Clarencetown, Long Island

We woke early this morning, with hopeful plans to listen to the weather, get that weather window and head south.  NOT!!!  Larry got the 6:30 am weather forecast on the Single Side Band receiver and it wasn’t a pretty picture.  The seas had supposedly dropped from 8-10 feet to 7-8 feet.  However, the winds stilled howled over 30 knots on our wind meter.  And from the way the boat still tossed with each wave, the seas hadn’t calmed much.  We decided to be conservative and wait … and wait … and wait.  What was supposed to be an overnight stop here in Clarencetown is turning into a prison we can’t escape!

Larry made a loaf of bread in the bread machine.  It was a quick-rise white bread and took less than 2 hours.  However, it used 25 amp hours … that’s a lot of our battery bank reserve.  We used it on the inverter just to see how much it would actually consume.  We will not do that again except in extreme circumstances … you know, when you really need that fresh bread fix!  Actually, we brought the bread machine mostly because we figured when we run the generator, we can use the bread machine and it won’t cost us anything (in electricity).  The generator produces more than can be absorbed by the charging system so we can use the little luxuries like the bread machine, water maker and washing machine.  If we’re not running the generator, we probably won’t use any of these.  Today was just a test.  Also, Larry truly enjoys making bread from scratch, watching it rise and baking it either in the oven or on the BBQ.  He feels more of an accomplishment I think.

Sitting in one spot like this, trapped on the boat by waves and cold, we are able to just relax and do some of the stuff we haven’t had time for.  Larry has been anxious to play with his SSB radio to see what type of other weather options there are.  Today, he found several.  He was very excited.