Batteries & Pirates!

The photo above is of my main house battery bank which sits just at the base of the companionway stairs. Knowledgeable readers will notice that all the water filling ports (shown in this post) have disappeared!  

I'll try not to make this too long.  It relates to the CO detector issue... the CO detectors on Seas The Day have been alarming almost weekly since we started the season.  As I explained in other posts, we KNOW there is no CO on board, but during the weeks I have learned that they also alarm to hydrogen.  Hydrogen can be the result of a bad battery being charged - the water gets hydrolyzed into H2 and O2.

Anyway, it took a bit of deductive reasoning over the weeks (I never said I was fast), but with some specific gravity testing and a volt meter, I realized that the back battery had a bad cell.  The front battery (at the bottom above) was fine and the battery in the forward cabin was fine as well.  That all translates to it can't be the battery charger.  It must be a bad battery.  

I let the dealer know, fully expecting a "sure we'll replace that" since the boat was only a few months old when this issue started.  I got back a text... "Batteries don't really have a warranty unless the are bad right out of the box."

Really...

I was reading the battery warranty info on the web as that text came through.  I won't go into the specifics on the brand or their warranty but deep cycle batteries typically have a one-year warranty.

I immediately translated the dealer's statement to "I used up your battery's warranty powering the lights in the showroom and on the dock during the year I had your boat before selling it to you as new."

I could fight this... maybe even win and get a new battery for free (you might think that would be a given considering the price of the boat and the profit involved - not to mention future profit from selling a bigger boat.)  But with this dealer, and this time around we have been waiting months for simple things to get replaced when it's agreed that they are warranty items, and I was getting weekly calls from friends in nearby boats about the CO detectors.

So to make an even longer story short, I switched to researching AGM batteries which are a step up from the flooded lead acid batteries we had.  I dealt with Gratitude Marina and their service department which came up with a nice price to do the upgrade.  I had to replace all three because you should only have one type of battery on a boat and our charger could handle either (but not both).  They even re-programmed the battery charger for the new battery type.  So the time on my knees in prayer (praying that the blessed batteries behave themselves) on Sunday mornings just got a bit shorter.

 

Saturday

The batteries having been replaced Friday morning, and it being COVID summer, we decided to let the air clear for a bit and went down to Rock Hall Saturday morning.  Vicky, in her never ending quest for crabs, had found a seafood place a bit south of town that would sell her 3 steamed crabs (much better pricing than any of the restaurants in town).  So we located Chester River Seafood... picked up 3 crabs to take to the boat, and at last she was happy with the freshness.

(You know you're enjoying a meal when you begin to wear it.)

While we were eating, we encountered a group of pirates.  Rock Hall traditionally has a "Pirates and Wenches" party weekend which has been scaled back quite a bit due to COVID.  Still, we had a few dock mates taking part and I believe one of the boats at the far end of B-Dock won the decorating contest.

After eating, we headed out for a day of sailing.  The heat had finally died down and the wind picked up.  On our way out we encountered a pirate vessel heading into Swan Creek.

It was a nice relaxing day on the water.  Vicky mostly lounged on the cockpit bench while fielding the occasional email and texting with her goddaughter.  I practiced some "points of sail" to see how the self tacking jib handled on broad reaches (not very well, but not too bad either).  I was also able to take her through a couple of controlled jibes for the first time.  We were able to raise the sails on the way down to the #3 buoy and stayed mostly in that section - the far eastern part of the bay just off the wildlife refuge.

After several hours on the water, we headed back and it was my turn to cook.  It was getting late and we were both hungry.  We had packed light for the simple overnight trip and my task was to pull something together from the provisions on-board.  So since we had pulled pork and a big bag of mixed veggies in the freezer, I paired it with some Mac & Cheese (my former company used to make the cheese powder).

Armchair critics aside, it was a nice end to the day - especially when paired with a nice merlot.

Sunday

Two photos tell the story of Sunday morning.  Throughout the night we had been waking up to some sort of slapping noise - sort of a knock followed by 3 quick echos.  It was raining all morning, but once it got light out, I went above deck and couldn't find anything amiss.  I did see a huge bird across the way... I'm guessing it's an Osprey.  (Sorry... a friend from the slip-holders group said it was a Great Blue Heron.)

After a bit more lounging and reading in the bunk the noise returned... this time Vicky went above to look.  I heard the noise again and pulled back the shade on the hatch to let her know, but she had already moved on.  I found her with the boat hook fully extended trying to snag a line that had been in the rigging for quite a while.

I figured there was no way she was going to get it with that hook, but she was tenacious... and eventually she got it!

She came back below and was going to tell me she climbed up to get it, but I let her know I was watching.  As I showed her my vantage point I saw the Spinnaker Halyard rattling on the bowsprit at the same time we heard the noise - a simple tug on the line in the cockpit silenced it.

We ate lunch (she had the leftover pulled pork mac & cheese and I found a microwavable cheeseburger), took a nap then headed home.  We stopped back at the seafood place just in time to get some crabs to take to a friend's place for dinner Sunday evening.