Suspicions about our battery state and the meter readings required that we firstly must get the battery condition checked out by someone with what in Royal Signals terms used to be called a Mega Tester and secondly have the Battery Condition Meter, which has been giving some strange readings, looked at.  Elizabeth’s back has also been playing up and contact with someone who could find us an Osteopath locally would be an advantage.

All of this dictated a move from our anchorage at Cascais to the marina at Oeiras, all of 4nm to the east.

We got an excellent berth on arrival and the marina staff could not have been more helpful.  A technician arrived and, mega’d our batteries and showed them to be in good condition. A second technician checked out the wiring of the battery condition meter and found that somewhere along the line the electronics had lost their configuration, hence the erroneous readings – who felt somewhat silly not having checked the obvious? However this is all part of the learning curve.  An American, UK qualified Osteopath was found for Elizabeth, typically back in Cascais but only a short taxi ride.

We now have a good base for exploring Lisbon and catching up on boat admin.  There is also the very useful advantage that the marina offers a 50% discount to ARC participants which also explains why there are some eight ARC boats here at the moment.