3/5/15
Marathon FL
Posted by Bill

Happy birthday to our eldest grandson, Bradley! We wish we could be there to celebrate with you. Glad we got to FaceTime at least. We can’t wait to see you all in May.

The solar installation guy, Dave, came today and we got the system wired up. We got the first of 3 panels delivered and hooked it up late in the day, and viola…turned dwindling sunlight into electricity. When we aimed the panel at the sun directly, we were getting 7 to 8 amps, and 1 to 2 amps when it was laying flat…and this was at 5:45 PM…very impressive. I’ll dedicate a post to the installation with pics so other boaters can see in more detail. The other 2 panels are on back order so it will be a few weeks before they arrive. Tricia is going to sew the bimini with velcro flaps to hold the panels down.

Once again, the window we had to make the trip to Key Biscayne and then cross to the Bahamas has been slammed shut. If we had been ready to go, we might have been able to get to Key Biscayne, but the winds pick up to 20 to 30 knots early next week, and why would we subject ourselves to that ass kicking when we can stay here in Marathon! Not to piss anyone off up north, but the weather here has been incredible the last week and a half. Wind out of the east, highs in the low 80s, lows in the mid 70s, and clear skies. The last couple of days have been really hot, and I have been getting into the water to clean the underside of the boat to cool off. It is really hard to motivate ourselves to leave. We have a couple of trips to the grocery and Home Depot to finish provisioning and we give the car back to Shelly tomorrow, so we will get ready to go and leave when the weather allows a safe and comfortable passage.

Here is a sunset pic. We haven’t posted many since we got to Marathon because our at our marina, the sun sets behind land and the pictures have not been as good as we are used to. In a week, the sun will begin setting over the water again and we can step up the pictures (if we are still here).