This morning we headed around to prickly bay to check in and check out the budget marine. checkin was painless but cost 90EC for 30 days, not horrible but not great either. after checking in I cam back to palapa to give aimee a ride to the spa and to go to budget and start spending money!
As I was crunching numbers I kept coming back to solar as an option. the budget catalog listed 90watt panels for $480 each, less than a wind generator. two 90 watt panels would theoretically give you 180 watts or 15 amps. if you had 8 hours of sun you would get 120 amp hours or the same as the wind generator. i know from experience you dont get this much from panels and began to wonder about the wind gen specs. jen pointed out i could put a panel on the davits and i also observed i could fit another on the foredeck so i decided to give more solar a try before the wind generator.
of course when i went in to buy the panels they where out of stock. they did have one 140 watt panel for $400 (the 130watt in the catalog was $700 so this was a big reduction). i determined i could fit this on the foredeck and dingied it out to the boat. if course it was poring rain so i got a few comments about the uselessness of my purchase. i replied “i am just using it to as a rain catcher!”.
i had been doing fridge power calculations as well and the next step i decided was to add ventilation fans and insulation to the main fridge. i tried a bunch of ventilation grills but finally settled on using the air-con grill since we no longer will be using air-con. i figured eventually we can get a new grill from Catalina. This made a huge difference out of the gate as there is a fan in behind the refer just recirculating hot air with no where to pull air from.
unfortunately budget only had 3 inch insulation foam and i needed 2 inch. i called island water world and they had the 2 inch in stock and said they would drive aimee back with it if she came over and pay. great news, looks like that will be the project for manana.
cheers, Roger C Hayward +1.562.912.3505
