The weather front is still passing through, with deep clouds and frequent rain showers coming down from above. This weather makes it easier to stay at the dock, particularly since the air conditioning is working enough to keep the boat dry and cool below decks. I spent much of the morning working on the computer with my Arduino programming project for the refrigeration system and the marina’s internet is still not working so I wasn’t able to connect to the world at large. I did take a walk to the bakery and was surprised to find that the local grocery store was open for business, so I popped in there and got some additional water to take back to the boat.
The two solar panels attached to the forward deck see a lot of sun (obviously) and get a lot of sea salt spray on them and they both were getting a bit opaque. Since the cleaning compound and the sealing solution both demand to be applied out of direct sunlight this was the perfect opportunity to do this work and I lifted up the dinghy so that I could access the panels. After a lot of elbow grease with the light gelcoat polishing compound and some cloths, which used to be my old T-shirts, I had the panels looking far healthier with a glossy covering and the topcoat liquid for solar panels gave them a nice finish and will protect them from the salt water for a while.
I went back to my refrigeration project after that bit of physical labour and found that the sparse documentation on the communication protocol was missing key components and others were incorrect and this kept me occupied all afternoon. But I think I’ve got it all sorted out now and can soon publish the results on GitHub as an open source library; but I’ve still got an issue when trying to connect more than one device at a time. It seems that I’ve got some more reading to do regarding the SoftwareSerial library and pin change interrupts.
Happy hour meant that I had another rag in my hand and worked on the clear plastic sections of the dodger from both the inside and the outside to restore clear vision forward. Rather than go ashore for dinner tonight I made a simple meal with the ingredients from yesterday’s shopping and then watched an episode of “Person of Interest” and read my book for a bit before falling asleep far too early.
