GANNET2 Upgrades

GANNET2 is getting prepped for surgery with electrical upgrades planned in our living quarters. 

Guará Motorhomes comes highly recommended and we have started figuring out our work order to bring our home up to date. Alessandro is figuring we might be here til mid January so we are getting ready to dig in and learn about the capital of this country.

Rusty isn’t complaining as rainy season has brought temperatures down to the point where we don’t always need air conditioning. I saw 69 degrees yesterday after the daily downpour so I was happy too.

A former colleague of Layne’s in the Monroe County school district has taken an international teaching position here in Brasilia and offered us these of her apartment while we get sorted out  so everything fell into place.

Getting our deposit dog for the work has been a world class hassle as we don’t have a Brazilian bank and Alessandro doesn’t take credit cards so we’ve been trying to figure out how to deal with money. Layne is much better at this than I am but even she had to admit defeat in the end and fall back on the cash option our least favorite.

This process has illustrated for us just how hard it is to run a business in one more overly bureaucratic Latin American country. We went to Alessandro’s bank to deposit cash and have them send a direct deposit to Alessandro’s supplier in Rio de Janeiro. The bank refused saying they were concerned he might be defrauding us, and him their own customer. I don’t think I’d last long as a customer of his bank.

I suppose he could be defrauding us but it’s an elaborate con as he has RVs in his shop, employees working on them and he seems to understand what he’s talking about. So far so good.

We went Western Union to get a bank transfer from our institution in the States. Sometimes it doesn’t work out and it did t work out for us so finally we exchanged some of dollar reserves to get the process going.

There is a bank that allows us to withdraw $500 each daily without an ATM fee so from here on we will visit Bradesco bank from time to time to stay ahead of what we owe Alessandro for the job. It’s been a ridiculous hassle but persistence pays. I’d hate to run a business in a bureaucracy like this and I can’t imagine how complicated his tax returns must be. 

I find money to be an exhausting subject and it holds very little interest for me just as long as there is enough. Fortunately my wife the former attorney is made of sterner stuff and where I enjoy the discussions about our technical requirements talking about how to transfer money sends me to sleep. Luckily I never had ambitions to become a millionaire for I would have for sure failed at that onerous task. I can’t even win at Monopoly.

The plan for GANNET2 is to reduce our dependence on 110 volt appliances, replacing our roof top air conditioner from a Coleman to a smaller dometic. Also we will be I hope converting our fridge from 110 volts to 12 volts which will reduce our use of the inverter which uses electricity to convert our 12 volt battery power to 110 volts. 

Additionally we are buying 860 watts of modern glass solar panels to replace our elderly flexible panels. That should give us a huge energy boost even on less sunny days. As we live on electricity and use no propane we have been having difficulty keeping up with our needs unless we run the engine or plug in to shore power. Hopefully these modifications will change that. 

Additionally we are getting a voltage converter installed. This will allow us to plug in to any voltage in any country without worrying whether it’s 110 or 230 volts. Until now we’ve been hauling around a manual converter for use in 220 volt countries, that starts at Peru and includes southern Brazil and all the southern countries on 220 volts. That will be one less hassle.

The one last  big electrical   modification we want is to install Starlink permanently on our roof. Having spent so much time in places with no phone signal we decided it was time to be able to connect at the flip of a switch. It does mean that  if we park under trees or in some way obscure the sky we will lose connectivity but having Starlink easily accessible and while underway will be helpful. 

I know some people think there is more purity going on vacation and unplugging but we aren’t on vacation and this is our daily life. If you are at home online you will understand why we want to be online at will in our home. 

“Government for the People”

We have some other smaller carpentry jobs to do after five years on the road meanwhile the mechanic is figuring out how best to repair or replace our second alternator. We are also going to give GANNET2 a thorough mechanical check before we leave. In a way we want to put the Guyanas and all the dirt roads behind us.

We had heard of a shop in Uruguay that does similar work but when we came across Alessandro we decided this is a good time to pause and spend some time on the coast back in our home equipped to live off grid on the beach. I can’t wait.