New York City – 14 kilometers walked
I woke up to an alarm on the boat’s inverter/charger telling me that the 12 volt battery system was down to 10.5 volts. This was strange, as the battery charge percentage drops overnight to around 90%, but the voltage is always at least 12.5 volts. I ripped the boat apart to get at the batteries and tested the specific gravity of each cell and found some of them too low or, in two of the cells, I wasn’t getting a reading at all. I did some online research and the only issue I could find is that the morning before I had topped up all the cells with distilled water, but learned that you are only supposed to do this when the batteries are completely charged, and they were not. But I can’t imagine that could completely ruin a cell. To get things charging I pulled out our portable generator, fired it up, and let it run for a few hours until we were fully charged, then I tried running a battery equalization process to see if that might straighten things out, but that didn’t seem to work properly and it was getting late so I decided to throw in the towel for the day. Besides, we had to get downtown to meet our son Magnus who was flying in to hang out with us for the weekend!
Ana and I took the subway to midtown and visited the Stephen Schwatzman branch of the New York Public Library. It is a magnificent building and had many specialty collections and art displays. Not much for Vogue or Popular Science magazines, but plenty to offer if you are an egghead, scholar, or researcher.
Ana received a note from Magnus saying he had landed and was en route so we left and started towards our meeting point – the Empire State Building. Along the way we ended up behind a couple very much in love, and I know they were very much in love because they had their arms wrapped around each other as they walked and the girl had her hand stuck right down the back of the dude’s jeans, getting right in there. Or maybe she was doing the “shower test” to see if it was time for him to have one. In either case, we shifted into the sidewalk passing lane and got around them.
We found our smiling son and gave him a huge hug then took him out for a big NYC pizza then started walking the city. We walked for miles down Broadway, past the Flatiron building, through a huge market at Union Square, visited the Evolution shop (good place to buy dried frogs, human skeletons, mink penis bones, gemstones, fossils, and other delights which will drive your evangelical and flat-earther friends crazy), then Canal Street where Magnus and I went for coffee while Ana haggled with the Nigerian and Chinese merchants of fine counterfeit handbags and wallets. From here we continued south to the 911 memorial and nearby public art displays then went inside the Oculus to have a look around. We were all starting to get a little tired – especially Magnus who had been up since 5am, so we rode the subway back to home base..and were surprised to find ourselves in the middle of a big Latino night market where streets had been blocked off, vendors were selling all varieties of Latino food and drinks, and the tunes were pumping hard.
As tempting as it was to stay, we dinghy’d back to the boat and made ourselves a meal as we enjoyed cocktail hour with our boy, who we were so very happy to see.
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