This meant we were up bright and early on Saturday and yesterday so that Roy could work during the coolest part of the day. This, however, still resulted in a dreadful sweaty, difficult and uncomfortable task, in the sweltering tropical heat and humidity without fans, since the house batteries had to be disconnected and resulted in a change of clothing required twice.
Saturday’s early morning task involved installing a new board and re-installing the negative busbar before work was halted midway because another hole had to be drilled and, of course, we had no electricity at this stage; Murphy’s Law! At least, by this point, though, Roy was able to reconnect the house batteries and jury-rig a solution to use the drill with the generator running.
Elaine busied herself by staying out of the way, updating her medical notes, submitting medical claims, arranging bi-annual checkup appointments for Roy and commenced work on our next video, “Tantalising Thailand - Exploring the Islands of Phang Nga Bay”.
Yesterday’s tasks included the installation of the “Allowed to Charge” and “Allowed to Discharge” smart relays, splitting the positive bus in order to put all the charging devices on one and all the discharging devices on the other, reconnecting the inverter and returning the battery charger to its original location.
Afterwards we both needed to get off Paw Paw to stretch our legs, although, given the heat and humidity, we jumped on a “Songthaew”, to take us to the end of the pier and from there walked to the Village Market mall for a coffee and baked delight, as well as to pop into the hardware store and into Villa Market to get a few groceries. We did, however, notice immediately how considerably busier everywhere was, to the extent that the previously empty carpark at the Chalong Pier was full, including the overflow area, in addition to the number of tour buses dispatching and collecting tourists for boat trips.
Back onboard, our early morning starts had caught up with us, requiring an afternoon nap, following which we tidied up. Our day ended with a stunning sunset and a rather late-night Zoom family get-together so that Keenan and the boys could participate. Turns out we had a few unexpected participants as a friend of Keenan’s and his two sons were staying over for a “boy’s weekend”, while the wives were away on a “girl’s trip”, all of which resulted in a heap of laughter, especially the state of the two men who were looking after 5 boys under the age of 6; they both definitely looked worse for wear! As always, though, there was plenty of chatter across six countries and 4 continents, which continued until almost midnight. It was the perfect ending to a busy day!
Today was a day of rest, well, sort of, given our very late night and being Elaine’s off-day due to her weekly dose of medication. After a lazy morning, Roy decided to work on assembling the entire battery pack in our custom-made box, as well as connecting and testing the new BMS (Battery Management System), ensuring everything was ready for installation.
By then it was lunchtime, so we dinghied across the bay in our “loaner” dinghy to Panwa Bali for a Thai lunch at My Beach Resort, where Elaine eventually got to taste sticky rice in Thailand; in this case Mango Sticky Rice, served with coconut yoghurt, which was simply delicious. A lovely walk along the beach sealed a perfect afternoon, while a light dinner back onboard, followed by a movie, wrapped up the day.
