Finally... New Solar Panels

 Back at anchor in Spinut Bay - Split.  Finally, the day had arrived for installation of our new solar panels.  Mario had said that he could do the installation while we were at anchor, there would be no need to go to a boatyard.  We were over the moon about that.  So when the day finally arrived Michael went by dinghy over to the sailing club in Spinut Bay to pick up Mario and his sidekick.

Mario (white shirt) and his helper

The solar panels that we had were purchased by the previous owner in Mexico.  Four solar panels gave us a total of 415 watts.  We were able to replace the four with two for a total of 760 watts!!  And actually that is double because they are 24V panels and we have a 12V system.

Working on the brace for the solar panels

 

In addition, to solar for power we have a wind generator.  The wind generator and solar panels each have their own controllers.  Their respective controllers do what is implied and keep the solar panels or wind generator from overcharging the batteries.  They monitor the input and go to "float" or divert the power if the batteries are fully charged.  Because our old solar panels never were adequate for charging the batteries we had tried various things to get a better charge.  One of the things Michael did was turn up the amps on the wind generator controller.  Over the winter we had our friend (Tiago) in Brindisi disconnect our batteries.  When we returned and reconnected them we heard a pop and found that we had destroyed our wind controller.  Ugh!  

 

Old Church in Split

 So... without a controller for the wind generator we had to turn it off and rely completely on solar.  For the first time ever, with our new solar panels we saw our solar controller behaving the way it should.  Now the controller was going to float by around 0900!!  Amazing!!!  We no longer have to worry about how much power we are using at night because the batteries are finally, finally getting a full charge.  Such a relief.  

Split, Croatia

Now that we have that issue taken care of we will carry on with exploring Croatia.  From here our plan is to make our way up to Krka National Park.  Tiago and Mari loved it there and their enthusiasm spread.  We are super excited to make the trip down the river to visit the park.