Really early
I’d gone to bed early last night as I was tired from the battery work. But that meant that I woke too early, long before sunrise. Instead of trying to get to sleep again, I made my first coffee of the day and started catching up on my blog web pages. I’m several days behind and am already forgetting the details from each day.
Morning
I am most certainly in the channel on about half my swing. Whenever there’s an inbound or outbound bridge opening I go topsides and twice I’ve motored forward a bit to give the “big boys” like Serendipity and Asahi some room. Since I need to move soon I got out my portable depth sounder and checked out parts of the anchorage that looked suitable. The one spot I found was 10-12 feet deep, which should give me at least a foot to spare regardless of swinging or tide.
I finally got ready to go and fired up the instruments and tied off the dinghy. When I started raising the anchor I saw some markings on the chain. I checked my cheat sheet and was surprised to see that I’d let out 150 feet of chain. Since the water is only about 20 feet deep here, that is much more chain than necessary. I shortened the chain by 50 feet and now have 5:1 scope. That is enough, particularly as the winds are going to be light for the next couple of days.
Noon
I’ve got the batteries charging so that I can set up the Xantrex battery monitor for the new battery type and sizes. The charge amperage tapers off after 90% charge, and the last 10% takes a very long time. But without my generator I have to use the main engine for this. Right now it is 11:45 and the charging rate is down to 18A, and when it finally reaches 14A (2% of battery capacity) then the Xantrex will consider the batteries to be fully charged and will automatically synchronize. I’ve got the new bank tied down already, after vacuuming and cleaning the bilge area. Next task is putting in the copper bus bars on the other bank and then tying those down as well.
Afternoon
I dinghied ashore to get rid of the collected boxes and garbage, then walked to Garden Market to do some shopping. I had forgotten that the supermarket caters to tourists and the pricing is quite a bit higher than elsewhere. Tomorrow or Monday I’ll head in to Carrefour and do some real provisioning.
Later
I had two happy hour drinks ashore at the SMYC and Soggy Dollar respectively and then had a mutton Korma dish at Bombay Bites. Back aboard I read for a while and then put in the earplugs due to the loud live show at the Soggy Dollar.