We have been monitoring the batteries closely since Fiji. The house bank consists of 6 x 115ah AC Delco S2000 sealed flooded lead acid no maintenance batteries. We have a seventh as our starter battery. I love the sealed-no maintenance bit. They have nice little hydrometers that you can inspect visually and have been good batteries so far. Unfortunatly they have lost enough capacity over the past three years that we are having to charge them too often now to keep them up.

I began detailed inspection of the batteries to determine whether we should live with the lower capacity or start looking for a new set. I realized that these batteries are 115ah rated at 100 hours. Most batteries are rated at a 5 or 20 hour discharge rate. A 115 ah battery at a 100 hour rate (it fully discharges 115ah in 100 hours) is probably only going to rate 95 ah at a 20 hour discharge rate.

I was skeptical as to whether we would find anything in Vanuatu or the Solomons. After that it only gets worse for us until Guam or Singapore (PNG, Pohnpei, Truk...). As I looked around town I ran across Van Global, an alternative energy shop. I was shocked. They had 12 high end Tojan Deep cycles. They were the exact right size to fit my battery box and they were rated at 115 amp hours C20.

I was shocked a second time when they told me the price was 38,000 each (about $380 USD). I spent the entire day trying to get customs to let me buy them duty free. The Duty with Vat is about 35%. They would but only if I ordered them and had them shipped in. I tried seeing if I could order them and just take the ones in stock. No would be the concise answer.

Back at Van Global I was torn. Pay a mint for good batteries now (perhaps my only opportunity for some time) or limp along with the exiting S2000s (which should have probably lasted another 3 years had we not had charging problems early in the boat's life). Shipping batteries (which weight about 70 pounds each) is not cheap. I certainly would not have chosen batteries that need maintenance given a selection. I try to do as much cruising and as little maintenance as possible while still keeping the boat in top order. Like Mic says, You can't always get what you want...

After vacillating back and forth for an hour or so I bought the Trojans. I will report in as we live with them. It took a good four hours to install them. This is largely because we had a lot of clean up work to do on the battery terminals. They weren't heavily corroded but there was a little bit of corrosion on a couple of cables. The big problem was that the connecting cables had some divots and ridges that kept them from lying totally flat against the adjacent conductor. Not good. It took a bit of filing to get a perfectly clean and flat connection. This is a place the factory could improve.

We did the change out at night to avoid issues with he solar charger. I received a manual for the solar charger with the boat but it is in German. I just downloaded an English copy but haven't had time to read it over yet. My task list is long at the moment.

Before I accepted the batteries I checked their state of charge. I took the best seven and all but one were over 12.6 volts. The shop received them less than a month back. You really have to watch batteries on the shelf too long. Very few shops charge them up and keep the electrolyte topped up. It is easy to buy a great battery that has been ruined from sulfation after sitting unattended for 6 months. These were all low on water but none were near plate exposure (a non starter...). It took me about three liters of distilled water and a good hour to get all 42 cells filled up.

I took a break from battery recon mid day with the girls at the French Cafe, Au Peche Mignon. They have great pastries and coffee here. They also made me a great milkshake (hard to find in the tropics).

We took a run around the harbor to check out the boat yard afterwords. The boatyard has a nice gradual slipway but not a lot of space. I'm not sure that they could haul us if we needed to come out but maybe. the place was packed though and not real well staffed (you would need to track someone down to arrange a haul).

While we were there a lot of locals were hanging around the beach. The kids here are real entertainers and did their best to get a laugh out of us. We are really enjoying Vanuatu.