Near and Medium Term Plans

It's been about a week, and I'm far from better. However, I am on the mend. Sadly, my lovely wife just came down with whatever it is I've got. She's been working herself pretty hard lately and it caught up to her.

I hope to get to my water well project in a few days. Amazon has some pretty inexpensive endoscopes so I went ahead and ordered a 10 meter one. That should allow me to find the problem. The buried line can be checked from both ends. There will only be about 6 feet that I won't be able to see. If the problem doesn't show up in the scope, it's in the 6 foot section I can't reach. Between the scope and a drum auger, any blockage should be able to be cleared up. The problem could be a leak, but the scope should find that. If the scope saves me from digging up 66 feet of line, that's a good thing.

Hopefully I can sort out the water situation soon. The temporary surface line is working out, but eventually freezing temps will arrive.

With luck, the weather will hold long enough to get some projects done on the van and sailboat. We've pushed out travel plans off until after New Years. That will give more time for places like the Florida Keys to recover. They are a tourist area and if I can spend some time and money down there that will help out a bit.

Some people have suggested that I film my trips and put up a You Tube channel. There are people making a good income from posting sailing adventures. However, there's only a few making real money at it. After doing some research I figured out a ballpark estimate of what the top 10 sailing vlogs make. The top end is somewhere around $300,000. That includes money from You Tube, Patreon, endorsements, sponsorship and other things. By the time you get to number 10 on the list, the income has already dropped to about $30,000. While that's nothing to sneeze at, your budget gets blown if you need a new sail or major engine repair.

Make no mistake about it, filming sailing in paradise is a job. There's an investment in cameras, audio gear, computers for editing, software and other odds and ends. Putting out a weekly video takes a lot of time and effort. Then you have to search around to find a high speed connection to upload the video. Instead of seeing the sights, you are spending 12 hours at a wifi hotspot trying upload on a dodgy signal.

You also need to look good on camera. Being young, fit, and having bikini clad young ladies on the boat is a huge plus. It's not absolute necessary, but sex sells.

Being lazy, I'm going to continue operate on a shoestring budget on old and small boats. I will post photos and do my best to keep the blog up to date. Text and a few photos are not nearly as data intensive as video.

That being said, I did buy a well rated cheap knockoff of a gopro camera. There may be the occasional video clip included. The learning curve is steep as I've never done much filming of any sort before.

So if all goes well, the fall projects will wrap up in the next couple weeks. Then we'll do the final prep for winter and spring travel.

-Sixbears

The New People

One thing about the Internet -it's easy to find like minded people. You can get together on social media and have a community of sorts. That may provide some emotional support, but that's about all. It's hard to provide real world assistance when your “community” is scattered across the planet.

Then there are actual brick and mortal communities -places with neighborhoods and public spaces. Every community has people who are outside the community norm. Sometimes they are tolerated. Other times they are shunned. Once in a while they are just considered local color. If you are moving into a place, it helps to move someplace where strangers are welcome, not just tolerated or worse.

In the past few years I'm become friends with a number of people new to the area. They are attracted by a number of factors: relatively low housing costs, easy access to nature, walk-able city, no sales or income tax. We are also getting people who find our area fairly welcoming and tolerant. While people in the area have always been friendly, it used to take three generations to be considered a local. That's changed a lot, even in my lifetime.

I think that greater numbers of people are aware of the real value of community. If you have no friends and share few values with the people where you live, it might be time to move. When times get tough, you are going to need to be around people who will help you out. Finding your tribe is important. One woman who I talked to said she lived in many different places, but this is the first time she's ever felt like part of a tribe. It's not about finding people who'll always agree with you. It's about finding people who can acknowledge differences and still like you anyway.

It's can be tough living here. Winters are brutal. Good jobs can be hard to come by. Many people end up working several part time jobs to make ends meet. The social and political environment will not be to everyone's liking. That's fine.

The Internet can be a really useful tool when looking for a place to move to. You can get a pretty good idea what an area is like with some in-depth on-line research. Then you should probably visit the area for a while, to see how it feels. Some things have to be experienced in person.

-Sixbears

Generator or Solar?

What works best in a grid down situation?

I'm not going to lie. You get the best bang for your buck from a generator. A generator big enough to run a freezer and an AC unit can be had for less than $500. Enough solar electricity to do the same job will cost you thousands.

If all you are concerned about is having enough backup power to last a few days, by all means, get a generator. Make sure you know how to use it safely. Gas storage, electrical connections and carbon monoxide poisoning are all serious issues that must be dealt with.

Where a generator starts to fall down is during a long term outage. Storing fuel for weeks or months worth of use is not cheap. It's also probably prohibited by your town's safety codes. There are reasons for that. Bulk fuel storage is a specialized operation requiring proper equipment and training.

So how does solar stack up long term? The best part of solar electric systems is the fact that they just work. No need to tinker with them. No handling fuel. They are quiet and reliable.

What kind of system do you need? Like everything else, that depends. Ideally, you have a system on your house that pays for itself day in, day out. When the grid goes down you might not even notice as the system smoothly goes to battery backup. Now some worry that roof mounted panels could be damaged in a hurricane. True, but your roof will probably be flying off at that point and you'll have greater problems than a lack of electricity. Some people have had success with temporarily removing the panels and tossing them in a swimming pool for safety.

