What can I say? This is it everybody...our final shake down mini cruise before we sail off for good! After learning so much from our first shake down cruise we adjusted our power management and will run the engine for an hour on cloudy and windless days in order to properly top up the batteries. Luckily here in the Caribbean there are not too many cloudy and windless days, so things should be fine as far as making our own power on Orion is concerned :) Our main need for power is the refrigeration system...apart from that these two sweeties on Orion do not need much to be happy. Sometimes we watch a movie and listen to some music, but most of the time we like to listen to mother nature :)
The miraculously uneventful (for us) passing of tropical storm Rafael is causing large swells and clustered thunderstorms in its wake, so we decided to sail to Boca de Infierno instead of Coffin Island this time around. It is a much easier and shorter sail and will serve the purpose just fine. So here we are anchored of Boca de Infierno and things are a-o-kay :) The KISS has hummed its song all afternoon...whispering about how cool it feels to be energy independent and the solar panel chimed in as the soundless partner...we do not get tired of the pair :) The inverter reads a battery voltage of 13.3 (I hate to be technical)...we have SUPER POWER back...yeah and yeah and yeah :)
Yap...it is time to relax :) By the way...our new electric windlass worked like a charm and we anchored securely just in time for a heavy squall...phew!
We will take the next few days to get accustomed to living without shore power and managing our systems on Orion. Then we will sail back to the marina, rent a car and get the last provisioning done...and then we shall be cutting the dock lines for good and be true full time cruisers! The dream is coming true...and we are still pinching ourselves!
In case you are wondering what my captain is eating...cold pizza and apple slices made a delicious brunch and kept the kitchen cold, hahahaha...tomorrow we'll cook again :)
Stay tuned...it can only get better :)
