Monday 9 December 2019

Bright sunny morning with clear skies to wake up to this morning. Barb got off in the first bus to Walmart for some shopping for the local toy drive collection and I got to work finishing off the wiring. We have decided that we will bring the boat I to the fuel dock the day before we leave to visit Louis and Bob to fuel up and to fill the water tank. We will also leave the engine running all that night to top up the batteries before we leave for the couple of days. Combine the topped up batteries and turning off the freezer we should be able to maintain the charge with the wind generator and the solar panels.

Yesterday, after the day's post, our friend Ken and I had a great iMessenger conversation about the right way to hook up the SSB to a power source and with his advice I have made up my mind. We have connected it to the lower 12V of the house bank. It will be a clean and reliable source of power that shouldn't be affected by noise from the other devices, nor will it be too much of a draw since the radio only pulls the high wattage on transmit and for the most part we will be listening. Thanks Ken.

By ten thirty I had the SSB connected to its new power supply and what a difference. Much less static. I was able to tune into the WWV and CHU time signals and programmed in Chris Parker's three frequencies. Now I am waiting to talk with Ken again to work through any more of the SSB magic that I need to know.

The most frustrating piece of my electrical projects to date remains the cockpit table floodlight. I have power out to the cockpit, right to the connections with the light. I have confirmed that I have 25V at that point. I have dismounted then light and taken it to the battery compartment and connected it directly to the battery's and confirmed that it works. But when I hook it up to the wires, which I emphasize I have already confirmed that I have power to, they don't work!

Shriek!

I have had it apart three times to prove and prove again each step of the power deliver and still...... Perhaps it just isn't to be. But, once again, later on the day, Ken suggested that I might have the voltage but if the connections somewhere along the line are suspect it might not be able to produce even the small amount of current that the LED needs. I need to check out all of the butt connections.

Barb came back from Walmart with a little Norfolk Island Pine so we how have three Christmas trees on the salon table. She also bought some toys for the toy drive that the marina is putting on next Saturday and some snacks for appetizers for tonight. The marina lays on the shuttle bus twice a day three times a week. We also found out that there was a movie night ashore last night with a free movie and pizza to all attendees. We will have to see what they choose to show next week. They sure make every effort to make this a community. Barb tells me that there are some complaints from the long time marina tenants that, since they put the coffee shop in and made that open to the public, there are a lot of non boaters that pop in and hang about. Especially during the day I can see this being vexing since the docks are open. We are on a mooring so gawkers can't get out to annoy us but the folks on the dock aren't so fortunate. Especially at the $2.95/ft rate you'd think you would have a right to a little privacy. At night the gates are locked and you need to be a guest here at the marina to have the code so at least at night they can feel confident that anyone in the dock at night has business being there.

Barb outdid herself with dinner for our friends from Carlinda - appetizers, jambalaya, and they brought a couple of deserts to round things off. Yummm! Plus they invited us to go with them to a beach when they rent a car later this week week so perhaps we'll even get in a swim.