So, despite the stories of beautiful anchorages, sunsets and dancing dolphins--the story wouldn't quite be complete without the other side of the coin.
After all, it's a boat. And shit goes wrong on a boat.
In this case, it happened to be the battery bank. The actual full diagnosis and solution is still up in the air, but however, with 4 house batteries and a start battery, we managed to go dead the first day. Voltage went skydiving and in one of the most inopportune moments--the chartplotter does also.
Did I mention we were in skinny water...with coral heads?
So for the rest of the way down, massive attempts of diagnosing the voltage drain ensue. At this point, all we know is yep, it's happening.
At this point, Spouse has concern that maybe the alternator/AGM batteries/Yanmar are not quite synching properly.
He wound up removing two batteries that were definitely shooting craps on the voltometer, which created a bit of joy for HemiD to not have to list to port so bad.
So, I feel sorry for my 12 Volt Man, he work so hard and to have his hard work start acting up is quite disconcerting. One amusing moment was that Ten Second Tim and his lack of short term memory seemed to gloss over the fact that we hadn't had this problem before.
Guess who's the databank in this family?
The boat isn't in danger, thankfully, however, it's not a good scenario for when we want to do a passage, whether it be to Dry Tortugas or Bahamas. Dry Tortugas would particularly suck because there's not what you call boat friendly facilities there, the National Parks would have to give us a jump start and most likely not be amused.
So, there'll be an update soon. Tim has a work trip to Miami soon, so he's adding on a few days to work on the voltage problem.
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