Friday morning
As the day was cloudy and somewhat rainy, working inside the boat and on the computer wasn’t as much of a chore as it could have been had the weather been nicer. Nonetheless, the workday seemed to take inordinately long.
Noon
During the lunch break I zipped ashore and got some mounting hardware at Ace and then a nice Victron 100v/20A MPPT solar charger at Electec. I have some older MPPT chargers, but the Victron system has built-in Bluetooth technology that makes monitoring easy on both the computer and smartphones. I hooked up two panels on the dodger and at first it wouldn’t charge, but then I realized that the Victron devices needed a voltage on the solar panel side that exceeded the battery charge voltage, which the old chargers didn’t. Once I’d switched from the two panels in parallel to having them run in series the device immediately started pushing power into the battery bank. Not much, as the 2x 125W panels are somewhat aged, and not performing close to the rated output power.
Later
I waited between showers and went ashore again, this time for another controller and to purchase the 2x 175W solar panels that I’ll be mounting on the cabin deck tomorrow. While buying the controller at Electec the rains set in with a vengeance and I waited in the store for about 10 minutes until the heaving downpour had passed, then made it to Island Waterworld to purchase the panels. While paying for the panels a set of showers passed through, but I made it back to Zanshin with my panels and T-shirt remaining relatively dry.
Even Later
The happy hour crowd on Friday was boisterous, with lots of dogs present. Occasionally they’d get fired up and bark, but otherwise they were a lot quieter than their owners. What is very noticeable here in St. Martin is that many more smoke than elsewhere.
I think it is partially due to how cheap tobacco is compared to pretty much every else that I’ve been to in recent years. After the happy hour ended at 19:00, I walked across the street to Little Jerusalen for a different menu item based on potatoes – but just like their Shawarma it contained copious amounts of garlic.