good night sleep with minimal rocking from the waves. In the meantime, we had a great dinner. Renee’ spent the day in the galley making Banana bread and coleslaw, so we had left over pulled pork, rice and refried beans for burritos. A very tasty dinner. It was a pretty mild day, we worked on boat stuff, Renee’ polished the stainless, I washed the windows (lots of windows, and lots of salt), I got the lock off the outboard (rusted pretty good), and washed the solar panels. We also moved the boat, as explained above.
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We woke up at a little after 7 am. Very calm day! So, after it warms up a bit, we will get the dinghy down and go ashore. We might play around with the kayak as well. But first coffee and breakfast.
The battery is at 48%, with the old batteries we never got down to this point (even though the old batteries were 750 ah, and we are at 326 ah discharged, so this would be 56% discharged). We will see what happens today, but I will be running the generator sometime today.
From 9am to noon, was play with dinghy time. That included putting it in the water, and getting the outboard mounted on it, then spending a couple of hours pulling on the start rope and finally giving up and putting it all away. Things I tried, flushing the fuel out of the hose back in to the gas tank, pulling the spark plugs and pulling the start rope a few times to push anything in the cylinders out, putting it all back together and pulling a few more times. I actually got one short (VERY SHORT) run out of the engine. This happened early in the process. Finally by 12:20 everything was put away and we stopped for lunch. Renee’ worked on baking bread, and putting together a picnic lunch (that we ate on board). As of 1 pm, the battery is at 47 %, which means the solar is sort of keeping up with our use on board, things like microwaving a cup of coffee takes almost 1 % of battery capacity.
Next plan is to get the kayak out, and go ashore.
So, we had lunch, and went ashore. We stopped and talked to Greg and Diane on S/V Alma, for just a few minutes. They are from Quincy Ca. Then we coninued ashore and found the shrine for cruisers and added our shell with the boat name and year. We then hiked up the hillside and got the view of the bay and our boat. Another beautiful day. Then back down to the beach and walked the beach for a bit, then kayaked around the island and near the spires next to the boat and finally back to the boat and figured out how to lift the kayak up and put it away.
We have been trying to figure this out ever since we started with they kayak on this boat. Renee’ suggested the location of where to lift it and I had an idea about using the holes in the body of the kayak to run a rope through so that the kayak comes up with the bow forward, and laying on its side so I just have to push it forward as Renee’ lowers it from inside the cockpit. Anyway, it worked very well!
Renee’ just told me the hot water faucet in the aft head is working now, apparently we have passed a “stone” here as I did not do anything other than look at it and see that it was not working and what it was going to take to get into it.
