Back to the boat

We've been back to the boat in Majuro for a week now. First we slept a couple of days. The 21 hour trip took its toll on us.

We called Spike while we were in Honolulu and he picked us up at the airport and took us for a midnight snack at Denny's. We had a nice visit catching up on friends at both ends. He had a good stay in Fanning Island also and met some of the same people we knew.

The boat is OK, a lot of mildew to clean up but we are progressing. I got the new bilge pump hose installed and the TV and computer. They use more power than I had hoped, but about what it said. 7 amps on the inverter is about 75 watts, but when I get the wind generator hooked up, it should about break even. Oh yeah, I bought an Air Breeze wind generator this trip. I plan to mount it on the bow pulpit for now to see how it does. I may move it to the mizzen mast later. It should put out about 20 amps in a average wind here, 15-20 knots.

I was running the watermaker/generator and noticed the alternator sparking in the back. I thought that just the slip-rings were dirty and needed cleaning. We had watched two movies on the computer so the electric was down, so I decided to charge the batteries one more time before I took it apart to clean it.... oops! Big mistake number 13! About two hours into the charge, the alternator overheated and burned out! Now one more thing to fix.

We have started the sanding so we can continue re-varnishing the interior woodwork again.