I’m not sure what it is about the cloud formations in South Florida, but it’s hard to beat the sunsets here. This is a view from the mooring field towards Coconut Grove. 

At the left, Daisy patiently waits for us to return from an errand onshore.  When we leave her, we tell her to “Guard the house” and so far she’s done a great job as we haven’t had any burglars.  She doesn’t seem to mind being left behind as she always gets at least two rides ashore every day combined with long walks and extended periods of sitting on benches. 

Today is Christmas, our fourth on the boat.  The first year we were in Mobile, Alabama at Dog River Marina on our way to Corpus Christi, TX.  The next year we were in Miami, anchored at No Name Harbor, waiting to cross to the Bahamas for the second time that month.  (The first time we had to be towed back from a few miles short of Bimini when the generator failed, thus knocking out our hybrid system.)  That year, we had a little get-together with the other cruisers waiting to cross.  Last year, the boat was in Ft. Lauderdale at New River City Marina, but we were in Orlando at our timeshare, visiting Disneyworld.  This year......back in Miami, but this time on a mooring ball. 

We should be in the Bahamas this time, but things keep happening to delay us.  The latest is the port holding tank.  There is a clog, which keeps us from “dumping.”  Now, we rarely do that as you have to be three miles offshore.  Again, we’ve had the ability to have pumpouts at Sunset Bay Marina and Old Port Cove Marina, so didn’t realize this was a problem until we left Palm Beach unable to get a pumpout that morning and then discovered while we were three miles off shore we couldn’t empty the holding tank.  We had to wait until it was pumped out before Mark could check it out.  The pumpout was yesterday, and today Mark’s Christmas gift was the privilege of trying to clean out the apparent clog.  So far, nothing he has tried has worked so the next attempt will be to dive under the boat and see if something is clogging it there.

Another problem we have been having is keeping the batteries charged.  While it has been sunny most days since we left Palm Beach, the sun is low in the sky and of course the days are the shortest of the year.  The solar panels are barely keeping up with minimal use.  We turn off the inverter at night and whenever we don’t need them during the day, which means none of the outlets will work.  We’ve had to depend on running the generator an hour a day to top off the batteries.   This also meant we had hot water for showers.  Tonight, the generator is not charging the batteries.  Great!  Mark has several ideas to check in the morning, but for now we had to run one of the diesel engines, which also charged the batteries and heated the water, but not something we really want to do.  He thinks it’s a loose connection somewhere. 

We have missed numerous great weather windows since we left Stuart on December 9.  If we had not had the various problems, we would have been in Miami on December 11, and no doubt would have been in the Exumas by now.  There doesn’t appear to be any great weather windows coming up through the weekend, although the forecasts that far out often change.