Life Off the Grid

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

Sweet Escape is on a mooring ball at Boot Key Harbor.  We have been here for over a month without the benefit of shoreside power.  Every watt of energy that we use we create ourselves.  This has caused us to focus more lately on the methodology that we have been using to create this power.

The heart of our twelve volt electrical system is our house battery bank.  We have a 1200 amp hour house bank consisting of ten deep cell six volt golf cart batteries wired in series and parallel.  Series, to increase the voltage from six to twelve volts and parallel to combine the overall capacity of the bank.

This bank has proven adequate over the past six months to support our electrical needs.  Our largest draws come from our refrigerator and our separate freezer which obviously must run 24/7.  After that, occasional use of our TV and DVD player, fans, lighting and water pump are all contributors to the draw.

Up to this point we have been maintaining our batteries on a daily basis using only or 6.5 Kw Fischer Panda diesel generator.  On the hook, we must run the generator for 90 minutes twice each day, in the morning and the evening.  While the generator is a good one and is easy to use there are downsides to being so dependent on it.

First is the fuel it uses.  The generator draws from our main diesel tank and while it is pretty efficient, it is noticeable.  Diesel is readily available here but we are concerned about what happens when we leave here for the Bahamas and parts south.  They have diesel there too but it is not as widely available and is definitely more expensive.  

The second concern we have about being so generator dependent is the knowledge that being a machine, we know that the thing is subject to malfunction and breakdown and that once away from the US, parts and service will be a challenge.  

The third reason we would like to limit our use of the generator is the noise and exhaust it creates.  Don’t get me wrong.  Our genset is pretty quiet - in fact outside the boat all you hear is the cooling water being ejected through the thru-hull.  But it is noticeable inside the boat and it does create diesel exhaust outside that can be annoying to neighbors.

So what to do?  

Since arrival at Boot Key Harbor we have been intrigued by the notion of solar and wind energy.  Cruising in the tropics where the sun shines almost every day provides ample opportunity through the use of solar panels to capture and use some of that energy.  The technology has advanced to the point where if we were to install the right panels we could be able to produce enough power so that we might be able to get away with running our generator only once every other day.  A major improvement.

Wind energy requires the use of a wind generator and while a good compliment to solar for days when the sun is not out or when the solar panels are compromised by shadows we are less enthusiastic about wind.  The reason for this is all around us here.  Most boats in the anchorage use wind generators and we find them to be noisy, potentially dangerous and shall we say, less than aesthetically appealing.   It is like having an aircraft propellor turning at high speed just feet above your head.  Severe injuries can occur if you happen to forget that the thing is up there and go up to deal with say a rigging issue or if a blade should break off in a high wind and become a missile.  The wind generator can also create shadows that compromise the solar panels.

We have decided to add solar to Sweet Escape and will mount the panels on our existing dinghy davits.  This will necessitate the addition of new davits for our dinghy because the old ones won’t be able to handle the weight of both the panels and the dinghy.   New stronger davits will enable us to carry our tender with the engine attached, something that we have wanted to do from the beginning rather than the current arrangement that requires removal of the 100 pound engine each time we raise the dinghy.

We will have the work done here in Marathon this winter in preparation for our trip to the Bahamas in April.  In the meantime our genset is being run as this is being written - we need to go fill up that diesel tank pretty soon.