Our purpose in life

After today’s boat experience I think I have come to realize our purpose in life, or at the very least, the purpose of this Blog. It is to post our mistakes so that other newbies can learn from them, and hopefully not make the same ones when they are starting out!

Today’s primary boat task was to assess the charge on the batteries and as they would no doubt be low from being stored for 3 months without any input, charge them back up. The process began with checking the batteries’ voltage.

According to a TECH TIP in Cruising World magazine:

• 12.6V or more: 100% charged
• 12.3V: 75% charged
• 12.2V: 50% charged (avoid allowing batteries to hold less than a 50-percent charge)

Our batteries readings… APPROXIMATELY 6.2 VOLTS!

#$%*@(!

NOTE: Experienced people are not allowed to guess the outcome of this. You have to follow along and pretend that you are new, like us.

So, I guess we had better get them hooked up to shore power, right? This wasn’t quite as easy as just plugging the boat in unfortunately. Because I had removed all the battery cables back in October, I first needed to connect them all back together. Reconnecting them wasn’t quite as time consuming and dramatic as I had feared and before long the big yellow cord had been slung through the snow to a faraway outlet, ready to plug in. So here we go…

ummmm… At this time I somehow fear that having all of the lights on the control panel flashing in unison is NOT what is supposed to be happening. No problem, I’ll just check the manual. Problem. The manual is at the apartment! After staring at the thing for some time, pushing buttons and flicking switches, I suggest to Rebecca that she drive to the apartment and pick up our package of manuals (which are stored there for safe keeping, of course).

So there I am, sitting at the Nav. station, staring at the panel (I find that staring helps). Some time after she had left, having gotten a bit bored from the staring-with-no-results thing, I decide to go exploring. And what do I find? The MAIN POWER SWITCH, which is, of course, OFF. Click goes the breaker and poof, everything appears to be charging as it should (or at least the lights on the display look familiar to me).

I call Rebecca and break the news to her, calling off the manual-retrieving task and replacing it with a food run.

After her return we run into the marina owner Hub, and explain how silly we were to not realize the switch was off. I also shared that I was quite concerned about the low voltage. When I told him just how low it was he told us that was VERY BAD, and that we may have killed them. Did they freeze or split, he asked? I told him that I had checked them all over and that they looked good, all 8 of the 6V golf cart batteries. Duh! Guess what? They are 6 VOLT batteries, not 12V. They are supposed to be around that voltage. Stupid moment #2!

So, with fears of totally destroying the batteries abated, we let the charger do its thing. A couple hours later and the little lights on the controller show the batteries are once again happy with a full charge. Pay attention kids… don’t do as we do!