Making Life Simple

We woke up to a beautiful sunny morning in Sainte Anne, Martinique.   

After feasting on some treats from a local French patisserie, Roger and Pirate went out on a tour of the anchorage and saw one of the traditional Martinique boats sailing around.

We spent a relaxing day at anchor, and then it was time to head into Le Marin, a short 20 minute motor away.   Work would start on Monday to install the new davits and replace our traditional lead acid batteries for their evolution, lithium.  We enjoyed a nice sunset in Le Marin and went to Ti Toques, our favourite French/Italian restaurant, for some steak frites!

We arrived with Adventure I bright and early Monday morning at the Inoxalu dock.   The structure was ready to go and awaited just a few minor adjustments to accommodate Starlink and lighting.  A lovely German couple own the business, and they are very fastidious in their work. While we were at the dock, multiple cruisers came by to admire their work.   A number of people also commented on the latest Starlink offering, the mini, which is now mounted on our davits.

While the davits were being installed, Roger met with the electrician that was adding solar power to the top of the davits. Every morning, we start our day by running the engine for about 2 hours in order to recharge the batteries to meet our power needs for the day and often we run the engine again at night before we go to bed.  If we are traveling distances, we can keep powered up by motoring for part of the journey.  Starlink is a new draw on our power, but the mini uses a little less power than the first generation.  Still, we try to turn off the Starlink when it is not in use in order to save power. 

In order to increase our power production and reduce the need to run the engine, we added 2 new 425 watt solar panels to augment our existing 310 watts of solar. They are the latest technology that actually generate power from both the sun above and the reflection that hits them from underneath.  

The electrician, Fredo, was also able to change out our current 3 lead/acid batteries, which delivered 630 amps, for 2 x 400 amp lithium batteries, thus increasing our battery capacity by about 25%.  Old lead acid batteries (like the one you have in your car) should only be discharged to 60% of their power or they will be damaged. Lithium batteries (like you find in a Tesla) can be discharged to 20% of their capacity with no concern. Thus the old 630 amp lead batteries really only provided 250 amps while the 400 amp lithium provide 320 amps. 

There are other benefits to lithium batteries. The lithium batteries are significantly smaller, so the electrician was able to install the new batteries in 1/2 the space the old lead/acid batteries took.  As a result, the space below with 2 of the 3 large lead batteries became completely freed up.  Storage on a boat is at a premium, so this is a welcome benefit.  However, the only one on the boat that really benefited was Pirate.  After finding some good quality dog food at the local vet, I quickly used up this precious space with 2 large bags of Pirate food. 😉

The 3 lead batteries weighed in at 330 LB. The two new lithium batteries weigh only 88 LB total. You can see the size difference in the picture below with the lithium battery sitting on top of the old lead battery. 

In addition, the Victron lithium batteries have a shunt box that relays information to your cell phone which allows you to see solar panel power production and battery state on an app.  This is really cool technology! Yes, Roger is very excited. 

Above you can see the install of the Victron lithium batteries, the smart shunt on the left, the 3 solar panel controllers and the dc to dc charger.

While all of this was taking place, Roger bought and installed a new toilet for one of the heads (washroom), and then Fredo got the shower pumps working again. 

Our electrician was quite a character.  He is maybe in his forties and travelled over from France 10 years ago as an electrician on a race boat.  He stayed and lived on a boat in Le Marin, until he married and had a child.  Every morning he would arrive at the crack of 7 a.m. to start work (way too early in my books).  Around 9:30 or 10 a.m., I would make him an espresso and he would sit and enjoy his drink before getting to work again.  Everyone once in a while he would say "Alors" and continue with his work.  He left for lunch for 1 hour and then returned to work until 4:30.  He was a methodical and detailed guy and we were very impressed with both his work ethic and his organization.  He provided an invoice for the parts and another invoice for his 'working' (labour).  One night after the installation was complete, we woke up in the morning with very little battery power, which did not make sense.  Roger contacted Fredo on a Saturday morning and within 20 minutes, Roger was picking him up at the dock to come out to the boat to fix the problem.   

Finally, another electrician, Frank, who we met last year, came to solve our instrument issue.  He was able to fix the instruments within 30 minutes.  Yeah! The problem was a faulty relay.  While Roger had cleaned the connections on that relay when he was hunting for the problem, it needed replacing instead.  We now have a spare relay on hand....

With keeping life simple in mind, we also decided to switch out the outboard engine we use on the dinghy.  We started our cruising life with a new Yamaha 15 hp, 4 stroke engine which weighs 111 lbs.  We have now replaced it with a Yamaha 15 hp, 2 stroke engine which weighs 79 lbs.  We originally bought the 4 stroke because it is more environmentally friendly but the weight of the old engine was putting significant stress on the stern rail, and was difficult for Roger to start and impossible for me to start. The last straw was when it kicked back when Roger was starting it and broke his finger. 

After 4 full days in Le Marin, thanks to Roger's organizational skills and some very talented and dedicated workers, the davits were installed, the lithium battery conversion complete and everything was fixed and back in place. It was time for a cold Caribbean beer.  

We cleaned up the boat, provisioned and headed back out to anchor in Sainte Anne for a much needed swim.  Time to get back to cruising life!