You know, one might have believed that I would have been done with the installation of my lithium batteries by now, but the reality is that they still are waiting for the final install.
The simple reason is that I’ve been trying to plan as much as possible before moving ahead, and it seems to be a good thing. As I was measuring, calculating and measuring again it seems as if I might have been a bit optimistic about how much “head space” there is in the battery compartment. As I have calculated, I might have to raise the bunk about two to three centimeters to be able to fit the batteries properly.
The initial plan, that I had in Kinsale, was to have the battery cells lying on their side which would give me plenty of space to spare. Unfortunately that isn’t possible. Which I of course should have looked up at the time. I did look it up, but after I had ordered the cells. No big deal though, raising the bunk will be a matter of adding a few layers of plywood and I’m done.
As you might see in the picture above there is a mess today in the battery compartment. To be honest, I made the mess to the left when pulling the cables apart to find where they all go. But still, it is a mess.
The first thing I have to do is to move the old batteries out of the way, so that I can work in the battery compartment. While keeping everything connected at the end of every day. So I will have to go slow and make sure I don’t rip anything out before I know how to put it together again. As soon as the batteries are out and I have removed that black tub of a battery box I will be able to set the final dimensions of the new battery box that I will make from birch plywood as it is more rigid than normal plywood and hence I can use thinner material. The plan is to attach it to the hull with epoxy to make sure it won’t move, unlike the one that is there now.
I also got the welder this week! I will not start playing with it quite yet, but it is tempting. But as usual nothing goes silky smooth… For some reason Amazon believed that my account had been compromised and instead of trying to alert me about this they required me to change password, removed all my active orders and history – without even giving me a chance to stop it and not even reverting it when I asked them to!
Well, thank you Amazon!
But the good part is that all I have to do is to pack it all up again and send it back, no extra costs involved except some tape and paper. Oh, yeah, I have to get to El Ejido to return one of the packages, as it came by a curier that doesn’t have a local service point. Yay. But I have time to do that, so no worries.
I have one other long running issue too that I hope will reach a solution soon, I’ll get back to that as soon as it is done. All in all, some wind in my sails and some waves on the bow but it is all good, eventually I will get through this as well.
So, what else has happened? The Friday hike of course! Our guide-that-won’t-be-called-a-guide took us up high in the mountains this time. On our way up there we could see the snowy mountain tops of Sierra Nevada as it rained here for the first time since I arrived in August! Yes, rain! And snow! Totally crazy. I will have to set up a trip to the mountains this winter for some snowboarding for sure.
Anyway, this time I had an activity app running just because I’m curious, of course. We started just below 1300m and peaked just above 1600m, so we did quite a climb. Especially compared with the earlier that has been a bit lower and not as steep, but as a compensation it wasn’t that long. Normally we walk about 10 km, but this time it ended being no more than 4,5 km. One thing that is a little fun is that we sometimes find nuts and fruits on our walk. This time there was an abundance of chestnuts, but we also found almonds, walnuts and some apples. It was a great walk, especially since it began and ended in a beautiful little mountain village which reminded me a bit of the small villages you can find in Austria (probably in most mountains) with tiny houses, winding streets and small squares squeezed in among the houses.
The view when walking these hikes are really stunning and is never disappointing. Just having the mountains this close to the sea is fantastic, if you are one of the people in the marina I strongly advice you to tag along, it is a great relief from the boat work and a welcomed change of scenery. We meet every Friday in the parking lot in front of the golf hotel at 10 am.
Saturday is quiz evening in The Galley as well, last time the result was so-so, but this time we finally got some topics that fit us, so we landed a second place! Beaten with only one measly point… So, what we know now is that the ant is the living creature with largest brain compared to its weight and the monk that first came up with champagne was Dom Perignon, of course.
Maybe next time we can take that extra point and win, who knows!