Sunrise
I’d gotten a good night’s worth of sleep and was up and about around 6AM. Work at the office proceeded as usual, but Fridays are always slow as many either take the day off or leave the office early, and due to the time difference, that means by the time I login many of my colleagues have already logged off.
It is past 9AM and the solar panels are already hard at work. The online display at Victron’s VRM-Portal is fun to watch in real-time (now that I no longer have to pay for each byte of transferred data). I’ve made coffee with my electric kettle twice so far and I hadn’t realized that the reason the water boils so quickly is that the electric heater uses 1000W of power! I can’t wait to get the new solar panels installed once they arrive. According to UPS they are still in California after 5 days although delivery in Florida is supposed to be on Monday – so I hope that they just haven’t updated the location in several days.
Noon to happy hour
I realized that I’d installed the measurement shunt for the Victron monitor in a location which didn’t account for all the power. I think that the second battery bank has an additional negative cable going to the common ground but couldn’t locate it. Both the consumption and charging numbers were about 50% off. I’d not located the shunt for the old Xantrex after all, that was a big fuse rather than a shunt, but it did have wires running to the Xantrex – hence my mistaken identification. I located the old Xantrex shunt and spent some time contorted underneath the navigation station in removing it and replacing it with the Victron one. Not only did I get it installed, but managed to consume some of my bandages before they met their use-by date.
But the additional battery temperature gauge was a whole different matter. The cable to attach it (which also works as a power supply) was about 5mm too short. I finally gave up at about 18:00 and showered, shaved and changed my bandages to go ashore.
Ashore
Happy Hour was in full swing when I arrived, and getting to the front of the bar in order to get a drink wasn’t easy. The cruisers were out in force, along with their dogs. But after Happy Hour they would drift off and the stage would be ready for music. The big “Welcome to the Jungle” electronic music show was scheduled to start at 20:00 and I knew it was going to be loud judging by the speakers and type of music. I had a meal at Little Jerusalem and only finished half, then returned to the boat.
