Right after I dropped my Christmas charter off in St Vincent I realized that it was nice and sunny out, but I was not charging my batteries. After some diagnosing I determined the output on the controller of my solar panels was not working and there was no way to fix the tiny circuit.
I quickly found a replacement online, but I was having several issues.
1) I was in St Vincent
2) I was sailing away on a charter in a few days
3) It was the week between Christmas and New Years
The best way I could figure out to get the part to me was to ship it to Grenada by My US, which would take a week and a half due to the holidays, and pick it up when I dropped my charter off there. In the mean time I would just have to use the engines to charge the house batteries (this is why I have 125 amp alternators to use as a backup).
Everything worked out pretty well as my shipments (I got two, one as a backup, and some other things I needed since I was already paying to ship it down) from Amazon arrived at the My US office in Florida and they in turn repackaged them into a FedEx shipment that I was able to track.
When the package got on island I had to take my receipt, boat papers, and clearance forms to the customs office to get a C-14 form that allows me to only pay a 2.5% duty instead of the usual 25%. I then took the C-14 form to the FedEx office who had me go to the Customs office upstairs to get a stamp. Once back they collected my money, which was around $10 for my fees and $24 for the broker. Here is where I have an issue. Why did I have to do all the leg work and go to the customs office twice and STILL pay the broker? Shouldn’t this have been part of the fee?
Look at the power come in!!!!!
Regardless, I paid the fee, got my package, and had the new controller installed within half an hour. Let the sun shine down and make me some power. 🙂
