Ft Lauderdale

We arrived yesterday at the Ft Lauderdale Yacht Club Marina.  The place is gorgeous, large olympic pool and large dining area.  It was closed last night so we ate on the boat and had left over jambalya with indian bread.  We have been busy dealing with the Balmar system and our chronic undercharging of the batteries.  We have an electrical specialist coming to the boat to check it out in a few days but for now after doing our own research and diagnosis we have determined that we have not been charging the batteries enough to make up for our useage on the boat and that is why the Balmar monitor shut off and decided not to send energy to the starter battery, which of course meant we could not start that battery.  We did figure out how to start the engine by running the generator therefore bypassing the Balmar system.  We have become scientist and engineers in order to run this boat, we had no idea how complicated the systems really were.  In the last couple days we have read all the Balmar system books and blogs that we could get a hold of, we are practically experts ourselves now.  Needless to say everytime something breaks you can either learn how to fix it yourself or call another repair and pay him to do it. This boating is not a cheap way to live, it is however a sustainable eco-friendly livestyle in that you only use the energy you create.  Managing that energy is a full-time job in itself.  The microwave is a no no unless you are tied to a dock and using the A/C energy, because the microwave uses too much energy.  So living like we do at home using energy without realizing the consequences is not happening here. The refrigerator also takes up a tremendous amount of energy, we have a freezer that takes up even more, so to keep the freezer going to keep the ice cream solid is a major feat.  We are possibly going to give up the idea of the freezer and just make it an extended refrigerator so that we don't have to use so much energy.  At least that is what I am thinking, I have not convienced Brad yet but we will get there.  He believes that the boat has a freezer and therefore it should be able to support it with the batttery system we have but it does not so I think we should just convert it back to a refrig and stop worrying about how we are going to keep the freezer running especially when we hit the hot weather, which we hope is sooner verses later.  Anyway, this is the kind of stuff we have been dealing with on the boat.  We are also thinking about buying a new battery charger to with a higher voltage in order to enable us to charge the batteries faster and more efficiently.  Of course that is not free either but in the long run it may save us from having a nervous breakdown from worrying about the status of the batteries, worth the money in my mind. Never thought writing our blog would be more about the boat electronics, weather and 30 nm winds, but I guess that is what the cruising life is really about, at least that is what it is so far.  Hopefully when we get to the Bahamas we will see what we are searching for in sunny, tranquial blue waters of the islands.  So far this is not the Jimmy Buffett life, in fact Jimmy would have stayed home if he had to work this hard just to keep things going.  Anyway we are currently in a good spot tucked and and comfortable, thank God. And today's itinerary includes biking to the grocery store and laundrymat, not exciting but necessary if we don't want to look like a couple of homeless people. I will have to say I did sleep much better last night, not having to worry if the anchor was holding or if we were draggin and going to hit another boat, which by the way happened the other night.  In Miami we were actually tied to a nice big mooring prepared for the storm that was coming thru, so we were feeling very comfortable.  However there was a large Ferryboat anchored in front of us about 100ft away.  In the middle of the night I was awokened with a startle to get up quick we had to move the boat, that Ferry boat dragged it's anchor and hit us.  Luckily it was a bump and Brad was able to push it off so the damage was minimal but we had to re-anchor the boat in the middle of the storm, 25nm winds and rain, it was alot of fun as you can imagine.  But we did it and our anchor held great, so we could go back to sleep.  As I was just writing this blog, we just got slammed against the dock by a passing boat.  It was quite the jerk and for a minute I forgot where I was, so of course I instantly thought we were hit be another boat.  Your fears and concerns are definately different on a boat.  You just want to keep afloat and not have any damage to your boat, not to mention keeping the boat running. On the boat your concerns are very basic, food, shelter, water and power or electricity are you mainstays.  At home we know we are going to eat something, we also know that we have a home to go to with a nice warm bed that does not move or make alot of noises, we also have plenty of water to take a shower and lots of electricity to turn the lights on.  We also don't find randowm screws laying around and then wondering where they came from and whether something is falling apart. It is definately different out here on this sailing adventure.  You conquer the elements everytime you go out for a sail. We are stronger from this experience,  we have ridden out a storm with 35 nm winds on anchor in a shallow bay.  6-8 ft waves in the middle of the ocean are doable, not fun but we can do it.  Which by the way makes a lot of things more tolerable when seen from the been there done that frame of mind.  We are also becoming emergency preparedness experts.  We we are going out with in a Small Craft Advisory we are ready, life jackets on, ditch bags ready, EPRPand emergency signalling devices