Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Jeuve began with Jab Jab this morning at 5:30am. That’s not really true. It started about 10pm last night with music throughout the night with the start of the Jab Jab parade at 5:30am this morning. Jab Jab is a reference to the devil. Many are covered from head to toe in molasses or, more usually, used engine oil. Paint, many colours of it, is more usual.

We awoke at 4:45am, grabbed a coffee then headed off to the lagoon to catch the ‘beginning’ of the parade. The parade was the usual trucks with stacks of speakers followed by crowds of followers. It hadn’t started moving along the street when we arrived so we walked towards where the trucks were gathering.

In the dark the atmosphere was a little devilish but overall jovial. It was hard to avoid the paint as some was being thrown around and, more directly, folks in the street carrying cups of paint would smear it on us. It didn’t take long before we began to collect our own daubs.

We soon ran into Jim and walked down the road together back again to the start. We saw the tail end of the parade and the street behind in a mess. The parade was a judged competition so we made our way forward to where the judging was to take place as we figured that’s where the crowds would be most enthusiastic. I eventually concluded they weren’t really holding back at all and everyone was just enjoying themselves.

We watched all the lorries pass us by again and once the tail end had again passed we headed back to the dinghy.

We motored around to the Caranage to see how the procession was going. It was still in full swing snaking all the way around the bay.

Then it was back to the boat to clean up. We stripped off and jumped into the water to try and get rid of most of the paint. Then it was into the shower for more soaping and scrubbing. We still look a little pink and rosy on the cheeks despite our efforts.

Now we’ll rest up a bit before heading back into town. We want to see the pageant competition in the national stadium which starts at 1pm. We don’t have tickets for this so we hope to pick them up at the door or on the way. More later. For now, here are some pics of Jab Jab.

Another marathon day. I started work on the batteries at 6:30 in the morning and finally finished connecting everything up at 6 in the evening. I also included using the old solar panel cables to double up the connection from the batteries up to the control panel to improve efficiency there. I also changed three lugs down in the drive battery areas which needed tools on the boat to do. There are a few things still left to do. I need to put in some cable ties to stop some of the cables flapping around. We also need to build a box for the last two batteries. The ties I’ll probably do today but the box can wait. We need a rest.

During the day I had to go to Island Water World – the nearby marine store – for some additional parts. Even though the previous day they didn’t have the lugs I needed I asked again as I needed another seven. Turned out they had a box load all the time. All that walking around, drilling and filing the previous day was unnecessary. Oh well.

I had a horrible sinking feeling towards the end of the project. Everything powered up ok, it seemed, but when I changed to “Mode 3” which is supposed to fire up the generator, nothing happened. I checked everything I could. No lights were on the motherboard that controls the system. I had a horrible feeling I had screwed something up. Then I remember I had turned off the breakers to the drive batteries when working on them and hadn’t turned them back on. I turned them on and all was ok. Phew.

In the evening we had Jim round for curry. While he was here, Ricardo and his wife Jay turned up to collect the tools he’d lent me and collect the batteries I was giving up in the deal. They stayed awhile and, as he was an avid fisherman, we learned a few local tips. It seems mechanics is in their family. Ricardo is giving his two year old son a 2kW generator on the basis his father gave him one at the same age. That’s the first time I’ve heard of two year olds with their own generator AND it being a family tradition.

Dinner and company was great. Must rest today because we’ll be up late tonight watching the steel band competition.

Oh. And 1320Ah is now the total capacity of our house bank. It’s an insane amount. It just means we have the ability to absorb several battery failures without being adversely impacted. The down side is that it takes forever to fully charge them. I need to fully charge the system to reset the battery monitor. We didn’t succeed last night so we’ll try again this morning while doing another wash.