Boat Work and Sunrise

Today is going to be one more day of boat work. Yesterday I had spent a good part of the day walking around Daytona Beach, and then visiting with Sven and his family over on his boat. During my travels yesterday I finally did make it down to West Marine, it is about a mile from where I am, directly across from the anchorage I was going to go to.

Yesterday's boat projects included, as always, more cleaning, but I also took the time to check out my alternator. I have, for the past few weeks, been checking my voltage periodicly, and have found that the alternator was just barely putting out over 12 volts. Most folks might assume that it is a 12 volt system, that should be good, over 12 volts right? Well not exactly. A proper charging voltage for a 12 volt system is actually in the 13.6 to 14.2 volt range, and I suspected that my alternator was going bad. I was relieved when I did a bit of troubleshooting, and found that it was not the alternator that was bad, but the galvanic isolator. I won't go into what the galvanic isolator is, but, suffice it to say, it was stealing 2 volts from my charging system, the alternator was putting out 13.8 which is just fine with me.

Today I am going to run Arden aground just before low tide, so that I can replace the zinc anode on the propellor shaft. I have been meaning to do this for the past month, but have not had the zinc, or a good place to do this. So, around midday, I am going to beach her about an hour before low tide, and then she will refloat about 2 hours after that. This is called careening, and is an age old, time tested and proven manner of performing work on the bottom of a vessel. Believe it or not, a few hundred years ago, they would do this with some of the larger ships, and for alot of boatmen, without access to a boatyard, this was the only way to get this work done. So my first foray into Florida water will be to do a bit of maintenance work.

As for the sunrise comment in the title. I had a close friend of mine that is a fan of the blog once tell me to watch every sunrise and sunset. This I do, religiously, except of course when cloud cover does not allow for a sunrise or sunset. So

that is one of the reasons there is the "Sunrise, Sunset" gallery on the main page. Every rise and set is unique and uniquely beautiful, no matter where they are, but from personal experience I have to say that they seem to be more beautiful at the coast or on the water. There are so many variances in color- from the blues and deep purple shades, to the yellows, orange and red tones that seem to dominate.There are also the different cloud formations that work to create an evolving, living work of art. The other really impressive thing about the rise and set on the water is how the water reflects and compliments what is going on up in the sky. So, I hope I am doing my friend's sentiments justice, and I hope you enjoy the beauty that I attempt to capture with my little camera. The pictures are tied to a map that also shows where the photos were taken, so again, I hope you enjoy.