Fitting a 220Ah battery in Rosinante (December 2023)

Racki and I went to Turkey for a border run to extend Rosinante’s stay in Georgia.

In advance, I had to find a lithium battery and bigger solar panel in Georgia, but there had been no real options. Shipping and importing from Germany would have been super expensive. So I had contacted a Turkish online shop and the owner was super friendly and had a battery and panel in stock. He had shipped it to Hopa to the Turkey-Georgia-border where we could pick it up easily.

At a small beach promenade in Hopa we started installing the panel and battery. The panel was super easy. The battery was a crazy operation! The batterie’s dimensions were perfect to fit it in the space behind our toilet but that made the wiring a puzzle.

To make it possible, we had cut our toilet at Hof Marani to be able to slide it over the battery.

We searched for cables in Hopa to make the installation easier and cleaner but had no luck finding some. But after we did shortcut the battery and nearly destroyed it, we finally made it!

It was interesting to experience the difference in Georgian and Turkish culture. In Turkey more than ten people stopped, asked if they could help us, were interested and curious. Although there are a lot of lovely and helpful people in Georgia as well, the experience would have been very different there, I guess.

A multi-day hike with a fantastic view and a bear in Turkey (June 2023)

Cindy was still resisting to accept her nickname Bengel and suggested the nickname “Lausmadl” instead of “Bengel” but I did not like that one.

We searched on Open Street Map for a hiking route in northern Turkey and found a really good one.

On the first day it was raining a bit but our rain covers, especially Cindy’s natural one, did their job.

At the end of our first day, we found a fantastic place to put our tent and the next day was super nice as well.

After we had reached the summit on the second day, we went all the way down. In total almost 30 km. In the last part, when it started to get dark, we met a very big bear. We were just running down the mountains when we heard him next to us in the woods. We guessed that he was surprised by us and when he started running through the woods. Breaking the branches etc. he made a lot of noise. He was really big.

You can see the first day of our tour in Komoot.