Last Thursday of 2011

Hi there.

Yep it is the last Thursday of 2011, where did this year go?

I keep asking myself and others that question and I still do not know the answer. The year has flown by, maybe because I have had such a lot of fun this year as far as boating is concerned. Of course like any other year, it has had its down, but I can honestly say there have been more ups.

Like most mornings on the boat, it began with a cup of tea in bed, whilst I listened to the Sparrows arguing over the food in the bird feeders. Sparrows are in real decline, even back in 2006 there were worries about the Sparrow and their numbers and that worry has not changed and because of these large population declines, the house sparrow is now red-listed as a species of high conservation concern, so I have watched these Sparrows over the past few days with fascination as they munch their way through the nuts and seeds.

Up and about, I took Paddy for his morning stroll along the towpath and saw NB Like Ducks 2 Water. Jacquie and Stein walked past us yesterday, whilst we were chatting to Elaine off of NB Relaine, so we had a quick natter, we are going to pop round and see them over the next couple of days and catch up with their news over a cuppa.

After some breakfast, Keith went round to Midland Chandlers to pick up our new battery cables. We had 3 people say that our cables from the Victron invertor/charger and the batteries, and between the batteries, were too small,  so the plan for today was to replace them all. I did non of the replacing that was left to Keith to do, I was his gofer for the morning. Our existing cables were 40mm and we have replaced them with 70mm ones.

For the past couple of years we have been trying to get to Whaley Bridge to get Brett from Kuranda to check our electrical system, especially following the blown up battery incident, which was not a lot of fun. Recently we have been having problems with the charger not starting up correctly, which has steadily been getting worse, so yesterday Keith telephoned Brett for some advice and he confirmed our cables were to small. More expense which is just what we could do without.

After taking up the back cabin floor, we began with taking out the old cables and replacing them with the new ones, which went far better than either of us expected. In all it took 2 hours start to finish which was not bad really, considering the scale of the task of 4 batteries to rewire and new cables to feed through from the batteries and master cut off switch to the Victron. Especially as it is something you really need to take time over to make sure that you get it right first time, and especially making sure no accidental shorting occurs, sparklers are for Bonfire Nights only! We will only see the real benefit of this when we change the batteries for new ones, because Brett reckons the ones we have at the moment, which we only bought a couple of years ago will be shot, so I can see more money evaporating from the bank account. We will pick up new batteries if needed when we do eventually get to Whaley Bridge this year. Job all done and the floor back down, I relit the back cabin stove, which I had let out overnight because we knew we would be working in the back cabin and it would have been roasting. With the stove warming up, dinner is now cooking for tonight. I wasn't much help with the rewiring, but having a gofer did mean Keith did not have to keep getting up and down to get things, and I learnt a lot by just watching him. They say your never to old to learn.

Chat soon xx