There are multiple ways to describe to friends what cruising is all about. One of the best definitions is that cruising means working on your boat in exotic locations. Well, our exotic locations only include Anacortes and Bellingham so far but when we arrived at each location we found the boat work was there waiting for us. Amazing. How cool is that?
At Anacortes for example I had another look at the prop zinc. This is the little sacrificial piece that protects your propeller and drive shaft from electrolytic corrosion. I thought it looked okay but something was off. I had to mostly submerge in the chilly water to do the job but I’m glad I did. Plus I found out that after about 10 minutes in the water my hands and fingers don’t work so good.
Old one on the left, new one on the right.Lessons learned: 1) Objects in water may be smaller than they appear, and 2) when in doubt, swap it out.
Next project was done in Bellingham. After only one night living off the grid and despite using very few lights or other energy consumers our 8 year old batteries could barely turn over the engine. Uh-oh, could be a safety problem here. So, did my research, shopped the local marine supply stores and “pulled the trigger”. Marine AGM batteries are expensive little units ($300 each). Each 12 volt, 115 Amp Hour battery weighs 72 pounds so they must have a lot of stuff in there. We are now all set with our energy needs. All we need is some sun to keep them charged via our solar panels.
Here are the new batts, nice and cozy in their little box. I still need to clean up the wiring a little.
