Rodney Bay

Wind Charger
Bob and Elizabeth Frearson
Mon 14 Jan 2013 22:35
Indeed the electrician did come at 11:30am which is really not too bad for the promised “mid-morning” Caribbean time.  Bob had already been to the Marina Office to sort out our unexpected stay, the bank to top up with dollars, which he wasn’t able to do because the Bank had suddenly decided that it could only change Caribbean dollars to US dollars unlike just a few months ago, delivered an enormous pile of laundry to Mr Suds and put the gas canister in for a refill.
The electrician, Chris, turned out to be very knowledgeable and even baffled Bob with his profound findings.  The bow thruster battery was completely kaput and Chris couldn’t even get a glimmer of a reading from it, a first in his career, and it was summarily replaced with a less volcanic and lethal version which appears to work and hopefully won’t try and poison us all again.  The problem with the generator transpired to be that a capacitor had failed, a clearly unfit for purpose one fitted by Caesar in the Cape Verdes, it was failing to excite some winding apparently, whatever that might mean.  The verdict on the main bank of batteries was that they were just slowly dying and needed replacement.  My contribution to the whole scenario was buying bicarbonate of soda to neutralise the acid spillage that was quietly festering in the forward sail locker before it ate its way through the bottom of the boat.
Mr Suds turned up at 5pm, not too bad for the promised “mid afternoon” Caribbean time, to deliver the laundry and we are all set to head south tomorrow.  We are going to try and make it to Mustique, if the wind is in the right direction, via St Vincent.  We will see where the wind takes us.