I charged up the battery, but didn't have a chance to get back to the boat until last Wednesday. I had kept the battery in the garage and then my car until then. When I went to take it out of the car at the marina, I saw that it had toppled over and spilled acid. There was a nice pool of acid under the battery that had dissolved the carpet cover of the cargo mat. My University of Paris sweatshirt was also in the pool, as was the London umbrella. I tossed the sweatshirt and umbrella in the dumpster. I tried to save the cargo mat, but rinsing the acid off just created an even uglier mess. Into the dumpster with that. My good canvas boat bag was also in the pool, so I emptied that. And the Cruising World tote was also at the edge of the pool, but I didn't think it was touched. I found out when I got home that it had been, so into the garbage with that. I did wash the boat bag (twice), but the acid stain wouldn't come out, although it wasn't damaged.

I refilled the battery with distilled water and recharged it. According to the charger, it was fully charged (although some pundits from Sailnet dispute how long it will last). I reinstalled the battery again yesterday when Patti and I went for an evening sail. Plenty of juice to start the engine and run the chartplotter, although it turned out that we weren't out for very long.

I put in a reef at the dock because Patti didn't want to heel, and we only rolled out part of the genny. Although the winds were dying down as we went along, they were still about 10+ knots. With the reduced sail, we were only making about 2-3 knots, but the further we went out, the bigger the waves got. Patti got a bit nervous, so we turned around and came back. We were probably sailing for about a half hour or so. The night was still beautiful, with temps in the high 70's, and pretty low humidity. We went to Dockside for dinner, sitting outside. Very nice time.