It has been a busy month and a half with three trade shows and traveling all over the country. We are now ready to get back to the cruising lifestyle.
At the Miami Boat Show, we purchased a new Tohatsu 9.8 with Electric Start for our dinghy. The idea is to give Yammy some independence, while not having to worry if she will be able to start the motor. Once the dock workers, in CA, decide to unload the ships, we will have our new motor.
Selling the Evinrude 2-stroke is anyone is interested. Runs great. 1990 9.9 Evinrude at 74 lbs.
We also picked up a new Outback inverter/charger. This is a big sucker that weighs 61 lbs. It has a true sine wave inverter at 2000 Watt continuous and an 80 amp battery charger. When we do get the cloudy days, with no wind, we can't stand listening to our generator run for hours to get our house bank up. Our current charger averages about 20 Amps.
By the way, our single Valence battery is still showing no signs of degradation. Still holds at 13.2VDC during normal loads with no charging current.
So when I mention getting back to the cruising lifestyle, that means spending the weekend pulling apart the boat to beef up the wiring needed to run the extra power. As usual, the wiring was done all wrong and undersized for the 1500 watt inverter that is in there now. But, I also needed to up the DC wiring for the new charger as well.
And, as they say, cruising is time spent repairing boats in exotic locations. With 80 degrees and sunny skies predicted for the next 10 days, I would say Marathon is pretty exotic.
For the better part of cruising, we are excited that two of our kids are coming down in April. First will be Rochelle and Kevin. For those that don't know, Rochelle is pregnant with her first child. Looks like we have another grandson on the way!!! Then Tommy and Ashley will come for a week. We can't wait to share our new life with those we love.
During my trip to California, I was able to spend some time with Rod and Diane. We stopped at the Lost Abbey brewery so we could drink some Mongo IPA. Yes, Rod is my twin and yes, I am standing on my toes to try and look taller. We are the same height.
Went for a walk on the old 7 mile bridge yesterday. It was late afternoon, so we hit feeding time. We saw schools of these spotted eagle rays. Up to six in a school. We also saw a small shark, but we couldn't get the picture.
If you zoom in, you can see the spots. They stir up the sand looking for the crustaceans to eat.
While we were watching these, an older gentlemen came up and said a woman was killed by one of these a few years ago. I said, they are spotted rays, not the stingray with the deadly tail. He said these rays leap out of the water when being chased by a shark. The women was in a small bow rider and was killed by one of these as it leaped away from danger. Broke her neck. What are the chances! I see them leaping all of the time, but never thought about that happening. Kind of like the asian carp in the Mississippi. I did look it up and it really happened.
Water temperature is back up to near 77 degrees, so snorkeling is in full swing. Drying the gear at a local rental and dive boat place. By the way, the lowest water temp we have seen this winter, was 69 degrees.
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