January 16 (a special day for me 🥳) gave us our biggest rain storm yet and a great test for our new portlights. I’m very happy to say we had no leaks from the new ones but one of the 2 remaining old portlights did leak. I think the boat is telling us to replace the last 2 with the nice new ones!! Definitely something to think about – maybe we’ll replace them with portlights that don’t open.
Right now the boat is full of beautiful flowers. It’s so nice to have cut flowers onboard – really brightens the place up. We had a lovely dinner with Jane and Steve on Saturday night to celebrate my birthday. They bought me a bottle of Kentucky bourbon (which I have been wanting to try) and it’s very smooth!!
A few days ago Mark received the long overdue wind generator. It was ordered in the beginning of December so it took a very long time to get here. Unfortunately it arrived without the cables – that box arrived today! While waiting for the cables, Mark and I worked on the 6ft aluminum pole that will support the wind generator at the top of the mizzen mast. Mark was hoisted up the mizzen 2 days in a row to make the needed adjustments and to drill holes in the mast to mount the pole. Lots of planning has gone into the installation of our new wind generator. Now that we have the cables, the wind generator can almost be installed. Turns out the power cable is very big (almost 3/4 in thick) and we don’t have the correct sized connectors, so another Amazon order has been placed.
The other big job Mark worked on was installing our new inverter. The new inverter takes our battery power and changes it into 120 volts so we can run the microwave, toaster and all our wall sockets without being plugged into shore power! This is such a nice thing – no more using the manual toaster over the propane burner or plugging our devices into the little inverter under the navigation station when we’re at anchor. The new inverter had to be mounted near the batteries and horizontal which was a bit of a challenge but Mark made it work!!
We decided today to extend our stay here at Loggerhead until January 27th. We’ve made a tentative plan with Jane and Steve to sail south to Lake Worth and then cross over to the Bahamas. Hopefully by the beginning of February, these cold fronts will slow down and better crossing weather will start to show up.
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 
Wr had fun celebrating your special birthday with you. Dinghy exploring is always fun too! Looking forward to the next chapter as we ready our boats to move further south.
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