0500, winds over 25 knots. Down from the hill in front of us, we had 150 feet of chain out, in 30 feet of water. That means about 5 to 1 scope. Which generally speaking is “good” not great, but “good”. Problem with that is that we anchored on a slope, which means as we drag, even just a little we go into deeper water, and soon we are in 35 feet of water, and with out much dragging we ware down to 4 to 1 scope. (Amount of chain out divided by the depth. Good – we were dragging away from the rocks, Bad – both anchor alarms (same program running on two phones) had been silenced, so when I woke up from the wind, and checked the anchor alarm, it was blinking. This really got my blood pressure up to start the day. I adjust the radius of the alarm, which is a way to see if we just set it too tight, and watched it for about a half hour. Then a little before 0600 Reneé asked me how long I had been up and how the anchor looked. I explained what was going on and we got up and put out another 75 feet of chain. This involves starting all the instruments, and the engine, then moving the boat forward enough to remove the anchor bridle (two ropes that go from the forward cleats to a hook on the chain, this relieves the stress on the anchor windlass) then letting out the chain, and adjusting the anchor alarms on both phones (making sure the alarm is not silenced!) Then watching it to make sure we are not moving any further. The moon is up, but it is just a sliver, otherwise pretty dark out there.
There is our excitement for the week.
Oh well, the coffee is brewed and we are awake now.
Battery status:
Battery capacity is down to 28%, generator is running, charging at 70 amps. We used 444 ah from the battery, which means a couple of things:
- It is going to take 6 or 7 hours of running the generator to recharge.
- This is more than we could have ever taken out of the old AGM batteries, the limit on those was 50%, or 375 ah.
- Recharge time is less than it would have been on the AGM’s at 50%, that would have taken 10-12 hours.
- We made it two days! We arrived here 2 or 3 pm on Friday and have not run the generator since then.
- I was planning to run the generator today so that we could charge the battery, and do a load of laundry. There will be plenty of time to do the laundry later in the morning.
- Even at the lowest point of discharge, battery voltage was 13.16 volts. As opposed to the AGM’s which would have been down to 11.8 or lower. This means that all the dc loads work better due to the higher voltage.
Generator off at 11:10. Started probably about 0630, so maybe 4 and half hours, The battery is at 79%, the load of laundry is done, we have had showers and the water heater is full of hot water again. Battery still has 130 ah consumed, We put in 314 ah in that time.
We briefly considered running down to San Francisco, about 2 hours south. This would have shortened the trip into La Paz by about an hour and half, so instead of 10.5 hours, about 9 hours. But when we went on deck with the instruments on, we saw 22+ knots of wind, and white caps out on the Sea. We will get up early tomorrow and underway by 6 or so, and go a bit faster than the 5 knots that I used for those times. We will plan on being at Marina Cortez by 4 pm or thereabouts.
Other than the excitement this morning a very quiet day, with lots of wind. Reneé made cookies, pasta salad and Cole slaw. We also read our books, and listened to Christmas music.
No pics today
Well, you finally ran into Blair on Wind Drift. Good.
Yes, we had a pretty good talk, last night. But he probably told you that.