Enchanted Ride

Our enchanted dinghy ride began at a small opening in the mangroves at shore just ahead of the anchorage. We traveled though a canal umbrellaed by the mangroves. The wind has been howling for days now but you would not know it in the protection of the mangroves. It's easy to see why when a hurricane is predicted to hit many boater seek refuge in the mangroves up a canal. It was totally calm on our ride. In fact it gave us a break from the constant blowing of the wind. It's nice to get the opportunity to take advantage of these little gems along the way.

We have been at anchor now in Tarpon Bay for four nights. This Northeasterly wind is getting to be a pain and every day the weather prediction adds another day till it stops. We felt that our anchor is set in well so why move and have to set it again. It's been a week today though since we have walked on shore. It's time to move onto Islamorada for some shore R&R and supplies regardless of the wind.

LH We added a Kiss Wind Generator during the summer and it has been well tested this trip. I have not run the gas generator for a week because the wind is spinning the wind generator well enough that we haven't needed additional power. One feature of the wind generator is that in high winds it 'free spins' to prevent over heating. Yesterday it was blowing 25 knots and we were not getting sufficient power from it. I assumed that it was 'free spinning'. WRONG! After the winds calmed down and sufficient time elapsed, we still had under charged batteries. I found that I had blown the fuse from the wind generator to the batteries. Changed it and we have fully charged batteries again. Learn something new every day!