Happy Hanukkah!

We had a slight miscalculation last night and almost missed the first night of Hanukkah. Thanks to a text from Pinky, we realized our error and changed course in time. Unfortunately, we didn’t have prime latke fixings on board because we were planning on getting them today so they would be fresh. (Cruising tip of the day: don’t store your potatoes and onions in the same bin or else they will quickly and nastily liquefy. We learned that unpleasant lesson the last time we sailed down here.) We made do with a latke-in-a-box mix. 

Thank goodness the weather has been Maximum Hatch lately or else the whole boat would smell like oil and onions today. 

The little store at the marina has both potatoes and onions, so we should be set for the real-deal latkes this evening. 

Last night we had a first ever: the candles on the menorah were adding too much heat to the house. Not something we ever thought about in New England.

This morning we listened to the short wave radio weather broadcast at 6:30 and learned there’s a norther coming through the area mid week, so we will stay put until Thursday morning when we will head down to Hoffmans Cay or thereabouts for a week or so.

After the broadcast I got up the enthusiasm, barely, for a run. Took Mr. Flowerpot to shore and set out. I waited about an hour longer to start than I ought because the day was already blazing by the time I got on shore at 8am or so. Live and learn. I also thought I mapped out a solid 5k, but when I double checked back on Cupcake it turned out to be more of a 3k. It’s the thought that counts.

[Warning: wonky electrical problem ahead. TLDR – the engine does not charge the batteries like we think it should, and the sun isn’t as strong as we would like in the dead of winter.]

One electrical issue we’ve just noticed now that we are not charging the batteries nearly every day with the engine because we no longer constantly motor and motor sail from place to place is the angle of the sun. Last summer I crowed about how much electricity we were making each day. Well I did not take into account the low winter sun and the short winter days. Where we had seen peak power generation in the 12 to 13 amp/hour range for several hours mid-day in July and August, today we have not been able to do better than 10.8 at high noon. And we are closer to the Equator down here, too! 

The fact that the past few days have been partly cloudy and the mast has shadowed the panels during peak sun added to our deficit.

So this morning the batteries were at 66% and we needed to make water to boot. Although it is against my principles of parsimony, while I was on shore and the girls were lounging aboard in their pajamas, we ran the engine to power the water maker. 

Here’s an interesting thing we’ve noticed: if the battery bank drops below around 70% or so, running the engine does not efficiently charge it. The alternator cycles on, pumps 30 or 40 amps into the bank for maybe 15 seconds, then the alternator shuts off and puts no power into the bank for maybe 30 or 45 seconds. Then the whole cycle starts again. 

Over a few hours we can very slowly gain on the battery bank. Once we charge it to more than around 70%, the alternator can put a steady 15 or 20 amps into the bank without interruption. So for maybe two hours of engine running this morning we were not able to fill the bank at all, only hold steady while the water maker and fridge did their thing. 

Now the water maker is off, the engine is off, and the panels are putting out 10+ amps so we are steadily filling the battery bank, but I have no expectation that we will be near 100% when the sun goes down. If there’s anyone out there who has an idea what’s going on, shoot me an email. If you know what I can do to fix the problem (if it is a problem) I’d love to hear about that as well.

We had this issue back in North Carolina after we left Oriental…the engine took forever to charge the batteries and it was clear the alternator was cycling off more than it was cycling on. But keeping the batteries in a decent state of charge more recently has allowed the alternator to charge efficiently until today when things dropped to their current (pun) sorry state. We can manage, but I suspect there is a solution that will let the engine charge more efficiently.

In other news, Moss is nearly done with the first of her two math workbooks. She has been busy making headway with the goal of earning a long winter break once the book is finished. Right now she is plotting ordered pairs on an x/y axis. 

Ellen is basking in the afterglow she gets when she makes a batch of yogurt. She has been threatening to break out her yogurt maker for weeks, and now she has made good. If this is my last post, you will know why.

We are still anchored in the secret spot inside the Great Harbour Cay cut, but over the past two days, several big catamarans have snuck in to stay at the marina (where they probably just hook up a water hose to their tanks and plug their boats in to shore power).

I’m still a little gun-shy about swimming after the business with the bull sharks at Bimini. But because I have not seen any sharks here (only a 2’ stingray yesterday when we were at the beach) and because I have not showered or gone swimming since my run, I’m about to jump in here at the boat. If this is my last post, you have another reason why.