Not a bad place to celebrate another holiday.

We're in the same waiting mode. Once our daughter is settled in her new home in Las Vegas, we can visit her, and then start moving south again.

We need to get water, diesel and propane before we go. We're waiting for some solar panels, also.

31st. Monday.

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

CA to the periodontist in the morning. Things are looking good. Another two weeks before the next visit.

A Periodically Asked Question is this: What Do You Do All Day?

The cool answer is "Nothing, and I'm already three months behind."

The more pragmatic answer is that living on a boat means that many things take a fair amount of time. Indeed, taking all that time is what attracts us to this lifestyle.

We don't have a dishwasher, so post-meal cleanup takes a while. Also, because of the way our food lockers are structured (stacked from top to bottom) it's challenging to get things from the bottom of the food bin. It means that meal prep can take an extra half hour to rearrange the stowage.

There's all those small boat improvements: how we handle water; solar panels; line stowage. These are fun tasks when they involve parts already on board. For example, I made hangers for docklines out of scrap line and washers. They're a little less fun when they involve mail-order and trips to West Marine or Sailor's Exchange.

Laundry isn't fire-and-forget where you load the machine in your house or apartment and go do something else while it runs. It involves two hours in the lounge or laundromat. Add to that a dinghy trip over and back. Plus the folding and stowing. It's a big piece of our Tuesdays.

Grocery shopping requires riding the bicycle to a grocery store. And back. For "big shopping" at the Publix in Vilano beach, it's a 2 mile dinghy ride, a short walk, and a 2 mile dinghy ride back to the boat. Plus, of course, stowing the purchases. We don't have much "pick up something on the way home." It's a big outing.

Beer shopping requires walking the hand cart six or eight blocks to the ABC store and loading it up with cases of beer. And walking back. Don't forget the dinghy ride to the boat. And stowing it. (It lives under the aft berth.)

CA loves going to yoga or running on a daily basis. Yoga isn't crammed in between work and home, or crammed in to an hour one day a week. Yoga is a half-hour bike ride, a long (90-minute class) and another half-hour bike ride back followed by a shower. Don't forget the dinghy rides back and forth to shore.

Yes, we can watch DVD's on the computer. We have stacks of TV show seasons. And some movies. Our connectivity here is pretty bad, so we don't make use of Netflix or iTunes movie purchases.

We do spend a great deal of time reading. We have paper books and a huge Kindle backlog. And some of us play computer games on our iPhones and iPads. We have our own books, plus I read aloud during meal prep and cleanup.

The things we do take time, and we find that's something we cherish. We're not rushing or cramming. There's an intension to what we do. If we're going to do anything, we really have to put forth some time, effort and focus and really do it. Even walking takes some care; a wake can make the boat tip and you can stumble. When you're on deck, anything you might drop is going to Poseidon as a gift.

The Buddhists like to talk of "mindfulness"; the Christians like to talk about praying with every breath. Living on a boat is a bit like that.

Dinner was shrimp and grits and some champagne to ring out the old year and ring in the new.

Big fireworks show down in Anastasia Island at 20:30. Then more fireworks from St. Augustine at midnight.

Travel

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

1st. Tuesday New Year's Day.

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

New Year's Day on Red Ranger.

Did some measurements and sketches for the bimini cover. Currently, we have one athwartship bow at the aft end of the cockpit and a single fore-and-aft mid-line support. It's a kind of "T" that connects to the dodger. (If you include the dodger, it's a kind of "H".)

The existing bimini doesn't drain rain without adding an athwartship batten. There's almost no usable hand-holds. Since the aft end is square, it runs afoul of the mainsheet. The boom traverses an arc, and the two outboard corners need to be 6½″ shorter than the center.

There are a number of constraints on the design. Mostly in the form of winches. An important consideration is the size of the handles: each winch is effectively 20″ in diameter and about 12″ tall.

With two winches for our two headsails, we can't easily use a standard bimini that involves a "tree" with three or four bows. While there are numerous off-the-shelf three-bow tops that are 96″ wide, 72″ long and 48″ above the seats, the root of the tree would have to be midway between the winches. This leaves two triangular gaps for entry and exit from the cockpit; each gap would have winch in the way. On the leeward side, those winches have working sheets, making it even more hazardous.

That means we a rectangular fore-and-aft frame down each side of the cockpit. From this frame, we can have two bows going athwartships. One bow could be straight. The other bow needs to have an arc with a 15' radius bent into it so that it's at least 6½″ shorter at the corners than it is in the middle.

Dinner was shrimp florentine (ship, peppers and spinach) over penne pasta.

Travel

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

2nd. Wednesday

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

Christmas arrived again! It's just like the three wise guys showing up 12 days late. The mail arrived from St. Brendan's Isle with all of our Christmas cards, a few gifts and some magazines.

Plus, two new solar panels arrived to replace the cracked one on deck. Tomorrow I can look at the installation issues (if it's not raining.)

Ran the engine to charge the batteries. It seems like 1:48 does 36 minutes of bulk (60+ Amps), 36 minutes of absorption (25+ Amps), and 36 minutes of float (6+ Amps). This seems to be a big average of 62Ah of charging, about 14% of the battery's C20 capacity, which is just what the Trojan documentation calls for. That makes me think we might be doing it right.

But I still worry about them. A lot.

CA toured the consignment clothing stores this afternoon. That's why I didn't get started on the solar panels right away. It's always a tough call: hang around or work? I voted for hang around.

Dinner was sweet and sour shrimp.

