Day 192 Our first full day at anchor.

Well, we have finished our first full day at anchor.  It reminds me of when we were stuck in our house during one of the blizzards we get in Colorado.  The difference is that it is raining and there is no place to go and not snowed in and no place to go.  

We woke up to rain yesterday and we went to bed with rain.  Rain, rain, rain.  It is still raining now and is scheduled to continue for as far into the future as the weather people can forecast.  Having come  from Colorado, I'm just not used to that.  I don't know how the people of western Washington state endure this for the entire Winter.  My hats off to them. 

I sat and read and worked at the computer sending out a few emails.  Tracy sat and stitched most of the day.  Though it was raining, dinner was steak done on the grill.  Since the Sun is now setting at about 4:30 and with it being totally overcast, I grilled them in the dark using a flashlight to check on them every few minutes.  Into the cockpit to stay dry and then out to check the meat.  Back and forth.  Tracy cooked potatoes in the oven as we have learned that the microwave is an energy HOG!  It drains the batteries fast and that means running the engine more to charge them.  We have lots to learn about managing our power when we are away from the marina with it always available 110 power.

This is a picture of one of the freighters that passed us as we headed out on Wednesday.  He's about a 1/4 mile off our starboard side.  I checked his speed on our AIS (a gizmo that connects to the computer that tells us about big boats that are around us).  He was doing over 18 knots--3 times what our speed was.  We saw a few other freighters but he was the closest by far.

As I said above, we are learning the rules of energy conservation.  How long and what we can and cannot run is becoming readily apparent.  The microwave is out.  The oven and cooktop is in.  Having more than one light on is just about out.  The bulbs we have currently are halogen.  They use about 2 amps of power.  I installed an LED fixture and it uses less than 1/2 an amp but gives off much less light--almost like mood lighting when you're on a date than for lighting a cabin to read.   

I ran the engine last night for about 1.5 hours to put some charge back into the batteries.  They normally sit at 12.75 when at the dock.  As of last night, they had fallen to 12.30.  After running the engine, they registered back at 12.7 but as of this morning, they were back at 12.30.  Since the engine is the only way we have to charge them, I think we will have to run it longer to get us back to where we need to be and then conserve conserve, conserve.  I was surprised that the alternators on the engine only ramped up the charge to 13.15 volts as the engine was running.  I would have thought that they would have put out more juice.

Well, it's another day of rain and clouds with fog and overcast thrown in for fun.  I have some manuals to read to pass the day.  We are looking at moving to another anchorage in a day or so.  We'll see what Mother Nature brings.

One thing we found at Costco is a little hand warmer called "Little Hotties".  We picked up a case of them the last time we were there.  They're little packets of stuff that when opened and shaken put out heat.  Up to 135 degrees they claim.  Tracy tried one yesterday.  It got quite warm.  Not to 135 but still a nice tool to keep us a bit warmer.

We're living the dream!?!