Over the last few years I’ve been testing and playing with a number of different ideas for long term food storage. I’ve finally settled on our strategy for long term food storage when we get ready to leave Key West. I’ve got multiple goals when thinking about long term...
Recently I had the pull cord on my Honda generator break. I tried to restring the coil myself and somewhere along the line I screwed up the release that allows the coil to disengage from the cooling fan (I think I overtightened the screw that holds the assembly together). This caused the...
My partner has a hard time starting the outboard engine on the dinghy, which limits her ability to get off the boat without me playing chauffeur. So I bought a electric start kit for our outboard from Boats.net. The proper kit is 6DR-W8180-11-00 (around $300). I don’t have any...
These are all photos taken last month while on a short walk about town before a night shift. I tend to overshoot so it takes me a while to work through all the photos (the end product is 1/3 of the shots I take workout into a picture with only 15 or so out of 300 frames being worthwhile...
I still do a little bit of freelance work remotely. Finishing up a onboard office has been low on my priorities so when I have a bunch of computer work to do I go to land and find a place with public wifi and grab breakfast, when these locations are small independent shops I tip well for...
It’s difficult for me to get out and dive in Key West. Running out to one of the offshore reefs in my little dinghy (9′ with a small 6 hp motor) means I can only head out on the calmest days. Those calm days always seem to happen on a work day. But a couple months ago I was...
As I’m in the process of pulling out all the core electrical wiring (everything before the distribution panel) and rewiring the engine room and new distribution panel I decided it was a good time to upgrade the core house bank batteries. I was in a little bit of a bind when leaving...
Originally I had planned to hold off on solar panels until I installed the arch across the stern, probably one of the last items I will do. The thought was that I wanted to do it once, and technology in this field was always changing and there might be some step forward before I left in...
Recently I added some solar panels to keep my fridge going without having to run my generator. I didn’t take good care of the batteries that I have now (I was between generators for 9 months and just let them set) and they were a stop gap when I left Jacksonville anyways. For a long...
For Thanksgiving week I took some time off work and made a trip back to California to visit family. The Wedeking Clan are mostly offroaders, I’m the oddball in the group of oddballs. Unfortunately, I ran into an unexpected winter storm and had to deal with snow, which I am not...
Flying a drone in Key West can be problematic. The city has an ordinance making it illlegal to fly in city limits which is redundant in that you can’t fly within 4 miles of an airport – Key West is only 4 miles long, and has an airport. Actually with the US Navy being here...
When you live on a mooring or an anchor the dinghy becomes your most important piece of daily equipment, and the choice of how to power your “car” is very important. The place that I am moored (between Fleming Key and Dredgers Key outside of Garrison Bight in Key West) is...
From the mooring field you can see a number of mangrove islands off to the northeast. They are about 4 – 5 miles away and don’t look like much. With the new dinghy motor providing me a little more range I decided to head out there on a pre-dawn Sunday excursion to get an angel...
This was the opening gambit of a series of books I read about an ancient Roman private investigator who’s life was turned upside down by a random event. The thing that struck me about the series was how you can just be going along in life thinking you had a plan and system set up...
Living on a 41′ 1979 Morgan Out Island 415 in the Florida Keys… for now. This blog is my ramblings about life and boating lifestyle, with a few tips and ideas about how to get by in on a boat and bunch of photography. Enjoy!
