The Purple Gallinule

 Tis New Years Eve, and in Cape Coral they celebrate with fireworks. The motor is working and solar is connected. What better than to take the boat out and watch from the bay! We got underway about 11am as the tide was rising. We had been sitting on the mud. Kristen backed down the canal finger into the main canal, where she had enough room to turn around. Motoring into a headwind and against a very slight current, we were able to make 3 knots at 1000 watts. Not bad!  As we approached the open bay the headwind increased to 15-18 knots and our progress slowed. We gave her more power, but that also generated more heat, and the motor controller started to limit the draw.  Not good! The channel is narrow, there are other boats around, and the wind is blowing towards shore. So we tried hoisting sails, but we really needed to go directly upwind. But we were soon overwhelmed.  So we turned tail and returned to the canal system. Not far away is an open body of water called B...

 In these times of covid, we opted to drive from New Hampshire to Florida. Plus with two big lithium batteries, neither airlines nor Amtrak would entertain the idea of allowing us aboard.  One can cover the distance in two long days but we spent five. Which included time on the Outer Banks and four ferry rides. We camped along the way, chasing the 45F isotherm south.  The Purple Gallinule looked good as we approached, but inside was a different story. Over the long hot humid summer, critters had moved in a rat and countless cockroaches. First task: buy a can of insecticide and bomb it. Then sweep up lots of dead bugs. Yuck. Instead of getting to work with the motor, we spent the first two days cleaning.  Within a week we had the motor installed, two batteries, and six, 100-watt solar panels ready to go. Installing the two BMSs, EVCC, charger, solar charger, motor controller, throttle, key switch, and all the wiring took several more days.  The 15 gallon fuel tan...

  We had returned to New Hampshire to do taxes and some business, and planed to return within a month. Ha ha again! Covid scrambled everyone's plans and we were stuck in New England for the summer. Not a bad place to be stuck, but only remote progress on the Purple Gallinule. In the meantime, we sailed our smaller sailboat, Eclipse (link) up the coast of Maine for a five week adventure. Come October we drove to Michigan and back for our new (used) 48v 150ah lithium batteries.  Kristen soldering new BMS wires onto the battery cells. We chose Thunderstruck for our new motor. They offer a 48v, 5kw sailboat motor, with all the controllers needed. Kristen applied her computer and electrician magic to the battery, and replaced the proprietary BMS that came with the battery with a simpler one from Thunderstruck. Together we laid all the parts out on a table, and proceeded to connect them. First there's the 48v DC service from battery to bus to charger and to the motor controller...

 Well, we certainly found a cure for our boredom. But where to keep her? Much of Cape Coral is a network of roads separated by canals, and every house has a dock. But not every house has a boat for said dock! 'Twas Kristen's idea to ask around if one of our neighbors without a boat would allow us to tie up for a while. And so we met 90-year old Edna. The next day we started the diesel, untied, and entered the maze of canals to Edna's, only a quarter mile by road, but three quarters by water.  The first order of business was to get rid of junk. Delaminated plywood, rotten cushions, and about twenty PFDs in various stages of decay. Serviceable PFDs we donated to Kiwanis, everything else went into neighborhood trash bins on trash day. We inventoried the remainder – plumbing parts, extra wires, more anchors than needed, ropes, etc.  Next became the herculean task of re-building her. We were still living at Rock's place while hoping to sail Topaz, and luckily he had a Sailr...

 We are Kristen and Gary, who live in New Hampshire. We have enjoyed adventures on our 26ft sailboat, but in the fall of 2019 we opted to eschew New England's frozen landscape for crewing on someone else's boat in warmer climes. Perusing CrewBay.com and FindACrew.com, we chose skipper Rock and his Pearson 424 ketch 'Topaz', in Cape Coral Florida.  But alas, Topaz was having engine problems. And Florida does not share New England's puritan work ethic that we were accustomed to. Rock found a mechanic, who would come out to the boat, bang around with a wrench for an hour or two, then quit for the day. Then he'd be back in about a week. As expenses climbed, the mechanic actually made things worse. And we got bored. We bought 2nd hand bicycles so we could get around town. We were still bored. We discovered Cape Coral's dance scene. Still bored. We helped on Topaz. Yup, still bored. We took Topaz's dinghy out along the canals.  On board Topaz And out there amo...