As we describe in Dirona fuel manifold, we choose to explicitly pump fuel from the appropriate bulk tank to the supply tank rather than gravity feed. This is a slightly more manual operating mode but has some advantages that we really like. The first advantage is that a leak in the supply system can put…
Tag Archives | Nordhavn 52
Johnny Sessa Bulldozing Visit
What beats an afternoon operating heavy equipment? Months before we made it to Florida, Oliver Sessa offered us a day at Johnny Sessa Bulldozing with an open invitation to give some of their larger equipment a whirl. James has been looking forward to it since. Within a week of our arriving in Florida, Oliver emailed…
St. Lucia to Palm Beach
Last week we ran 1,424 miles directly from St. Lucia to Palm Beach, Florida. We initially were planning to work our way up slowly through the Caribbean and reach Florida via the Bahamas, but Jennifer developed complications with her broken collarbone, so we went straight to Florida to seek medical attention. We had some boat…
Pigeon Island
We took a taxi from the Rodney Bay marina to explore Pigeon Island National Landmark. The island once was detached from the mainland until a causeway was built in 1973, and has a lengthy naval history: it was a pirate’s hideout in the 1500s, a British naval base starting in the 1700s, and a US…
St. Lucia
From Port St. Charles we travelled 97 miles to St. Lucia and spent a relaxing couple of weeks at the marina in Rodney Bay. We contintued to mostly take it easy, but also got a few boat projects done. Trip highlights from Feb 21st to March 5th follow. Click any image for a larger view,…
Behind the Scenes on the Westerdam
We love technology, how things work, and digging in behind the scenes and so an important part of our trip around the world in a small boat has included stops to tour ice breakers, mines, manufacturing plants, container ships. We even tried our hands at the helm of a 5,000 HP tractor tug. Some highlights…
Port St. Charles
When we arrived into Port St. Charles, Barbados on February 3rd of 2016, we were ready to slow down and take it easy. In the six months prior, since leaving Tipperary Waters Marina in Darwin, Australia on August 10th of 2015, we’d travelled 12,237 miles. We’d made our two biggest non-stop passages ever: 3,023 miles…
Exploring Barbados
We rented a car for a few days to explore Barbados and do some shopping. We spent the first day at the south end of the island in the area of the capitol, Bridgetown, starting with a trip to the Mount Gay Barbados Rum factory. Then we explored other parts of Barbados, including a tour…
Limin’
To give Jennifer’s shoulder some time to heal, we took it easy for the week after her collar bone break. We got a few boat projects done, and made sure Jennifer got lots of “medicinal” rum to speed her recovery. Kathy and John Youngblood of Mystic Moon tell us this is called limin’, something the…
Hot Rodding the Mastervolt Inverter
Our Mastervolt MassCombi 24/4000-100 120V inverter works well and we generally like it but it has always seemed to go into thermal shutdown earlier than it should. The inverter is particularly vulnerable to thermal cut out when it’s more than 80F outside and the sun is shinning directly on the stern. The early thermal cutout…
