Snowy Start

Wednesday morning, an early start and we awoke to snow, a very fine winters scene but by 8.30 it was gone, the hills stayed very white until lunchtime, then they slowly started to get darker. Hugh was up on his laptop before us all answering the many emails he gets about Wind power see Scoraig Wind . After a breakfast we headed off to the genny shed for a full day replacing the trace inverter with two new Outbacks. We have one that was installed at Dry harbour a few years ago by Hugh and it has worked well, even when our visitors ignore our requests to only use one washing machine at once!!!!!

Making a Start

Our capacity at Big Harbour has been maxed out for a few years and hopefully the two 3Kw inverters replacing the Trace 4.8Kw will make a big difference. All went really well with us and Henry was despatched to cut some firewood, the weather steadily improved which made for a pleasant day, even although we were indoors most of the time. Hugh sent me to get a piece of timber for a support and I had to shift the plastic bags of rubbish Henry had picked up off the beaches at Big and Dry Harbour during the first few days he was here. Quite incredible the amount of rubbish washed up. Henry was really taken when he found a sealed loaf with a Norwegian wrapper on the shore,  until I told him the fish farm boats that pass regular are Norwegian and I guess the loaf was thrown overboard, cannot see it being washed overboard!!!!

The Many Bags of Rubbish

We were doing really well until I noticed the sheep had disappeared, I let them out because the grass is pretty thin on the ground in the paddock. There is plenty forage around Big Harbour. They are pretty smart though, as soon as I’m occupied with some other task they just know it and high tail it to Dry Harbour. We had to go and look for them but it was worth the trip over for the view alone, the snow showers were coming down the Inner Sound but missing us all day.

Snow coming

After lunch we found  them in the cottage garden, so on with the trailer and a bit of rodeo later we had them secured for the bumpy trip home.

Henry Getting friendly Again

Late afternoon and Hugh was finished at Big Harbour, we then took off to Dry Harbour to fit the old Trace inverter  as a back up and dump load control.

Completed

All worked well overnight and we called on Kenny to come for 11am to take the boys away. As we were having breakfast the power went off,  disaster and it was looking so good. So a frantic hour or two was spent trying to figure out what was wrong but Hugh left and it seemed I had a problem with the old generator speaking to the new inverters.

Cheerio, You are on your own!!

By good luck rather than knowing what we were doing we had changed the settings so that one of the two inverters took charge of the control and that seemed to have sorted the problem but we did find one of the batteries was a dud and that is now a major issue. The generator charges the batteries as does the windmill, then the power is inverted to the house at 240v, with a weak cell it will mean everything will be working harder and under more pressure. but I’m on the case. I did have a return call from Paul Camilli ‘Life At the End of The Road’ . He may have a spare one, fingers crossed yet again. After that it was tidy up and getting everything back in order for a return to the ever increasing list ‘jobs to do’.  MV Spindrift is away so MV Stardust is coming on Saturday, a quick call to Dan Corrigal and two bags of cement are on their way (I hope) so in anticipation I got the last bit of shuttering done for the step into the genny shed. That will be the job tomorrow.

Shuttered

There was nothing much left for it to-day, over to dry Harbour to see the visitors but they were out, a wee repair to the generator shed door, a note left for our tourists and back to Rona Lodge to find ‘Julie’ waiting for a feed. It was a lovely end to the day and I couldn’t get over Julie’s eyes in the clear light, just like a mirror.

Reflected

Ferry tomorrow, early so off to bed.