Energy Boost

At Sea, 24 49N 080 26W

We're getting an energy boost today but not from drinking Gatorade. We're riding the Gulf Stream. It's great in these conditions. The winds are only 13 knots from the south, but we're moving 6-7 knots eastward. Soon we'll begin turning north. I can't say for sure how much boost we're getting, the knotmeter is gunked up with barnacles again, so we only have speed from GPS. My guess is 2-2.5 knots boost. It could be as much as 4 knots in the right conditions.

Our nice southerly winds are reputed to turn northerly on Monday so we won't be able to make it up the coast in one passage. We'll put in (hopefully) at Lake Worth (West Palm Beach) or Fort Pierce. Darn, if we had only left 24 hours earlier we would have had a shot at a nonstop passage.

The Gulf Stream is one of the true wonders of the world. It has a major influence on all the world's weather. The Gulf Stream transports heat and salt from tropical waters to subpolar regions. It starts off Northwestern Africa and it passes north of Venezuela it is turned north by Central America where it becomes the Yucatan Current (of which we had some recent experience) It is turned eastward again by the coast of the USA, turned north in the Florida straights between Florida and the Bahamas. It leaves the US east coast and heads for Northern Europe around Cape Hatteras.

The warm water from the Gulf Stream is what makes Western Europe's weather so mild. Think that Rome is at the same latitude as New York but Rome is much warmer.

In the northern Atlantic, the Gulf Stream waters are cooled, and they also get mixed with fresh water from Greenland and the polar region. Cold fresh water is more dense than warm salty water so it sinks to the bottom of the sea. Then the current flows southward following the sea bottom all the way to Antartica, westward across the Indian Ocean and northeastward across the Pacific Ocean. In the North Pacific the water rises to the surface again being warmer and saltier than the surrounding waters. The current then reverses its path, this time on the surface, until it returns to Northeastward Africa.

Because of the Gulf Stream, Western Europe and Western North America have mild climates whereas Siberia and New York have colder climates.

Historically, the Gulf Stream has abruptly stopped and reversed directions several times. The reversal brings on a new ice age. I hope it doesn't happen tonight when I'm sleeping (ha ha).

I wish I knew how many joules per second of energy is transported by the Gulf Stream. Perhaps one of my blog readers can google that question and email me the answer. If we could harness it, we could perhaps supply all the energy needs of the whole North American continent. Of course if we harnessed more than a small fraction of the Gulf Stream's energy we would cause massive climate changes.

Hmmm, another interesting engineering project. If the Gulf Stream current boosts Tarwathie's speed from 5 knots to 7 knots, how many joules per second (watts) of energy am I harnessing? I think that answer is somewhere around 5 kilowatts.

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Hit The Road Jack

OK all projects are done, the weather appears right so tomorrow morning we leave Marathon.

Our plans are very loose. First stop, the state park at Islamadora where there are supposed to be nice coral reefs for snorkeling. After that, we'll go out into the Gulf Stream and stay there as long as the winds blow from the south. We get an extra 2 to 4 knots free ride from the Gulf Stream current all the time we're out there. We'll come back in when the first of two events happen, (1) The wind turns around and blows from the north, or (2) We get to Saint Augustine.

We never spent time in Saint Augustine, and everyone says that it's nice. We also hear that the Intracoastal Waterway is nice in Georgia, and we never did that. We'll have to make up our minds on that. The Georgia ICW is full of 2-4 foot shallow spots to run aground on. If we go there, we'll have to travel past those spots at high tides only.

By June we should be able to make Long Island Sound. We can spend the summer exploring New England. Hopefully we'll get my sister and cousins and uncles who all live in MA and NH to come sailing with us. Also, we may be able to attract some of our NY friends to come sail with us too.

By September we want to be up by Baltimore so that we have a leisurely time to explore the Chesapeake.

Caveat: All plans are subject to repeated and radical change. The only true objective is to have fun.

Refinement

Webster's Dictionary lists one of the definitions of refine as "to improve through subtle improvements." I love the fact that sailboats are so refined. Humans have been sailing boats for at least 12,000 years, perhaps much longer than that. The ideas behind sailing, sailboats, and sailboat hardware have had the time to be refined again and again.

Tarwathie is an outstanding example of this refinement. She has a conservative and well tested design, and her interior, I'm sure was designed and implemented by an experienced cruiser. Everything onboard is extremely functional, well designed, and extremely practical. One can admire the refinement in everything from latches and shackles, to drawers, floor layout, proportions, fittings, fixtures, portholes, hatches, bins, and even decorations. Many items have more than one use.

I admit to surprise at how easily we can live aboard in such a small space and with so few possessions. The refinement has a lot to do with it. There is very little waste of space and very little dysfunctional or marginally functional stuff aboard.

One of the annoyances of living in a small space is the way we store things. Take my tool bin for example. My tools and spare parts are stored in two bins, and each bin is filled right to the top. It seems like every time I need something, that I have to remove every piece from every bin to find it, then replace all those parts in the bins before I do everything. Some days I empty and refill those bins a dozen times. It becomes tiresome. The labor saving alternative is to have storage with lots of pigeonholes or drawers or a big flat surface so that pieces can be accessed at random without moving any other pieces. But that alternative is anathema in boat life e because it uses far too much space.

Guest Editorial

In a past blog, The Net, I ended with a question. What would you have done? I got a very thoughtful reply from June (onboard Albion). June has given me permission to excerpt from it here. June's advice is good for all cruisers and world travelers. Thank you June.

About the Mexican fisherman....you asked a couple of questions at the end of the story, and I'd like to make some comments. First of all, no I don't think you are a fool, but you were tired and felt bad about running over his net.....yes I think you did get taken however. $200 was probably what he makes in a year, or a least a season, and there's the possibility that he is now considering a career in planting nets in the path of future cruisers, if he has the opportunity!

