A pretty afternoon in Prickly Bay. Quite a few of my neighbors have left, so it's a clear view out to the ocean. The blues really pop when the sun is out.

Started talking with Robert in Annapolis and the owner of the catamaran about possible dates for the delivery. The current thought is that we'll leave sometime around the 11th, but it might be a bit earlier.

Finally bent the genoa back onto the furler and should have the main and mizzen up later today or tomorrow. Evening Ebb is starting to look like a sailboat again.



Aargh!!! I'd mentioned before that the MasterVolt 6 volt batteries, that I bought in October of 2012, didn't seem to be the same since I got back from the 2014 trip, but at least until Friday night, they'd been performing OK. Friday night as I got ready to take a shower, everything on the boat shut down. We'd had rain and clouds all day Thursday so very little solar charging and I'd run the engine for an hour and a half Thursday night. Then Friday was cloudy again and by Friday night the batteries were done.

I dive with an electrician, Simon Clay, who came over yesterday morning. After he tested them, the verdict was that the batteries are severely sulfated and only hold about 20% of their original capacity. He said that they'd had quite a few calls on Friday from boats that relied on solar charging and that my battery failure was probably due to the heat in the tropics. He said it's not unusual to see AGM batteries fail after two to three years in the tropics.

Of course then the problem was what to do. Simon suggested replacing the batteries with flooded six volt batteries since he felt there was no sense in spending the extra money for AGMs or Gel batteries. Plenty of shorter batteries available, but then I'd have to find a spot for two more batteries and it would probably involve building a battery box, so decided to order the large Trojan 435 amp-hour 6 volt batteries that will directly replace the 400 amp-hour 6 volt batteries that failed.



Budget should have them in around the 10th of April. Simon is loaning me a large battery that should tide me over in case we have some cloudy days.