Preparing for The Bahamas

The past two weeks has been a flurry of projects in preparation for our departure for Bimini, The Bahamas and beyond.

Our next dock neighbor, Johnnie Poole, has inspired me this year to add two items that I believe will be of help in maintaining the boat while we are gone.  I was installing a new Magma Grill the other day, when I noticed two large, what looked like mortar tubes made out of 4" white pvc (You can see them just over the grill on the other side of his boat).

Now I know Johnnie as a retired Sergeant Major (E-9) in the Marine Corps, but I didn't expect him to be starting a war any time soon.   When I inquired about what they were, he said, "Storage for 1lb propane tanks and a regulator for the grill".  I had one of those Arsenio Hall," Things That Make You Go Hmmmm" moments.

It made total sense to me.

So off I went to Home Depot to purchase some 4" pvc pipe and some caps.  Johnnie's tubes are 24" in length and hold two bottles a piece.  As we are planning an extended stay in The Bahamas, and pricing precut segments of 4" pvc, my choice was a 10', off-the-shelf section.  Calculating the height of one of the cans, I figured I could cut four 30" segments out of that 120" piece. Two for each side of the davit tower on JonNe'.  Then I began collecting the eight caps - holy s___!!!  Have you ever priced those things????  $7.95 a piece, and a stop at our local Ace Hardware for competitive pricing proved to be worse!  So back to HD!  Those on the cart also, with a can of cement, 50' of paracord (to secure the caps on top to the tower), and I was headed to the car.  I had thought ahead, and brought my new battery operated saws-all, and there in the parking lot, I cut up the pipe so I could carry it all in the car.

Back at the boat, I dressed the ends of each pipe, drilled drain holes in each of the bottom caps, cemented them in place, and voile, I have my own mortar tubes taking shape!  A problem developed however.  I dropped the canisters into the tube, and proceeded to pull only two out - I couldn't get my arm (larger than the 4 inch diameter of the tube) down the tube.  Hmmmm.  I was beginning to realize Johnnie probably had figured that out already.  So I headed down below decks to find the new reel of 80# fishing line I had purchased just the other day.  I tied a "clove hitch" knot around the neck of the bottom bottle, dropped it down the tube, and three more on top of it, and I had resolved the problem.  I could pull the bottles up together, and just use the bottle that comes up first.  I mounted the tubes to the tower, using stainless steel hose clamps so there is enough room above the top cap to pull the cap off and retrieve the bottles.

Then I drilled holes in each of the caps to put paracord through, and tied a "bowline" knot on the underside of the cap and tied the fishing line to the loop.

I then tied the outside segment of the paracord to the tower so I won't lose the cap overboard when I am retrieving the cans. So now I have 15 propane canisters (4 in each of three tubes, and the fourth has three canisters and the regulator) ready to go to The Bahamas!!

So what this now gives me is significantly more room in the deck box for my power cords.  Great solution as far as I am concerned!

Johnnie's next suggestion is a result of having to replace his batteries.  Like us, he replaced his old batteries with Trojan 6v marine batteries.

Each battery has 3 acid cells which have to be topped off on a very regular basis.  Ours is under the mattress in the after stateroom.  It is a large double mattress, so getting down below it is a REAL PAIN!!  The mattress is heavy and a challenge to get to.

So at Johnnie's recommendation, I purchased, through Amazon, three sets of the Pro-Fill On-Board Battery Watering System from Flow-Rite.

Oh, and the Pro-Fill Hand Pump needed to add water to the batteries.  As we have six 6v Trojan 145's, it is easy to go through a gallon of distilled water at a time.

To install the system, as we have three pairs of 6v batteries, I needed three kits and one pump.  You receive six replacement caps, the appropriate fittings for each cap,

fitting caps, and 5 feet of hose attached to the filler port in each kit.

Four of our batteries sit together, and the remaining two are six feet away.  As different batteries have different distances between each cell, I cut pieces of hose to fit between each of the cap fittings.

 I then cut the hose to create a bridge between each battery, and enough hose cut to bridge between the first two batteries and the second two batteries.

I then placed the fitting caps on all of the unused ports in the fittings and drilled a hole in the base of the bed frame to give me access to the filler hose without lifting the mattress.

The third set of batteries uses it's own kit and filler port.  It is important to test the whole rig while you have access to the batteries, as the fittings have to be EXACTLY in the correct position so the don't LEAK!!  Leaking defeats the entire purpose of this system.  Time wise, it was about an hour to do all three sets of batteries.  This system also will work with any acid batteries that you have to fill.  There is another set available if you don't have individual caps, but a bar lid that snaps into all three cells at a time.

I showed my wife this morning how this project worked, and it took 5 minutes to pump two cups of distilled water into the batteries.  What a pleasure now!!

Next installment is other interesting projects!!!!!