The thought crossed your mind that you probably should have pulled out a $20 bill initially. I think so too. Chris and I have traveled a bit and we have noticed a huge difference in money value and expectations in different countries. Here are some examples: In Ethiopia, before I met Chris, hotels (nice ones) wanted to charge me $70 to $90 (American dollar equivalent)per night. I got the rooms for the equivalent dollar price of $10-$15 a night instead....because my companion was Ethiopian and argued for the Ethiopian rate.

In Thailand, I had a beach cottage for 150 baht,(the equivalent of $3 then, per night). And beach vendors tried to sell me donuts for 250 baht each. They didn't expect me to pay that and expected me to bargain, which i did, and my donuts cost me 20-50 baht each. As I sat there eating them, I listened to the vendor sell donuts to some German tourist. He bought several at 250 baht each! I also bought sarongs for 50 baht each. I watched the same vendor sell sarongs to a Portuguese woman who was on holiday with her Norwegian husband. She bought 4 or 5 for 200 baht each. Then she GAVE the vendor the same amount, that is, 800+ baht as a 'tip". The vendor was shocked, but she didn't say 'no'! My point is, many countries do not expect you to give them what they ask...and through bargaining you do finally learn where the limit is.

Chris, when in Nepal, and also in India, noticed that vendors always first asked him where he was from. The price, he found out directly from a vendor in Nepal, was different for visitors from different countries. Americans and Germans were always charged more-Brits less. It was the perception of the vendors that certain nationalities were richer than others. Also, they expect bargaining, and some nationalities, like Americans, don't bargain. My suggestion is, pay a fair price for things-fair by their country's standards. $200 isn't much for us to lose, but it throws things out of balance somehow when Americans and Europeans throw huge sums of money around. You have to have an idea of what people make before you visit their countries.

I respect the voice of experience. However, Libby and I both have such an aversion to bargaining (haggling) that we would rather avoid going to places where it is necessary. Since that's not possible, we must learn to overcome our inhibitions and to adapt our own behavior to the local norms. That sounds like sound advice for all travelers.

John Undrill's Retirement

I just returned from a trip to Albany to attend John Undrill's retirement party. It was a great trip. But the logistics were difficult. There is no airline flying from Marathon so I had to ride the Keys Shuttle limousine to the airport. I had to get up at 0300 to catch the shuttle at 0400 arriving at the airport at 0700 for an 1100 plane. It was very inefficient. Similarly, on the way back, my plane arrived at 1700 but I didn't get back to the boat until 2300.

The retirement party was great. There were 50 to 75 people there at the Glen Sanders Mansion in Scotia. After dinner we heard seven speeches praising and/or roasting John, one of which was mine. The praise was lavish, and John was overcome with modestly. However, all the praise was deserved. John has always been the smartest guy in the room, and his career achievements rival those of Charlie Concordia and Paul deMello. The power grid has been called the greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century and John is one of the top power engineers of that century. I hear that IEEE will honor John soon.

It was also a great weekend for family contacts. I spend Wednesday evening and Thursday morning with my oldest son John and his family which includes four of our five grandchildren. I had missed them so, and Libby still does. After John's party, I stayed at the Undrill's house. On Saturday I surprised my sister Marilyn with a visit. I took her out to Wall Mart and to a dollar store and to Oliver's. Oliver's is Marilyn's favorite restaurant in Glenville. Marilyn is very popular, everywhere we went she was recognize and people called out "Hi Marilyn."




It was also a great weekend for family contacts. I spend Wednesday evening and Thursday morning with my oldest son John and his family which includes four of our five grandchildren. I had missed them so, and Libby still does. After John's party, I stayed at the Undrill's house. On Saturday I surprised my sister Marilyn with a visit. I took her out to Wall Mart and to a dollar store and to Oliver's. Oliver's is Marilyn's favorite restaurant in Glenville. Marilyn is very popular, everywhere we went she was recognize and people called out "Hi Marilyn."

My daughter Jennifer drove down from Vermont and met up with Marilyn and me. We fetched some stuff for Jenny out of our self storage locker and then went to Undrill's for a nice afternoon and evening. (See the picture.) The Undrill's and the Mills essentially form an extended family so everyone was very happy to see everyone else. Too bad that Libby wasn't there. She would have loved it. I did however extract a promise from the Undrills. They will sail with us in the September/October time frame. Libby jumped for joy when she heard that news.

On the trip back I had a happy surprise. Howard Halstead, a friend from PTI and NYISO days was on the plane to Orlando with me. We had a lot of fun catching up on events with each other.

While we were having all that fun up in New York, poor Libby was babysitting the boat. Poor poor Libby. On the same day I left, the engine sputtered and died. We use the engine to keep the battery charged so that's a big deal. Libby managed it OK though. She shut off the refrigerator/freezer which is the major power drain. She used the oil lamps instead of electric lights at night. She bought ice and put in the refrigerator. With all that conservation, the solar panel kept the batteries almost fully charged. She also tried several times to get a diesel mechanic to come out to the boat and help, but they stood her up twice and never came.

This morning it was my task to get the engine started. I rapidly found the root problem. We have port and starboard fuel tanks and manual transfer valves for fuel feed and recirculation return that select port or starboard. Libby was savvy enough to think of that but she didn't realize that there were two valves. When I looked it was feeding form the port tank (which was dry) and returning to starboard. That was easy to fix, but there was more work to do. All that cranking the engine sucking on a dry fuel tank filled the fuel lines with air. I had to bleed and prime the entire fuel system. It took an hour, but then she started right up.