Sunday January 8th, 2016
The cold front went through last evening and the change in the temperature was dramatic. It was comfortably in the 70s yesterday. This morning it was 53f in the cockpit. It is so cold here that the local flasher is describing himself to people.
Exacerbating this frigid weather is the wind and the wind chill. Last night we maintained the batteries with the wind generator only. When it is this cold the refrigeration doesn’t run as much but it is still significant that my little wind generator could keep up. That means the wind was 20 kts gusting 30 all night. The wind chill makes it equivalent to about 43°f or 6°c. ML is still in bed and at this temperature I may not see her today. Who will make my lunch?
Yesterday I finished the install of the two L16H AC batteries. Those suckers are heavy and it was a major task to get the batteries from the rental Hyundai Accent to the $28.99 cart I purchased at Home Depot specific to this job. The cart was almost bigger than the Hyundai Accent. We used the main boom to hoist them to the cockpit and then again to lower them into the cabin. Five hundred pounds of new batteries now live on Fracas at about a boat buck.
The battery guy was telling me that my next batteries will be Lithium and only weigh a fraction of the weight. I hope that they do not spontaneously combust like I think they are doing at the moment. I can’t stop picturing 500 Samsung Note 7s bundled together into a boat battery… Tabernac!
As I mentioned, we flew through Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday and rented a car at Enterprise. I like Enterprise and would recommend them but there are some issues. The young guy at Lauderdale put us in the wrong size car. I rented an intermediate car and was put in a compact car. It was red and a nice looking little car. As I have mentioned in the past (other than a stint with Honda) I am a GM guy and likely always will be (provided Ron gets our doors fixed). The Hyundai was fine and this mini rant has nothing to do with the little red car.
We wanted to extend the rental for a couple of more days. I started by calling the local office (where we are to drop the car), Anthony said he had a couple of clients ahead and would call back. Thirty minutes later no call back. I called the Fort Lauderdale office and was on hold for 20 minutes. Now out of time and up against a late drop off of the car I had to go. I couldn’t connect with Anthony at the office so the preppy dude who caught me caught the tune up. He said he would fix it I said “NO the car is being returned, I will ride my circus bike if I need to travel”.
He asked me where I needed to be dropped off, I told him Sunset Bay marina. The nice young lady who was driving me back started out on a strange route. We crossed the railway tracks and I had to ask “Where are you taking me”? I was afraid that Enterprise was taking me out to the middle or near the middle of nowhere and ending their trouble with me. Turns out it was a miscommunication…her boss told her to take me to Loggerhead not Sunset. I told her about my morning with Enterprise, then she started dumping her troubles with Enterprise on me…Sister Mary Francis I hate people who always complain…