Quick catch up on last couple of days. Monday was an all out maintenance day catching up on lot’s of small things which, added up, took all day. Among the things done were:
- Fixed the choke on the dinghy
- Mounted, registered & tested the EPIRB
- Installed remained of LED indoor lights
- Mounted Magic Jack phone
- Drained water from fuel filter
- Oiled all the hinges and door mechanisms on the boat
- Voltage and hydrometer tested all 12 drive batteries
- Finally tidied up all my rubbish and stuff lying around
I didn’t get round to plugging the hole in or cleaning the dinghy.
Today started with Yoga hosted by Devi from Arctic Tern at Clarke’s Court Marina. The session was an hour long and included a variety of positions, some strenuous, some very relaxing. We both ended up feeling quite relaxed. The session reminded me of some of our karate warm ups back in the UK (10 years ago!!!!). I kept thinking we’ll be doing a ton of press ups or a couple of hundred kicks next.
The hydrometer checks yesterday revealed some cells reading too low. Usually this means the sulphuric acid has sulphated onto the plates which can only be reversed by equalizing the batteries. This means charging them in isolation at 15.5V. The drive battery charger doesn’t do this so today’s mission was to find a charger on the island that did. Jim from Bees Knees accompanied me as he was looking for something similar. I was reasonably hopeful as one of the stores I called in the morning said they had one. So it was a matter of walking all around St George’s looking into various stores.
In the end we came up a big zero on the charger. Even the store that said they had what I was looking for didn’t. The day wasn’t a complete waste of time as I picked up some materials to beef up and expand the number of hand lines I have aboard. I also bought some additional leader wire and crimps to attach to the lures I bought in NJ. Best of all I learned that Island Water World will equalize batteries for you for free. If it turns out they’re not ok at the end of a nights charging they’ll gladly sell you a replacement.
Back on the boat I upgraded my two old hand lines giving them better bungees and I made up a further two hand lines. I also put leaders onto all the lures I bought in NJ.
So all this dictates our next few days. Tomorrow morning we’ll motor back to Prickly Bay. During the day we’re off to the wholesalers to pick up beer and Ting’s (a local lime/grapefruit concoction I’m getting addicted to) and more food. Tomorrow evening we’re off turtle watching. On Thursday we’ll move the boat to St George’s so we can offload the batteries to Island Water World for charging. This may take us to Saturday where we will go on the moonlight Hash. With a bit of luck we’ll be heading north by Sunday or Monday with four lines out catching fish all the way.
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