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Larry's LogIt was Sunday, 2 days before Christmas when we went to Marin to do our clearance into Martinique. We had upped anchor around 9am and motored the 2 miles to the Marin anchorage and dropped the anchor again in about 30 feet of water near Mystique. Liz and Willy, from Mystique, called us the day before saying that Customs was open in the morning so we went in to do that chore and do some shopping in the big supermarket (supermarche). Since we had to anchor very near the channel, Diane stayed on the boat while I went in to Customs. There was no problem and when I asked how long we could stay, although the Customs officer spoke no English, he managed to get through that we could stay as long as we wanted; we just couldn't work in Martinique. I laughed and said not to worry; I would definitely NOT be working (at least not for anybody else or for a salary), thanked him and went back to the boat. On the way back, I picked up a baguette and two Pain au Chocolat (croissants with chocolate inside). Very good!! I went back, we ate our snack and went to the market, passing some "sights" on the way. That's the other nice thing about French islands - their ideas about clothing (or the lack thereof) are different from ours. Getting back to the boat, we upped anchor again and motored back to Ste. Anne. We anchored at about 3pm a little further back in the anchorage since there had been some very loud music from the beach the night before. The remainder of the day we just relaxed and got the boat a little more organized. I also put up the small forward aning we had built in Bequia. I took a while to get the lines right but it worked well. I would put up the big awning tomorrow. Diane was busy preparing food for Christmas dinner aboard Kristali. They had kindly invited us to spend the day with them. I did email that night as usual and received some bad news. My Mother had died in the Board and Care facility where she was living in California. Although she was only 69, she had Diabetes, high blood pressure and suffered from a progressive dementia similar to Alzheimer's Disease. We had seen her when we visited California in September and although she hadn't looked good, she was in good spirits and relatively good health. However, my brother, who lives very close to her facility, said she had gone into the hospital a few weeks back because of dehydration but had then recovered and went back to the Board and Care. He had visited her a couple of days before she passed away and said she wouldn't eat or drink. It seemed like she had just given up. I was quite upset but couldn't seem to cry about it because, to me, she had been "gone" for a long time. She had been a really bright woman and to see her mind degenerate like it did really hurt. I'm also sure she knew what was happening, at least in the early stages. I emailed my brother saying I would call him in the morning. So close to Christmas, I wasn't sure I would be able to get a flight out, and I wasn't even sure where to go since she was in California but my father was buried in NY. Further complicating the issue was the fact that she wanted to be cremated. I called my brother the next morning and we discussed what happened and what we would do. Her wishes were to be cremated and so Eric would arrange for that later in the week in California. We decided to have a ceremony later in the year in NY when both he and I could make it out there. He's a doctor and would have had some trouble getting off at that time anyway and I couldn't make any flight arrangements immediately either. It wasn't an ideal solution but we did what we felt was right. Eric had spoken to a number of her friends and they had actually suggested it. I wasn't really in the mood, but we went to a nativity play that night, in the town of Ste. Anne. Of course it was in French, but anyone familiar with the story would know what the scenes were about. It was setup in a large open area where they had erected some bleachers. The big attraction was that they used live animals, so "Mary" rode on a real donkey (actually, she was a bit scared of it and just walked alongside), had a real cow, sheep and goats in the manger and Caesar's men rode real horses. The problem was that it was an arrangement of scenes, with very little dialogue but with a running narration, which we couldn't understand at all. It also started 45 minutes late and after sitting on hard seats for an hour already, I was a bit antsy. The scenes (tableaux) also ran a bit long, with people moving in a kind of slow motion, I guess to simulate "divine" action. It was cute but I really wasn't in the mood, although at the end there were some fireworks that were pretty nice. Christmas day Diane prepared some more food and we brought over several dishes to Kristali at around 1pm. We had a wonderful time with them and the food was excellent. They had brought back some Tenderloin from Venezuela that was fantastic. Actually, they were so lean that Connie had to put Olive Oil on them and wrap them with bacon, and Steve then grilled them. Diane had made a crab casserole and corn soufflé and Connie had made some potatoes