So this weekend I went up and, well... waited. Well, for a lot of things - water, dryness, charging, to name a few.
I arrived Saturday around 11 AM, and upon entering, I could hear this constant high-pitched tone. Weird, that's the noise my power inverter makes at low voltage. So, I pulled up my Victron bluetooth app to check my batteries. Bring on the collective gasp - 5 volts. Have you gasped yet? For the uninformed, I have a 12v battery bank. And with batteries of such, in order to maximize (or - NOT KILL) your batteries, the recommendation is to not drop below a 50% state of charge. And I most certainly dropped. I was confused, VERY confused, when I saw the readout. That is, until I glanced up and realized that I had left my bilge pump in full running mode. For two weeks. We can get into the fact that it's wired wrong at any other point in time.
I have a 100 watt solar panel that did it's damnedest but after three days straight, judging my the history graph, it just couldn't take any more. I did my best to position it better throughout the days to maximize capture, and was getting about 85 watts most of the time. It did put a big damper in my wanting to use my laptop at night though. I don't have access to power where I'm on the hard, so I've always relied on the batteries, and never usually have a problem, but when you obliterate your battery with a constant drain, well, there's only so much you can expect. I even went so far as to hook up my emergency jump pack from my car to the bank just so I could power up the inverter long enough for about a half hour online. I gave up.
So what else to do, while waiting. I walked around the beach a few times, and watched the travel lift get stuck trying to retrieve a boat from it's stands to launch. This makes me less hopeful for my own prospects. I'd like to think where I am is a little more hardpacked than the grassy area of this other one, but it's still disheartening. I then decided to re-mount my fishfinder which is basically my depth reading, and that's it, onto a swing arm in the cabin so that I can move it in and out and not have it outside all the time. It isn't that it's not weatherproof, it is. But the area in which it was mounted, was in dire need of repair. There was an old regular piece of thin plywood that was just caulked into place to cover old instrument holes, and it all just needs help. So by removing it, it frees me up to eventually fix that. Last time up, I did glass over the inside of the holes, and this time, I started filling them with thickened epoxy. A little more to go and I can sand, fair, and paint that area and finally make it less awful looking. But regardless, I mounted the fish finder in the cabin on a swing arm, and fed the wire out the little access board I have. Should I mention that I wish I had brought a saw with me?
I also mounted a little voltage meter I ordered off Amazon for a few dollars. I'd prefer something fancier but it would really be overkill for what I use, and the money spent on one would be almost enough to effectively double my battery bank and another solar panel. And that is definitely planned for this summer.
I put a couple coats of Urethane on the table. And waited. That was all my weekend was, really. Oh, Sunday morning I got up and pulled the floor of my GL apart to see if I had water ingress. Nope. A story for another post, but it was something to pass the time with. And at the end of Sunday afternoon, still no water beneath the hull, and only a 75% battery bank by that point. I called it quits and headed home.
And 45 minutes later, turned back around to come close the hatch that I forgot to take care of when I left. Oops.
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