The CCLI

Vergennes, VT
44 10.17 N 073 15.48 W

I assume that everyone is familiar with the cost of living index, CLI.   In several cases, there are specialized CLIs for different groups that purchase differing packages of goods and services.  Why not one for cruisers?

That is a beautiful lead-in for a well researched piece on the CCLI complete with numbers, and graphs.   Sorry to mislead you, I did no such research today.  Perhaps some other time.   Instead, I want to gripe about two major items we need for the boat that have skyrocketed.

10 days ago, our house battery bank abruptly started behaving poorly.  When we woke up after a night at anchor, there was barely enough juice to start the engine.  I have two house batteries, and a third emergency starting battery.  The emergency one didn't work well either.  Sigh.

After some testing with the house batteries disconnected from each other, I determined that the older of the house batteries was faulty.  It sat at 12.5 volts at no load, but put a small load of only 4 amps, the voltage dropped to 10.5.   Must be a cracked plate.  Time for a new battery.

The last time I bought a new battery was 2010 in Marathon. I remember paying $110 for it at the NAPA store.  Imagine my shock when I found out that today's prices for the same battery ranged from $236 to $269!!  Even a Google search, which usually turns up the lowest prices anywhere didn't find anything cheaper.  Ouch.   2.27 times more expensive in less than 2 years.

One thing that leads to reduced battery life is that our solar panel is too small to desulphate (also called equalize) the batteries every 30 days or so.  Libby and I decided that we have procrastinated enough.  I have several quotes in my bookmarks since last February, for nice panels at $1/watt.  Time to buy.  I called Sun Electric in Miami, the company that gave the favorable quotes.  I was shocked to learn that this company no longer sells panels retail, they sell only by the pallet of 20 panels.  Again a Google search of the internet showed that the retail price of solar panels has soared from $1/watt to $2.5/watt in only 7 months. WTF!!!  It must be because of that danged tariff that Congress imposed on panels imported from China. Thank you Congress.

I'll keep looking for a panel.  My search was not exhaustive.

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Now for something completely different.  No more griping.  This is a news story I read yesterday that I must share.  It's just too too funny.  Criminals are not smart, not even white collar high finance criminals ...

Lessons in How Not to Insider Trade

If there’s a lesson to be learned from Thursday’s ten-page criminal complaint accusing Bristol-Meyers Squibb executive Robert Ramnarine of insider trading, it’s that Yahoo searches are no place to learn how to get away with it.

According to the complaint, about a week before some of the alleged trading, Mr. Ramnarine opened up Yahoo on his office computer in Princeton, NJ and entered a flurry of searches, including “can option be traced to purchaser,” “can stock option be traced to purchase inside trading,” “insider trading options traceillegal [sic].”