Yes, I am in still in Stuart, FL. There are a few reasons for that: first of all, until this weekend the weather was not favorable for someone heading south. Secondly, I now have ordered some stuff that will be delivered here later this week, so I will have to stick around until that has arrived.
Over the weekend I have been doing small and simple projects. Don’t even quite remember which ones. I was looking into a way to mount the GPS chart plotter near the steering wheel. In the marine store I found these clamps that can go on 1″ (2.54cm) tubes (like the steering pedestal and the pulpit). I had bought two just to test them, they seemed to be practical, so I went and bought some more. I have come one step closer to mounting the solar panel permanently. Using these clamps I mounted in the pulpit, and today I got even fancier by using a wingnut (vleugelmoer), now they have become adjustable (so you can improve its angle towards the sun). These same clamps I am using to make a little platform for the GPS. I got a few pieces of wood and am working on making the platform, I have got the base of it mounted.
Also today I got the GPS’s cable run into the locker. That is another step closer to getting a final installation.
Having been at anchor for this long (which is a first for me) I learned a few more things. Most importantly: even with minimum use of electricity, eventually you are going to drain the batteries. So I ran the engine twice over the past week to charge the batteries (though, never really until they were full, that would have taken a long time) and realized that I need more ways to keep charge the batteries. There are plenty of boats out here at the anchorage (all sailboats) and I looked around which wind generators they had, and if they were running even at lighter winds. The four winds and the Air-X are quite common, a complete four winds kit would have been about 1800 bucks, I opted for the Air-X, which still is 1100. That is a lot of money for `free’ energy, but electricity is a necessity (navigation lights, chart plotter, anchor lights etc.).
Still thinking about replacing the navigation lights by LED’s. There is a company in Fiji that makes them, but you can also make them yourself. I need to find a local Radio Shack (Tandy at home) and buy some 12V LEDs. Than I can experiment with putting together my own LED lighting.
Replaced one light on the boat with a fluorescent (TL) light. It does not make for a cosy (or romantic) light, but for the sake of energy efficiency, that is worth it.
Watched some football this weekend as well, since the Saints were in the play-offs, I just had to go see that. Found a Thai restaurant here in Stuart, it was really good, though I need to remember that the spicy scale outside Louisiana is not quite the same.
Today I ran into a Korean store, bought a big jar of Sambal Oelek (red curry paste), so now I have another way of spicing up the food on board.
The outboard has been working well. It is not easy to start when the engine is cold, but if I keep it filled up (ran out of gas twice now) and remember to vent the gas tank it seems to work quite reliably.