We spent a glorious month up in the frozen north of Canada, and arrived back in Escondido, to a battery bank that said 10.5!! EEks, Now I know very little about batteries, but even to me that sounds pretty horrible. Considering that we have 4 large solar panels as well as a wind generator, I must admit that I was puzzled, but batteries aren't my strong suit so I didn't pay too much attention when we were leaving for the north. But according to Gary, we, and I repeat he did say WE, left the engine room light on, (obviously my favorite place to hang out!) which caused a drain, because he had turned off most of the solar stuff so that it didn't overcharge the batteries while we were gone. Well, that wasn't a big success, but Gary was hoping that he could do a revival, and get them back up.

Well, on the trip down from Escondido to La Paz, we found that altho we could charge them, they wouldn't hold a charge, Since we didn't have any wind at all and had to motor, that wasn't a big problem, just go to bed when the sun comes down, at this time of the year that is around 7ish, so we got lots of sleep.

We are now the recipients of 4 new golf cart batteries, only 4 out of our 8 house batteries had to be replaced, they were the oldest, and Lopez Marine gave us a great price on them, so as soon as all this thing Gary calls "equalizing" is finished, we should have lots of power to run the microwave again.

What is "equalizing"?? Who knows, it has been explained to me a bunch of times, but to me it means,-- only running on one set of batteries, and conserving electricity!!

Until next time, Keep the shiny side up!