Not a bad place to celebrate the holiday.

The weather is often in the 60's and 70's. Some nights, though, are cold.

Once our daughter is settled in her new home in Las Vegas, we can visit her, and then start moving south again.

24th. Monday.

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

Starting to think about the big things in life: Water (100 gallons) and Diesel (75 gallons). While we're at it we also need Gasoline (3 gallons).

The crew of another Whitby 42, Creola, arrived. There are now three Whitby's here.

CA invented a cover for the water bladders. She cut a circle of the heavy-weight rubber shower liner material we use to make gaskets from. This can be screwed down under the filler fitting to close off the bladder for transport.

We've got two approaches to watering.

• A few gallons every day. We have 12 gallons of nice, new jerry jugs. This is safe and simple. Not too much heavy lifting.

• A butt-load (80 gallons) once in a blue moon. We have two 40-gallon bladders with suitable fittings, and clever caps. This does put a 700 pound load into a dinghy designed to hold 1200 pounds. It's within the design limits, but it's stressful. And it requires a 12V pump which will run for about 10 minutes per bladder. No heavy lifting.

The bladders have had their 5% vinegar rinse today, and are ready for use.

One possible scenario is to open up the (leaky) forward tank and drop a bladder in there as it's permanent home. The crew of Creola suggests a multi-step operation. First, cut away as much of the top as you can access. Then climb down inside and—from the inside—cut the aluminum apart in "bite-sized" chunks to remove as much of the top as needed to have proper access to the space.

There are two kinds of hose clamps: ones that are perforated and ones that have a raise ridge. The perforated hose clamps can (and do) rust through. They need to be inspected regularly.

We used to use two cheapo perforated hose clamps to hold up our Jim Buoy. No longer. I replaced the hose clamps with coachwhipping.

Candle-light Christmas Eve service at Grace UMC Saint Augustine with the crew of Alchemy.

Some guitar playing and singing (and red wine) on Alchemy until our picking fingers were plumb wore out.

Travel

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Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

25th. Tuesday Christmas Day.

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

Waffles for breakfast. A little visiting with Creola and Alchemy.

Interestingly Creola had a similar failure of the vent fan on their Nature's Head. In their case, however, it was the little electrical connection that failed, not the fan itself. So far, that appears to be the only consistent problem other users report.

Some phone calls to family in Texas, NY and Nevada.

Some reading and lazing around the cockpit.

Some staring at our ammeter. When the sun's out and the current holds us in the right position, we have almost 1A (14W) of power coming in through our 30W of silly little panels. With the low sun angle and random placement of the panels, that's not all bad.

For example, we probably burned something like 4Ah yesterday running the water pump to rinse out the bladders. If we could get 4 hours of good sun today, we could almost replace it without running the engine. But, that's not likely to happen. We really need a much larger solar array.

Regarding power generation, one of the boats moored nearby has a DuoGen wind/water generator. This seems ideal. Wind in a breezy mooring. Towed in the water when sailing.

Charged the batteries for an 1:48 today. The solar panels weren't doing it. And we don't have a DuoGen.

We opened a bottle of Virginia rosé wine.

Downloading the chords to some Eric Clapton tunes (Layla, for example). Brushing up on other tunes I thought I knew, but struggled with on Alchemy.

Christmas Dinner was a potato, squash and chick-pea stew.

Travel

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Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

26th. Wednesday

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

Boxing Day. Blustery, but not cold. The coast waters forecast warns us that inland waters will be "rough." Outside, seas are 4 to 7 feet, with gusts to gale force. While it seems like a good day to stay on the boat, the weather is settling down quickly.

The dinghy ride to shore so CA could run—for the first time since periodontal surgery—wasn't too bad. Splashy, but we stayed dry in the dinghy. After breakfast, we went back to the lounge to do some laundry.

To work on the chords (and lyrics) to Madonna's "One More Chance", we used the computer—briefly—then switched to the iPad running through our creaky old stereo cassette player. The iPad/stereo has better sound and uses much less power than the computer. Victory.

Baking bread and cookies means that the oven keeps the boat warm. A little.

It also means that every dish, pot and pan we own is piled up in the galley.

Dinner was the last of the stew and some grilled-cheese sandwiches using CA's home-made bread.

Travel

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Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

27th. Thursday

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

Today was a yoga day. Followed by emptying the Nature's Head in the afternoon. It's a potentially messy job. But a little care with the big garbage bags and we can get the compost out of the aft head, into the dinghy and into the dumpster without too much difficulty.

I was not allowed to take pictures of that operation.

Creola had given us some coir bricks to try instead of peat moss. Their recipe is about one coir brick and one liter of water. We're going to try that instead of peat moss for this month.

Creola also suggested that six weeks between emptying the Nature's Head may be a bit long. We might want to look at four weeks or perhaps even fewer.

Dinner was appetizers at A1A brewpub with Creola and Alchemy. Followed by a more party time on Alchemy.

Songs to learn include: "City of New Orleans", "Summer in the City", "Carolina on my Mind", "Your Momma Don't Dance", "Something", "Norwegian Wood", "Rhiannon", "Sweet Home Alabama". Not a bad list of favorites. Well worth buying via iTunes as well as locating lyrics and chords.

Travel

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Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

28th. Friday

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

CA's recovery is complete. More yoga this morning.

We walked over to the ABC store to investigate their beer selection. Not bad. Not great. We really want some New Belgium Ranger, but the local ABC store doesn't carry it.

And "Carry it" is the issue. Walking more than a few blocks a case of beer is craziness. We have a folding "hand truck" that we can use to schlep three cases of beer. Awkward, but workable if it's less than a mile or so.

Lunch was big Reuben sandwiches made with veggie burgers. Dinner was potato, cabbage, bean soup and home-made bread.

Travel

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Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

29th. Saturday

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

We charged the batteries in the early morning. This leaves the house bank at well over 12.7 V so that the solar panels and battery paralleling relay will continue to charge nicely through the day.

If the house batteries are below 12.7V, then the relay "cycles". It connects the batteries when the engine battery gets over 13.4V; but when the house is low, it drags the engine battery down until the relay disconnects them. This cyclic charging of the house batteries (with our tiny solar panels) isn't effective.

CA went running this morning, after the rain stopped.

We spend the afternoon hanging around the lounge, using the internet and chatting with the neighbors passing through.

Travel

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Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

30th. Sunday

Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W, St. Augustine

Cold. CA rode to Yoga. I hung out in the warm lounge.

Lon and Miriam from Miriam stopped by on their drive from Titusville back to Virginia. We had lunch and talked cruising and boats and the absurdity of "Clean Coal". The crew of Creola stopped by to say hello.

Lunch out at Meehans; dinner was a little potato, cabbage, bean soup and homemade bread.

Travel

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Arrive	Moored at 29°53.03′N 081°33.15′W

This Week

Engine Hours: 3. Diesel Gallons: 0. ICW Miles: 0.

Books: The Constant Gardner, The Perfect Spy, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Rapture of Canaan.

Read Aloud: A Storm of Swords: A Song of Ice and Fire (still; it will be a while).

Travel

Attribute	Value
Engine	3. h
Fuel	0. gal
Distance	0. mi