It's good to be home, even with all of the work ahead of us.

Lightening strike replacement equipment took up the lion share of our luggage coming back; the list of items to be replaced has already been documented in previous posts so I won't repeat it here. With 5 checked bags (@ 50-70 lbs ea), 2 rolling carry-ons (40-50 lbs ea) and our personal bags, we splurged on private transportation (mini-van) to transport us directly from GUA to the Fronteras town dock where we took a lancha directly to Vida Dulce's dock at the marina. Car cost Q1,300, roughly US $175; lancha Q100. Expensive but it saves us the cost of the hotel room, a wasted afternoon (flight landed at noon) and the hassle of getting all of this in taxis (likely 2) from the hotel to the Guate City bus terminal, then from the Fronteras bus station to the town dock several blocks away on rough surfaces, then into a lancha for the trip to the marina, and then lifted from the launch to the dock once there (and all of those associated costs). The mini-van trip was also slightly faster at 6 hrs than the bus as we didn't need to stop at the many small town bus stations along the way. And all this luggage does not complete the needed items list. What cannot be flown in, we ocean-freight shipped in. That takes about a month, weather permitting.

Speaking of replacements ocean-freighted here, we're always looking for ways to improve Vida Dulce's systems, performance and monitoring. To that end, Jerry will be testing a LiFePO4 (Lithium Ferrous Phosphate) battery bank and of course designing & building the battery management system since lithium batteries are rather finicky and troublesome when not handled correctly. I should note here that this lithium technology is not the same as the exploding battery ones; those are lithium ion. If this battery bank performs as expected, we'll replace the remaining AGM batteries over time.

We estimate a couple of months of work including the haul-out for bottom paint, depth / speed indicator and sail-drive seal replacement before we're ready to start the cruising season. Which means holidays in the Rio Dulce.