When you sail from Norway to Las Palmas you are usually in port charging your batteries - or at least have a stop giving your autopilot a rest.... After 2 days at sea we saw that our new batteries did not serve enough power to serve our usage - espesially when having cloudy weather and using a the autopilot a lot. We also saw how much our fridge suddenly used when the weather got warmer. We do have solarpanels, but guess what - it does not work very well without the sun xD
We have a couple of ways to charge the batteries:
1. Solarpanels
2. Generator
3. Motor
We have the couple of days used the generator that generates a lot of power - but can you figure out what is the problem with a generator on a boat?
Yes - tailwind blowing the exhaust from the generator into the boat. The second problem with the generator was the waves making the fuel moving making the sensors in the generator go a bit wild.. What to do now?
A small amount of power from the solarpanels and some power from the generator. What about the motor? Yes - there is a problem with that one as well. In our boat we have an autoprop and starting the engine without setting the propellar in gear makes slows us down with 1-2 knots! This is a regatta - we cannot spare 1-2 knots of our speed towards St. Lucia... Think again....
No solarpanels, no generator, no motor. Then what to do? We did not give up the generator as this one is the most effective method. Håkon and Eskil managed to make a gimble for the generator making it flow with the waves. Hight five - good teamwork! We do now have plenty of power until the petrol cans are empty :)
Beside having some power issues we have had a couple of days with good winds during day. And finally some sun! The bimini is up to get us some shelter from the strong sun out here. The problem is usually the nights where we have very little wind and some waves making the sail living their own lives.
Anyway - we are having a great time here out at sea! The weather is getting warmer and we are making great food every day. We also got a mahi mahi! Actaully, we got two but the big one managed to get it self loose :( I know -pics or it didnt happen, but we actually godt in pictures and on tape. We made some teriaky mahi mahi with avocado, mango and peppers as sides. It was so easy and so good! Mahi mahi is a firm fish almost tasing like chicken - Yummy!
While making the mahi mahi we saw that cutting oninons in a small room without ventilation can be a problem, so Marte will wear some seafty gear from now.
Til alle landkrabber der hjemme - vi er glad i dere :D
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