Sylken Sea Update

Been awhile, no excuse. Home projects, family, golf.......you understand I'm sure.  We were hauled in Antigua, doing some really neat upgrades, will post details, stand by.

Carnival, Martinique

What a party! We enjoyed 4 days of Carnival in Fort de France Martinique, drums and more drums, colourful costumes, one big street party. Really glad we were able to see this spectacle!

Sylvianne, Al & Brenda

Vaval

Solar

We decide to add Soliban Solar panels, the light weight allows us to mount them on the existing Bimini. We installed multiple panels with individual controllers on the advice of Ocean Planet Energy. Really pleased so far, even on overcast days we get significant output.

64W panel, we installed 9 of these.

Controller board installed 

Building the controller board

Panels installed on the existing Bimini. Velcro "flaps" and polycarbonate backing plates, removal and installation is easy.

Bring on the Sun!

OK, update from St. Lucia.

We left Martinique in less than ideal conditions as we needed to meet our cargo in St. Lucia, we have a shipment arriving from Florida via Tropical Shipping. Took us 4 months to get here from Florida by sea, Tropical, 5 days.

Called Tropical this am, yes your cargo is here but......"the container port is full, we cannot offload the ship. Please call back Friday".

OK, what can you do, stuck in port at Rodney Bay Marina, with friends and meeting new ones!

Cheers all, K&S

A few days in Anse a L'Anne

Love to be at anchor, this spot is one of our favs here in Martinique. Take the ferry to FDF or take the tender to Anse Mitan.

TOP SECRET!

Spotted in Martinique. Is this the Kadey Krogen Mega Expedition yacht? Kadey Krogen Expedition 286?

Windwards?

Are they called the Windward's because it always seems to blow? It sure seems that way, an excerpt from Chris Parker's morning weather briefing:

Brisk ENE-E trades with little day to day change will continue indefinitely due to repetitious RIDGES moving E thru the CAtlantic from the E Coast. Only deviation may be today with some E-ESE winds possible.

and then the forecast winds..........

StLucia-Guadeloupe: 080-100@17-23g30/6-8' thru overnight; 090>070-060 @17-23 g30/6-8' Friday 23-Mon 26


they then go on to state that this trend may continue well into January. What to do, what to do? We need to travel to Rodney Bay to change out batteries, looks like we may be forced to suck it up and deal with a rough crossing.

Out with the Old, In with the New

The old Batteries get pulled and the new Oasis FireFly batteries get installed. Fingers crossed they work as advertised!

168 lbs each, these things are a real pain to handle. We hired a couple of big strong guys to pull these.

68 lbs each, we can manage that.

Oasis FireFly, an AGM with a twist, carbon foam technology.

Battery Upgrade?

Our house battery bank needs replacing, the battery guys tell us no battery survives very long the way we use our boat and the heavy AC load from the refrigerator does not help. So we are sticking our neck out and trying a newer AGM technology. Nigel Calder has been testing these and so far (year 2) is impressed. These batteries we are told can operate at PSOC for extended periods resisting sulfation that combined with high temperatures (our batteries are in the engine room in the tropics!) has been killing our batteries in 3-4 years. There are some important considerations though, the new batteries benefit from a balanced bank and you most have programmable charging sources as the float charge must be 13.2V or less. Below is our plan to balance the battery bank.

Important, all cables interconnecting must be the same length and gauge.

Launch Day

Always exciting, we splash today. Carenantilles Boat Yard, Martinique.