Problems we had with leaving her on the hard. (other than theft Our outboard was an inside job and could have happened anywhere)

The battery problem was why I installed the small trickle charger. When I had her on the Rio Dulce the batteries just slowly went down. I think that keeping the batts up it would have been better as they were over 5 year old and getting toward their life. OH,, The refrigerator problem,, when I changed the batteries the refrigerator started working fine. I've never installed that $350.00 part. It was that inomolomony you mentioned.

When you leave the boat on the hard it's basically just being stored and is slowly rotting away. Bugs make it their home. Dust gets everywhere and dirt makes the boat about as sorry as it can get. We had our window air conditioning unit hooked up to shore power and the power went out. It sat that way in the boatyard for 4 months and the interior got so hot we had to throw away most of our stored food. We had a couple of unopened jars of mayo that were brown when we returned. Not knowing what was good or bad we just threw everything out. When we returned to put her back in the water she looked so sad I almost cried. It took two weeks to get her back in shape to go anywhere and when we left her she had just traveled 4,000 miles and everything worked. We put her on the hard in the BVI and had cockroaches for months. Reylyn and I wouldn't sleep below for a week until we bombed the boat twice as they would walk across us during the night. UG! Never had the bug problem in the water.

The biggest problem with 'in the water' is the paranoia that goes with it. I hate it. But, if you hire someone to check on her and do what I mentioned earlier the boat seems to fend well. The other thing I was able to do this time was to put her in a slip next to a guy that was living on his boat. An old-timer that I got to know while I was securing her for hurricane season. I called him last week and he said that yes, they are showing up to do their job. He also knows about the high water alarm and will call the marina or the maintenance guy if he hears it.

Having someone check on her once a week by going below and going over your check list plus washing her twice a month keeps her in pretty good shape. The biggest problem you can have (as I do now) is not knowing if the person looking after her is actually showing up (fortunately I've got that guy next door this time). I've found some cameras that are used for capturing the photos of animals that come by. You put them on a pole or tree and when an animal comes by it takes a few photos and puts a time and date stamp on it. I was thinking about purchasing one ($125.00) and put it somewhere in the saloon to document they actually arrived. Hell,, you're paying for the service. Of course you won't know till you come back.

I also like my bilge pump counter and suggest installing one.

As you said,, What to do?