150. Stingrays

I took Vincent to Stingray City sand bar. On the way I filled up with water at the yacht club, and after a snorkel with the rays, we cleaned the hull and propeller.

Vincent checking out a stingray (a small one)

Quick shower and we sailed back with ice-cold beers and some reggae. A fun afternoon but I noticed my anchor chain is now really bad; the shackle desperately needs replacing and lots of the chain is also really really rusty, actually starting to flake and crumble. Also my Garmin chart plotter is dying. It works but the screen now has a big blob in the middle where I can’t see anything. Two expensive things; $500 for a new chart plotter, even more for new chain.

So two new urgent items on my to do list, but two also crossed off: my fridge arrived, and works, and is awesome; the remote throttle lever I ordered also arrived. I fitted that and it works well.

Happy to give up life without a fridge – I now have cold drinks, and chocolate. I’d stopped buying dairy at the supermarket, but now I can also keep eggs and cheese. I can also cook double portions and save the leftovers.

I always thought a solar powered fridge makes perfect sense; the brighter the sun, the more cooling you need, but the more solar power you get. My new Dometic thermo electric cooler is quite small (18 liters, it looks like a small cool box), and uses hardly any power at all (about 2 amps when it clicks on), at night it hardly comes on at all.