We hope you all had a wondrous and peaceful holiday season and that you are looking forward to new adventures in 2016. We have enjoyed the holidays in this warm climate, though it is still hard to get used to Christmas trees, snowmen and lights when it is over 80 degrees outside. We shared a delightful Christmas holiday with our daughter, Courtney, and her friend, Paolo. Thanks to them for their wonderful hospitality!
New Year's Eve was simple and quiet. We had a lovely meal at one of our favorite restaurants, "
Citrus Grillhouse" in Vero Beach, then retired to the boat for a restful evening.
The holiday week was spent sharing time with land friends from New England, Marilyn and Bob, who have purchased a new home in Vero Beach, and Kevin and Debbie, who have a condo in Port St Lucie. As usual, we shared yummy meals with them at "
Cobalt" and "
Sailor's Return", both excellent!
Oh, one really cool thing that we experienced the week before Christmas was this: we were in the boat but had the companionway open, and suddenly we heard sounds of caroling! Greg poked his head up and immediately called Sharon to join him. We saw several kayaks in the harbor, lit with Christmas lights, singing Christmas carols as they moved from boat to boat! It was the coolest thing ever! Sorry, but way too dark to get a photo.
On New Year's Day we took our little bikes (those foldable ones with 18" wheels) over to the beach and went for a delightful swim in a calm ocean of about 72 degrees. The beach was full of families on vacation during the busy holiday week. Alas, they had to travel back to the cold regions this past weekend while we get to stay here. How fortunate are we! As we have mentioned, it has been very hot this December, but finally the wind changed over night and a cold front blew in. Today was gorgeous with a 50 degree start, sunny skies and a high of 67. Sharon was thrilled. She feels like a new person! It's supposed to be like this all week. Woohoo!
A couple weeks ago, Sharon traveled to PA to visit family while Greg used the opportunity to "upgrade" our refrigeration (what? you say, didn't you already do that before you left the dock a year ago?) Well, with the warm climates and high humidity, we find the need to defrost too often and a lot of cold air escapes the box through the walls and doors. So, Greg felt if the box had better insulation, then it would run more efficiently for fewer hours, thereby reducing the draw on the batteries, which is very important on a sailboat! So, for four days, Greg climbed in and out of the refrigerator box to install insulation, lighting and shelving. He says it now looks like a Frigidaire! We wish he had taken a selfie while lying on his back in the bottom of the box with his legs sticking out to work on the box's ceiling. This will have to do.
Marilyn and Bob will confirm their incredulity that he could even fit in this thing! He worked very hard. When he finished the insulation job the "reefer" had been turned off for four days. When he turned it back on it didn't cool! The refrigerant was low. He thought he had damaged a fitting or coolant tube. So, a tech was called and refilled the coolant, but the next day it was still not right. Greg read all of the installation instructions and troubleshooting guides. Then he spoke with the manufacturer. Armed with all this new information he bought a can of coolant and gauges and began the tedious process of filling to "exactly the right pressure level" the new coolant. This unit is known for excellent service. It's also known to be very difficult to "tune".
For awhile, we had frozen milk, frozen mushrooms, frozen strawberries, frozen orange juice, frozen carrots, frozen eggs and frozen lettuce. But, all his hard work and diligence has paid off and things seem to have settled down. The cooler weather definitely makes a diff. But, he's still checking coolant pressure every day until he is sure the unit is not only working properly, but using as little electricity as possible to do the job (currently at about 55 Amp hours per 24 hour day, pretty good!).
We are excited our friends John and Grace arrived in Vero Beach on Friday. We haven't seen them for a year and we hope our schedules mesh enough to get to see each other several times before we leave town in a few weeks. We met them in Wickford, RI when we were dock mates. In fact, our interest in Vero Beach is a result of sharing stories with them. So, thanks to John and Grace, we are happily enjoying Vero.
Tomorrow, it's a brake job for the car, dinner with new friends Kitty and Kevin, more temperature monitoring, continued work on our taxes, and some real estate searches. Not much different from what you may be doing at home!
Thanks for checking in on us. 'Til next time -
