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Ocean Rival Journey Log
Adam Power Diana Power
Thu 9 Mar 2023 09:56
More drama to report. The drain on the batteries from 2 deep anchor recoveries in a day and then leaving the bare windlass wires in the wet locker to leak more volts came back to bite when I tried to start the engine as the wind dropped yesterday evening to the sound of a pathetic buzz and no re-assuring chug of Perkins 50HP. We sailed on in very light winds overnight hoping for good sunshine in the morning to restore normal service. Our track on the chart looks like a plate of left over spaghetti as occasional lulls resulted in random loops.
In the morning the batteries were down to 11.5V and the sun up over the panels was producing no charge. I assumed I had killed the batteries stone dead and that they were refusing the offered charge from the panel. So with no email but with phone signal I got Esme to find the tel No of Capt Heebi, our agent, and phoned him asking if he could get a new battery sent out to us. We were approaching a largish looking town, Al Sudr, where I assumed a battery could be purchased and as we are not allowed ashore, a fisherman could bring it out to us.
Apparently Al Sudr is a resort town full of hotels but with no battery shops and Capt Heebi said he would investigate a boat to bring a battery from Suez some 30m away. That sounded very expensive so I made one more despairing check of the electric control panel and like magic plenty of charge was appearing and batteries back up to 12.5V. A turn of the starter key and the chug chug of engine produced biggest cheers the Red Sea has heard since Moses' trick. Phoned Capt'n Heebi to cancel all arrangements and now he expects us to arrive at Suez 5pm this afternoon.
We expect the Red Sea to have one more final trick up its sleeve to stop that happening so won't count our seagulls until we finally arrive.