1/26/15
Coconut Grove FL
Posted by Bill

We spent most of the day yesterday researching batteries, where to get batteries, following up with Walmart about the bad batteries, and researching a place to rent a car. In my research, and contrary to what my Battery Minder Smart Charger said, it looked like we might be best to try and equalize the batteries. Wet cell batteries build up a coating on the plates over a period of time that rob the battery of efficiency. This is called sulfating. Equalizing is a process of applying a high voltage charge over a long period of time, usually 4 to 8 hours, that causes the battery solution to bubble and break up the coating on the plates. In our boat you can only do this connected to shore power. We have our Honda generator, which is sufficient to provide shore power, so I topped the batteries off and filled up the generator. I hit the buttons on the Link 2000 panel (which controls the charger) to engage the equalization process, and nothing…it still stays in float charge mode. After 4 additional attempts, and a waiting period of about 30 minutes each time to see if the voltage starts to move up, I gave up. I researched why this could be failing and it points to the cable that goes between the Link and the charger. I have a spare! It is in the inventory list! Too bad the storage location is not filled out. So begins the mad search through all of the storage lockers on the boat. Hours later, we have still not located the spare cable, but…the batteries have been charging all most all afternoon, which may be helpful.

Finally we decided to go ashore and get a shower and something to eat, but after a shower we decided to stay on the boat for the sunset. Good move…we had the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen.

The batteries held up better last night, so we are going to keep up our charging routine and push to Marathon so we can use shore power to do some more testing before we buy something else. The weather looks pretty good for a run to Marathon Tuesday and Wednesday, just a little windy to start the trip out, but out of the northwest which is great. We are planning to leave just before dawn tomorrow. Marathon is a 2 day trip. The first stop is a small key off of Key Largo called Rodriguez Key. We’ll try to anchor south of it (see the blue arrow in the map below), and should have great protection from the north-northwest wind.

The next day we go to Marathon and will be at a private marina called Harbour Cay Club (see the arrow in the map below).

I know…I know, the arrows look like a 1 year old drew them, but the wind is blowing 25-30 knots right now and the boat is being thrown about like crazy. Good thing we delayed our trip south for a couple of days!