Travel

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

3rd. Thursday

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

It's a rainy, gray day. And I'm feeling under the weather.

I was able to put one of the two SunWize panels on deck. We have a 7A regulator already part of the solar panel system and three other working panels. It's mostly a matter of running some 14 gauge wire from foredeck to the lazarette. And crimping on a bunch of waterproof connectors.

CA finished knitting an afghan and has started making "wives" to carry wrenches. A wife has a bunch of wrench-specific pockets and rolls up into a tidy bundle. A periodic squirt of oil on the wrenches means that it eventually becomes a kind of greasy rag, but, it keeps the wrenches handy and avoids the big puddle of mixed wrenches in the bottom of the toolbox.

Sewing means using the hand-crank assembly (The "Monster II Balance Wheel") on the Sailrite LSZ1 machine. It's very quiet.

Dinner was breaded grouper, potatoes and an orzo salad.

Travel

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

4th. Friday

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

Some laundry. Some showers.

I installed the second 24W SunWize solar panel on deck.

CA ran around mailing some packages, thank-you cards, and depositing a check. A big afternoon out. It was cold and spitting rain on and off.

Dinner was penne alla vodka with veggie-burger balls.

Travel

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

5th. Saturday

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

Sunshine!

Open everything! Start cleaning!

The level of condensation is atrocious. Everything seems to be damp. It's winter and rainy so we tend to keep the boat closed. Once it gets warmer (like today,) we can open things up to get some air to circulate.

CA disassembled the entire bar, washed all the wood parts and then rubbed it down with Old English lemon oil. Then reassmbled all the woodwork. We're hoping that this will reduce mildew formation.

I spent time staring the the electrical meters (volts and amps) to see if the new solar panels are doing anything. I stared at the meters knowing that a watched pot never boils.

I'm delighted.

In the early AM, the house bank voltage hovered around 12.28V. If that was proper open circuit voltage, it would indicate that we'd used about 60% of our available battery capacity. (It's not proper open circuit voltage, but it will do; very few things draw power overnight.)

Around 10-ish, with the winter sun still low, we were making a whopping 1.1A of power. It's piddly, really. We're getting only 14W from about 60W of panels. Some panels were in full shade, so I was pleased to be doing anything useful.

After lunch, the house bank had been pumped to almost 12.6V, a remarkable feat from a random puddle of tiny solar cells scattered around the deck. Nirvana is to get to 12.8V; this is "fully charged" and the point at which the battery charging relay will stay engaged, allowing continuous trickle charging of both house and engine. That's no really going to happen with 60W of panelettes.

The BEP Voltage Sensing Relay (VSR) defines our nirvana. When the engine battery voltage gets above 13.7V, this means we're "charging" and the batteries are put in parallel to share the wealth. When the engine battery voltage drops below 12.8V, this means we're no longer charging, and the batteries are isolated. This isolation means that we preserve the engine starting battery. [The VSR replaces the classic 1-2-Both-Off switch that determines which bank started the engine and which bank got charged. It also replaces the diodes which are simpler but rob the system of almost ½V.]

This BEP VSR works great with the alternator and shore power. When the engine is running, voltages are high, batteries are in parallel and charging happens to both banks. When the solar panels are trickle-charging, however, the relay cycles. When the solar panels have finally built the engine battery up to 13.7V, the relay engages, house and engine are in parallel and solar power plus the engine battery starts draining into the house battery. The voltages will quickly average out close to the house battery's level. When that average is less than 12.8V, the relay opens, the batteries are isolated; at this point the engine battery gets all the solar power.

At this minuscule level of solar power generation, we have to be really thrifty with our power consumption. We still can't really run the computer effectively, and we have to minimize our use of pressurized water.

But today, at least, we're not running the engine to charge the batteries. That's what is most important. And we haven't really done much except scatter three largish panels and two tiny panels around the deck.

After comparing SunForce, SunWize and Ganz, we find the Ganz Eco-Energy semi-flexible panels to be ideal for deck-level mounting. They may not be the most efficient, but they're very robust. We want more of them.

Special note to the Old Guard. Wire Colors Have Changed. Black and Red are out. Yellow and Red are in. Of course, a Whitby's original wires use Canadian standards: power is Blue, ground is White, leading to some interesting-looking wiring.

Dinner was a second pass at penne all vodka with veggie-burger balls. Delightful.

Travel

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

6th. Sunday

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

Gray, threatening rain.

Last night we emptied the starboard water tank. Today (or maybe tomorrow) we need to use our new water bladders and refill the starboard tank. I've still got a nasty cough, so maybe we'll wait until I'm feeling a little more up to the effort.

We thought we might need to run the engine to charge the batteries. Even after yesterday's sunny battery charging extravaganza, battery voltages this morning are running a little low (12.3V). The water pump chugged for a while getting itself re-primed.

Surprisingly, a gray day does produce some amperage. In the afternoon, the house was charged to 12.5V.

CA finished the first tool wife. Now the Imperial wrenches (inches, non-metric) don't rattle around in the tool box.

And, when we oil them lightly, the oil sticks in the canvas, which keeps the oil close and tends to keep water out. We hope.

The Redskins game was on the big TV's at the A1A Brewpub at 16:30. While I'm not a big fan, this is one of the team's best years in recent memory. Well worth spending the evening at a bar with a big TV and appetizers and desserts. Yes, we over ate. Yes, there was a chilly dinghy ride back to Red Ranger. It was good football, bad for the Redskins and their new quarterback, RGIII.

Travel

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

This Week

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

Books: The Perfect Spy, Three Seconds.

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