Blown Away in Culebra

Well, not really but man is it windy! As predicted we are perhaps into a 'Christmas Wind' cycle here where the trades pipe up to 25+ knots which in itself isn't that unusual but then they stay there, day and NIGHT, for maybe a week or two. Our anchor is holding well but I worry about the snubbing line that I have attached. This is about 15 feet of line from the chain to a cleat to take the main tension from the chain otherwise you'd have huge shock loads on the chain itself which has no stretch to it. My snubbing line runs through the hauwse hole (hole in the side of the boat to allow the passage of a dock line) but rubs on the edges with a lot of tension. Today I'll haul that up and either replace it with thicker line or fashion some chafe protection for it. I've tried that using a variety of hoses in the past but they all wear through fairly quickly.

The new 'Smart Regulator' has been installed and seems to be working fine. I had questions yesterday about my batteries though and so removed my 2 6 volt golf cart batteries and went back to two matching deep cycles batteries. Now that I don't have refrigeration my battery needs are much less than before.

Recent development with the oil pressure guage: It will sometimes jump around instead of settling in at about 40 psi like it is supposed to. I'd like to think the problem is in the wiring and not in the actual oil pressure as a simple drop in oil pressure would be bad but this quick jumping around looks electrical to me. The sender itself is brand new so it is probably not that. Connection looks clean as well so maybe the problem is the guage itself in the cockpit. I'll have a look at that later today.

Mismo continues to be a endless source of entertainment. We don't have to do anything but just watch her and she is such an idiot it is just hilarious. Still can't jump too well but she's trying. Today she made it up 4 of the 6 stairs of the companionway and then paniced and just hung there and meowed (squeaked) until I rescued her. Actually things get a lot more exciting when she is able to climb to the cockpit by herself. We typically leave the companionway totally open at night for breeze. Now what?

Mismo is helping Kerry read directions for the new smart regulator. Smart!


You'll notice some minor changes in the look of things over on the left side. I'm back to recommending books since I have a couple to recommend. Usually I'm paging through one thriller after another but now have the two that you see there to recommend. Just pass the cursor over the books to see a little more about them.