Still Fighting Covid:
May 27, 2023
My last test (yesterday) was a weak 'positive', so I'm not over it yet. It hasn't been that rough though, mainly fatigue, 1/2 headache and a persistent cough. Wearing the mask constantly to try to keep it away from Donna is a troublesome aspect as well so I'll be glad when I finally test negative.
It turns out that I managed to avoid catching it until 2 weeks after the W.H.O. announced that the pandemic was officially over. Ha!
Around the 2nd or 3rd day of symptoms, I slept most of the day and, strangely, dreamt the same abstract dream about 40 times. Very weird.
Yesterday I went for a walk around the block. It felt glorious to be outside.
Today is 'day 7' since the onset of symptoms and day 4 (of 5) of the Paxlovid anti-viral medication. This stuff leaves a horrible taste in your mouth that doesn't go away. It's so bad that you wonder if it's worth taking at all. I'll be really glad when that's over.
Since starting to feel a bit better, I've been dying to get back to the boat. This morning I was up at 5:00 and out before 6:00. I brought the window trim pieces to leave at the boat, I checked the dock lines and I sponged a bit of rainwater from the aft bilge. The deck is full of those little flying bugs and she's dirty with birdshit and whatnot so I'll be cleaning her up next time I go, but little Helen is doing just fine. I took the long way home and gave the car a good run but I still got back before 7:00am.
Boat Work:
It's not actually 'work' but we did get something done this week. We ordered and received a new solar panel kit.
It's a 50W panel, complete with mounting brackets, panel wires, battery wires and charge controller. We will mount it on the cabin top and it will be responsible for keeping the 'house' battery topped-up. You might remember that we already have a 100W panel on the cabin top that keeps the thruster battery charged.
You may also remember that we installed a 12V cooler last year. It's a 'Koolatron' and it uses lots of power. I should say 'relatively' a lot. It only draws 4.5 amps but that is a constant draw. You see, it has no thermostatic control. It is simply on or off. We left it on for 24 hours and it drained the battery quite low before the solar panel could recharge it. So. . . . we need this cooler to run on the thruster battery without draining it. What to do. . . ?
Well, I installed an on/off switch for the fridge so, we can easily turn it off at night, for example. But what if we forget?
Aha! I looked around and found this little gem on the interweb.
It is a very inexpensive 12V programmable timer. This little wizard will be able to automatically turn on and off the fridge (for any length of time we like) up to 17 times per day. Genius!
There's lots to keep me busy when we get back to work on the boat.
We seem to be under a stationary high pressure system that is providing the most beautiful and consistent weather we've seen in a long time. I'm stuck indoors but Donna is gardening with gusto. . . . . and it shows!
Thanks for reading our blog!
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