What do you do all day?
08 August 2013 | More tangents - secret weapon next time (honest)
the uninitiated ask with tedious frequency. The finale to the battery saga answers this query in classic fashion.
Let's try a little thought experiment. Imagine the battery in your car has gone phut. At worst you'll have to cadge a lift or take the bus into work. Then you would go to your local automotive factor, the whereabouts of whom you already know, buy another battery from stock, fit it in your car et voila! - job done.
Compare and contrast with the domestic batteries on Birvidik going phut. Luckily, we can still start the engine as this is on a separate battery bank. Birvidik has more redundancies built into her than you'll find in a George Osborne wet dream. (I really must try and get that image out of my mind - makes me feel quite unwell.)
Apart from that though, we're in deep do-do. We can't run the engine 24/7 as it is (a) expensive, (b) antisocial, (c) likely to lead to expensive engine repairs, (d) bloody irritating and (e) ecologically unsound. Without batteries we are, when under sail or at anchor, unable to operate a lot of systems, among them navigation lights, anchor lights, autopilot, radar, radios, chartplotters, depth sounder, GPS, anchor drag alarm, domestic lighting, running fresh water, deck wash, shower pump-out, sewage pump-out, computers and weather forecasting.
All a bit limiting overall. We can cope without, but it's all rather primitive and wearing.
We are unable, though, to just nip down to our local automotive factor. Firstly because we don't have one, and secondly because a boat's domestic batteries are very very special, very very expensive and very very rare deep cycle batteries the likes of which are not often found kicking around in your local garage.
The first step was to run the engine to get enough power to access the internet and find out if there was an agent for deep cycle batteries in Croatia. There was - hurrah!
In Zagreb, miles away and well inland - Boo!
They did, however, have an email address, so I emailed them setting out our requirements. Impressively, their sales manager emailed back within a day to confirm that they had the necessary batteries in stock. He even emailed us a spec sheet for them and they appeared to be just the job. What was more he could, within a week, deliver them to Korcula, where the company had a distributor. We were on a completely different island but things were starting to look up. We set off the next day for Vela Luka, which is right at the other end of Korcula, but fitted in better with our overall plans.
'Piece of piss', we thought. 'We'll hire a car, drive the 45 kilometres to Korcula Town, pick up the batteries and Bob's your uncle. What could possibly go wrong?
Quite a lot, as it turns out.
The first problem was hiring a car. It was peak season and every hire car on the island was either out, reserved or broken. After several hours walking around town we managed to book the last available working hire car in the Balkans, and that was only available for two days.
We set off for the other end of the island. We had been assured that the batteries would be at the shop in Korcula town on the Tuesday, and indeed they were. I knew this because I could see them stacked up on the floor. Through the window. Of the locked door. Of the closed, dark, empty shop.
I consulted the opening hours on the door - 08:00 to 15:00. I consulted my watch - 11:45. "Perhaps he's just popped out for a minute" I suggested. "Let's go and grab some lunch and come back." We were back at 14:00. Still shut. Never mind, we still had the car for another day. We decided to come back the next day, and drove the 45 km back to Vela Luka.
I took the precaution of texting Miky at the shop and arranging a time on Wednesday morning. We set off back for Korcula. As there was nowhere to park outside the shop we parked in the nearest available place (half a mile away uphill) and walked down to the shop which was, surprisingly, open.
We unpacked the batteries and I examined them. It was at this point that I discovered that, contrary to the blandishments of the spec sheet, they did not have the same terminals as our old batteries. I pointed this out to Miky. He looked perplexed and shrugged. No problem, I thought, all we needed were new connectors to wire them in. "Give us 20 ring terminals to fit these then, and I'll crimp them on."
This shop sells batteries and electrical equipment of all shapes and sizes, with the sole exception it seems of battery connectors. For these we had to drive eight kilometres to Lumbada, which we duly did. Having found the shop, obtained said terminals and driven back to Korcula I tried to pay. "Where are the old batteries?" asked Miky. "What old batteries?"
It turned out that the price I had been quoted included a 25% discount for exchanging the old batteries. It would have been handy if they'd told me. Unless we wanted to pay 33% more than we were expecting, we had to drive back to Vela Luka, extract four old batteries, get them off the boat and into the car, and drive 45 K back to Korcula. It was now about half twelve. "I'll wait for you" said Miky.
We got back at ten past three. The shop was locked and in darkness. My bottom lip was beginning to tremble. Just as I was about to heave a brick through the window, Miky unlocked the door. We carted the 30kg monsters up the steps to the shop and I got out my debit card to pay. We were nearly there.
"Ah - problem" said Miky.
"What problem?" said I.
It transpired that the shop's IT system locked down at 15:00 every day and would not accept any more transactions until opening time the next day. "You can pay by cash" suggested Miky "and I'll put it through tomorrow". I explained that the bill for these batteries was nearly 800 quid and the Nationwide didn't trust me to take out more than 300 quid a day. My offer to give him the card details and pay over the phone was rejected as certain to incur the wrath of his boss who was strictly a 'No cash - no goods' sort of trader.
Miky said that there was no other way round it, I'd have to come back the next day, pay then and pick up the batteries. I pointed out that I had the Last Available Car in the Balkans and that it had to be back that evening. So he phoned his mate, who was a bus driver. His mate was driving the 06:30 Vela Luka to Korcula bus the next day, and was also driving the 10:30 Korcula to Vela Luka bus. I needed to get the 06:30.
Batteries are classified as hazardous goods and not allowed on buses, but it was agreed that between the three of us we would sneak four 30kg leviathans onto the bus without anyone noticing and the driver and I would then surreptitiously unload them in the middle of a busy bus station in Vela Luka. After that it was down to me to get them from the bus station to the boat. There didn't seem to be any alternative, so I agreed. This farce had got to the stage where the only rational response was not anger, but resigned hysterical laughter.
We drove the 45 k back to Vela Luka.
Luckily, we didn't have to go through with this ludicrous subterfuge. When we got back to Vela Luka I wheedled, begged, crawled and pleaded with the nice woman on the car hire shop and managed to negotiate an extra few hours the next morning.
So, the next morning we drove the 45 K back to Korcula, picked up the batteries, loaded them in the car and drove the 45 K back to Vela Luka, where we unloaded the batteries on the quay and returned the car.
All we had to do now was get the batteries onto the boat and wire them in. Getting them on the boat without dropping them in the water involved lowering them one at a time from the quay into the dinghy, rowing round the stern, then using the stern anchor tackle to lift them on to the stern platform and subsequently onto the aft deck. They were then manhandled along the side deck, into the cockpit and down the companionway steps into the saloon. This took about two, sweaty, hours.
Changing the connections and wiring the batteries in, then securing them took about four hours.
Et Voila! Job done.
What do we do all day?