as well. Of course, dessert was excellent, with Diane's Marble Brownies, Raspberry "English Matrimonials" and Connie's Christmas cookies. We stayed until about 8pm and went back to the boat stuffed. The next day we were running low on water and because the batteries were also low, we went to shore to the fish marketplace and used the hose there to fill our water jerry jugs and some smaller containers as well. We landed on the beach and filled our containers and then Diane walked to the boulangerie (bakery) to get a baguette. We went back for water twice and that gave us about 3/4 tank on the port side. The Kristali crew came over for a bit around 4 while I was running the engine to charge the batteries. Steve and I discussed the apparent problem I was having with the alternator since it wasn't charging very well. The voltage wasn't as high as it should be and the amps being put in was low as well. Steve said there was something wrong somewhere and he said he could help me with it. He's very knowledgeable about batteries and charging systems and I welcomed his help. He could come by tomorrow so I said I would call him in the morning. While Steve was there that evening we watched the voltage very slowly climb to about 12.91 and the amps stayed at about 30. We both felt that the voltage should be higher and so should the amps, particularly since the batteries were about 30 percent discharged that day and the voltage that morning was down to about 11.6. After charging for 3.5 hours the batteries still weren't completely full. After they left we watched a video we borrowed, "Shrek." Very cute. The next day, while Diane and Connie went for a walk, Steve came over with his spare alternator to fit onto my engine to verify that it was my alternator with a problem. I also adjusted the 3 stage regulator to increase the voltage being produced by my unit. Back in Bermuda, the electrician who fixed the alternator also had adjusted the regulator voltage down since he felt it would "fry" the batteries. I should have monitored it closer before but now I decided to adjust it again so the voltage would climb to 14.2 volts during the bulk charging phase. I got my alternator off and attempted to fit his spare. Although it was the same size case and it should have fit, once I got the unit on the mounting bracket (which took almost 45 minutes), I discovered that the belt was too long and that the fans hit the top bracket. Damn! So I took Steve's off and put mine back on. We tried charging again and found that I had turned the voltage up too high, so I lowered it slightly. The charging voltage was better now but the amps were still not what they should have been. Discussing it with Steve, he had some tests to try. I said that I would email my friend Joe, a very good diesel mechanic, who also knew alot about boat systems, who had worked on the engine before we left on the cruise. By that time, I was tired and Diane had come back with Connie from their excursion walking, so that was all the work I did that day. Steve and I discussed the problem a bit the next day and I said I had gotten some emails from Joe and discussed these with Steve. As we talked about it some more, I said I would go through the exercise of cleaning all the battery and charging circuit connections and terminals, just to be able to say electrical resistance could be ruled out. So after they left that morning, I started on the engine room connections. I turned off all the loads and the solar panels and wind generator and removed all the cables and wires, one at a time, from the alternator, the positive and negative distribution posts as well as the starter. I cleaned each connector and each terminal with sandpaper and wiped each one with a cloth before reattaching it. I can't say that they were all sparkling clean before, so there may have been some resistance in the circuits, but they were certainly clean after I finished. I did the same to the battery terminals and cables the next day, although they really were very clean already and showed no sign of corrosion. Running the engine though showed no difference in the charging performance of the alternator. (I didn't think it would.) Diane had gone in with Steve and Connie to play bocce ball on the beach with some other cruisers and came back around 5:30, when we just relaxed. We discussed what we might need to do to get the battery charging system working again. Sunday was occupied with more work on the alternator, trying to adjust the voltage properly and seeing if it would charge well at any level. No good. On the other hand, Diane made a very nice pasta dish with Brie, and garlic. New Year's Eve was just a relaxing day. There was a party/potluck on the beach but when we found out that it was at a very distant beach (not the one close to us or the other boats) we decided not to go. Steve and Connie at come over and told us about it, so we had the tortilla pinwheels Diane had made for the potluck with them. We had a nice visit and they went over some things on Venezuela, since they had been there during the summer and fall. They went back to Kristali for dinner. (Michael was off with a friend he met from another boat.) |