Breeze On

We left home this morning on the first leg of our second trip to the Bahamas. This time we are doing it on our own. We aren’t traveling with a group and we don’t have another crew member. Our initial plan was to take 3 days to travel down to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. From there we would head out into the Atlantic on Friday, go around Cape Hatteras, and then most likely pull into Cape Lookout for diesel and rest. After that we would either coastal hop south, cross the Gulf Stream and go on to the Bahamas. Or, skip the coastal hopping and do it all in one passage.  After checking Chris Parker’s weather forecast this afternoon we decided to bypass Solomon’s, travel overnight on the Chesapeake and arrive in Norfolk tomorrow morning. Chris mentioned a potential cold front passing Hatteras Friday night into Saturday. We were both concerned about how that would impact the sea state. If we leave Norfolk Thursday instead of Friday we will most likely have to motor the entire way arou...

Our new solar panels are installed!  The condo building shades the panels for almost half the day. Even so, the new panels can fully charge the batteries with both refrigerators running. I expect that we won’t have any trouble keeping the batteries charged in the Bahamas.  We have had quite the solar panel saga this summer. We had the arch made and installed to hold the panels. We then waited for Alex Miller from SeaTek to install them. Alex lives in Marathon, FL and installed our new lithium ion batteries in March. He said he has family in Virginia and would be willing to drive up to Maryland and install the panels as part of a visit with his family. Alex set a tentative date in September for the installation. Just as George contacted Alex to firm up the date, Hurricane Irma was bearing down on Florida. Irma hit Marathon really hard. We felt terrible for everyone affected by Irma as well as the other hurricanes this season.  We didn’t hear from Alex after Irma and decide...