Stranded sailors and space shuttles Lindsay McRory January 17, 1996 For those locked in cooler climes, imagining life in the balmy south, take some solace in knowing it hasn't been a picnic for those of us in Florida or the Bahamas. The consistent north winds have made it difficult for cruisers trying to cross from Florida to the Bahamas. We last heard there were more than 80 boats stacked up in West Palm Beach waiting to cross the Gulf Stream. There has not been a good-weather window to cross in three or four weeks, so a number of vacations were cut short or spent at dockside. The morning "chat hours" on the HAM radio have more than the usual number of stories of boats stuck in anchorages in the Bahamas. But a nice three-day high-pressure system has just passed over the area from the southwest. The Gulf Stream must have looked like a highway at rush hour. Unfortunately another cold front is moving in on the heels of the high-pressure system. The strong winds will make things uncomfortable for those not in the most protected anchorages. The highlight of our week was watching the shuttle launch. From the cockpit we have a good view of the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. At just after 3 a.m. we crawled into the cockpit and watched a spectacular launch. Television viewing of the launches does an injustice to this event. The tremendous sound of the engines, and the entire sky lighting up, was a spectacle we will never forget. Unfortunately the rest of the week has been more mundane. Our ambitious task list gets a little bigger every day. I just finished wiring in another deep cycle battery, a Heart Freedom 25 inventor/charger, and a Heart Link 2000 power monitor. What should have taken two days took nearly a week of long days. Most of the extra time was spent removing the existing battery chargers and figuring out how the wiring was done. I was forced to spend an unexpected day rewiring the AC electrical panel. The original factory wiring was very well done, the incremental improvements over the years were not done so well. There were a number of infractions including use of household wire instead of nickel-plated copper boat wire, twist-on wire nuts in more places than I can count, and a wiring path that must have made sense at some point in history. It's all gone now. The power monitor is quite a sophisticated piece of gear. Denise and I pondered whether we needed it or not. Is it a toy or a tool? In addition to allowing manual control on the inventor/charger, it reports on battery voltages, current amp hours being drawn, and tells us how many amp hours have been removed from the batteries. Once away from dock Kita and Wes will have an amp-hour based allowance. With amp hours they can watch videos, recharge batteries for toys, and listen to CDs or run the computer (they can not use Dad's laptop). Once they heard about this new system, they both took a keen interest in how this "thing" worked and "how much" it costs to run some of the gadgets.