The Welcome Center

North Carolina Welcome Center
36 30.41 N 076 21.35W


The weather was supposed to turn nasty today. That was all the excuse we needed, so we decided to stay here at the Welcome Center all day today. As it turns out, it is not nasty at all. It's sunny and breezy; a very nice day.

Libby is collecting pine needles to make more baskets. I think she'll have a year's supply before we leave here. She's also teaching the women on the other boats how to do it. Our friend Patty on the yacht Reflection taught Libby and others, so now Libby is passing on the knowledge.

Me? I've been puttering. I woke up this morning to a nasty surprise. The radio wouldn't work. Checking, I was shocked to see that the battery voltmeter showed only 10 volts!!! That's terrible, a completely flat battery. But wait, our Link 10 battery monitor also measures battery voltage, and it showed 13 volts. What the heck?

I started by checking the wiring to and from the battery switch. Nothing found there. Then I raised the cockpit floor to get access to the batteries. Sure enough, they said 10 volts. I opened the plugs to check the water level. The water was low and the battery plates exposed. That's very bad. It can permanently damage the batteries. I can't remember the last time I checked the water, perhaps 6 months ago. Shame on me. I'll have to make checking the battery water part of my routine for oil changes.

So first thing was to put water in the batteries. I carry distilled water on board. I used up all we had, and a few plates were left. Too bad, I had to fill them with regular water.

I have a separate starting battery, so I switched to that and started the engine. Then I could switch back to the house batteries to charge them. So far so good. Next I noticed that the battery voltmeter said 14 volts but the battery monitor said 13 volts. Huh? That shouldn't be possible, they both measure the same thing and they always agreed before.

Back into the engine compartment to investigate. Sure enough, I found that the battery cable which connects the two house batteries in parallel had pulled out of the terminal. Instead of a single bank of two batteries, we had two separated house batteries. No doubt I stepped on the cable some time in the past. I repaired that, and now the two batteries are balanced.

It is possible that we have been running on one battery for an unknown time. For the past month or so on the canal or in the boat yard, we had shore power so much that I hadn't noticed battery performance. Yesterday, I did notice a half volt disagreement between the voltmeter and the battery monitor. I shrugged it off without thinking. Shame on me again.

This afternoon, another sailboat arrived. It was our friend Andre on Aruba II. Long time blog readers should remember Andre. We met him first in Jacksonville, Florida, then again in Elizabeth City, then again at this welcome center, then up in New Bedford Massachusetts where we sailed together to Block Island, then down in Fort Meyers Beach, Florida. Now he's here at the welcome center yet again. I guess we shouldn't be surprised, we both travel north and south on roughly the same schedule.

Both Libby and I were happy to see Andre. We'll have him over for supper tonight.