by KC2RIY, on July 30th, 2010 (
Kamaya, Society Islands)
I decided that yesterday was a good time to rotate the batteries. The plan was to take all twelve golf cart batteries from the house bank and switch them with six from each bank of twelve drive batteries. The overall goal is to level out and average the usage across all the batteries over a period of three years. We’re having no issues with the system and we want to keep it that way.
At the same time I wanted to complete the topping up exercise started a month ago. Therefore the first order of the day was to manufacture more battery water by rerunning product water back through the water maker to get water at around 3-4 parts per million. This was not without mishap. One of the steps involved in doing this is to remove the tube going into our fresh water tank and use it to fill the bottles destined to contain battery water. Normally I remove the rubber seal from the end of the tube to avoid losing it. This time I forgot to do this. Half way through the exercise I saw the rubber ring ping off the end of the tube. I thought it had dropped under the water tank where it would be difficult to find. I was very angry at myself for this.
When I’d made enough water to fill one bottle I switch over collection bottles. Placing the full bottle down I accidentally placed it on top of something else and it tipped over. Reaching over to stop losing the battery water every where I dropped the output tube. When I picked it up again I saw it tipping water over the rubber ring that had not, after all, fallen in the bilge but landed on top of the water tank. Only problem was now was that the water coming from the output tube washed the ring into the bilge. I was doubly angry at myself.
Once two gallons of battery water had been made up we switched off the water maker and I set about finding the ring. It had made it into the bilge but not where I could reach it. I managed to move it into the deeper water by the pump and then reach down to retrieve it. Seconds after I had it in my fingers the bilge pump went off. Had it gone off before it would have sucked up the ring and pumped it out to sea. I would not have been a happy bunny if that had happened.
Fortunately, after that there were no mishaps. We transferred the batteries in stages minimising downtime to the system. I first isolated six of the house batteries which meant the house supply was off for a minute or two. These were all removed. We cleaned all the anti corrosion gunk off the nuts, washers and terminals and sanded the battery terminals clean. We topped up the batteries with water and cleaned them off. Next we swapped them with six batteries from the port bank similarly cleaning all the pieced and topping them off. Then the batteries from the port bank were put in the house. The whole process was repeated for the final six house batteries and six from the starboard drive bank. Along the way we marked all the batteries so we’d know next time which came from where.
By the end of this all Ben and I each had a very stiff back from all the lugging and bending over. We creaked like old men.
We’d already had sandwiches along the way so we quickly fired up the generator and motored into the next anchorage. We had enough power to go in on batteries and head sail but I wanted to stir them up after the addition of more water. Everything looked good. We ended up anchored near Kamaya and Victoria near the town of Haamene.
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Soon after arriving Tim and Ruth passed us by and let us know that the locals were playing the finals in some five aside football nearby and that it seemed a lot of fun. We were planning to go ashore any way and were soon on our way in. We went up to the enclosure in which they were playing but the place was packed and crowds were round the two doors in so it was hard to see. There was a lot of cheering and shouting so there was indeed a good atmosphere inside. Outside they were setting up food stalls presumably for the end of game and down the road was a roadside food stall similar to the ones on Huahine. After the hard work of the day Ben and I were drawn to the smells. After a quick walk around the town we caved in and bought a beer each and order a chow mein each. The portions turned out to be huge and too much to eat. We ate what we could before leaving the rest.
Back on the boat we watched the movie Alice in Wonderland together. Ben and I were not too tired so we watched Naked Gun together before we retired.
Incidentally, it has been mentioned that the Tahitian’s use a lot of vowels in their place names. We saw one road sign today that beat them all. Bearing in mind we’re on the island of Taha’a, the sign we saw was to the town/village of Faaaha. We think they must have been named by someone visiting the dentist.