Even a small system can make a huge difference in your quality of life. A 100 watt panel, deep discharge battery, charge controller, and a small inverter costs no more than a cheap generator. It won't power your freezer, but it will charge your phone, keep a light on, power a fan, and do other light jobs. It will also do it long after your neighbor's generator has run out of gas.

If you've got an RV or a travel trailer, or even a van, you've no excuse not to have solar mounted on the vehicle. It makes dry camping much easier. You can drive the vehicle out of harm's way. When you get back to your home, you have a power source available for fixing your house.

Another option is to build a power trailer. Take a cheap utility trailer, mount a battery bank, panels, and associated electronic and you are good to go. These are great where there are ordinances against having solar panels on your roof. I know people in that situation. They park the trailer in the driveway or behind the house and snake a power cord to to the house to run a few items year round.

This power trailer was built to power concerts in areas beyond the grid. It has better quality electronics than most because it powers high end audio equipment.


The thing with generators and solar, it doesn't have to be an either/or situation. They can work well together. For example, a generator might be run for just a few hours a day -just enough to keep the freezer cold and to cool the house down a bit. The solar electric system runs full time to power lights, a radio, and charge electronics. That stretches out your generator's fuel supply.

Waiting for the grid to come back up is a terrible feeling. It's even worse when you have no power at all, your phone is dead, and radios don't work. Backup power can be a life saver, and it always provides some peace of mind.

-Sixbears

Hibernation

I'm still dealing with being sick. My strategy has been to try and sleep it off. Still in the middle of it. My lovely wife has taking good care of me. While I've been out of it, she's decided to clean my office. You've no idea what a herculean task that is. Progress has been made.

While sick I've been missing out on some of the warmest weather we've ever had for the end of September. Temperatures hit 90 yesterday. That's insane. Gardens and flowers are still out in force. We've yet to have a frost. That's unheard of here in the northern mountains of New Hampshire.

I'm going back to bed. One day I'll wake up and be well.

-Sixbears

Puerto Rico

There's a lot of survivalist fiction that tries to depict what life would be like in a grid down situation. In Puerto Rico, that hypothetical disaster has become reality. The whole island lost power, millions are in the dark, and there's no firm estimate when it will be back.

Puerto Rico is in a strange place politically. It's a US territory. Its citizens are US citizens. However, they don't have the same rights that citizens in a US state would have. That puts the island in a sort of limbo. It's economic problems have been getting worse for many months. The way its government is set up, they have very little power to fix things themselves. For years the mainland has taken advantage of the island's status. Big businesses made a lot of money on the island and gave very little back.

It's history is important, but the main issue is what happens now. We have very spotty information on how bad it really is there. Communications are so bad that the governor himself can't reach most of the island.

What has come out doesn't sound good. Hospitals are shutting down as their generators run out of fuel. Emergency services are overwhelmed. A dusk to dawn curfew is in effect. There are stories of looting and violent crime. Authorities are stretched thin.

The United States, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, will be judged on how it reacts to the crisis. They are US citizens, just as deserving of aid as Texas or Florida. For that matter, don't forget the US Virgin Islands, another US territory in need.

If the emergency response isn't strong enough, Puerto Rico's citizens have only one viable option for a normal life. As US citizens, they are free to come to the mainland. Don't be too surprised of the vast majority of the three million residents leave the island. Get ready to welcome your new neighbors.

It may be days, weeks, or months before the general public has a firm grasp on the situation -if they are still interested. By then the nation will have moved on. We should not forget and help as much as we can.

Now imagine if there was a massive EMP or solar storm that knocked out the power in most of the US. It's a possibility. If we can't restore power to a couple of islands, how well would a nationwide blackout be handled?

-Sixbears

Under the weather

I've come down with something: cough, fever and all that. Due to my lung issues I really suffer when I get a cough. Just to make things interesting, my cough syncope has come back. What that means is that sometimes when I cough, I pass out.

At least the weather is nice for the foreseeable future. That will give me time to get better before the cold sets in.

Of course, my water well project has been set back. I've got a drum Auger with 1/4" x 25' Spring Cable on order. First I'm going to check the lower end by the well. If that's clear, then I'll fish it in from the basement. That should allow me to check most of the line for the blockages.

M. Silvius suggested I get hold of a camera that can be snaked down the pipe. If the spring cable is inconclusive, that's what I'm going to do. Anything is better than finding the problem area by digging it all up. We've got technology these days.

Right now I'm not doing anything at all but trying to recover. Pretty annoying to have this setback. I was just starting to do more walking to get back in condition. That's going to have to wait too. Such is life.

-Sixbears

Cruisers going dark

I follow a lot of sailing blogs, podcasts and YouTube channels. The Caribbean and Florida interests me so I've concentrated on those who sail in those waters. Lots of those boaters got hit by the hurricanes. Not all of them have been accounted for. Only a handful have survived in relatively good condition.

A few got out of the hurricane zone in time. Some got lucky and missed the worse of the storm. Those who survived in the zone did so with good planning and lots of luck. Even if your boat is well prepared, it could get hit by another boat that broke loose. It appears that's what happened to many boats in the Boot Key mooring field in the Keys. Boats would break free and collide with other boats and so on.

One of my concerns are some of the boating communities that don't have a public presence. People like to think of boaters are wealthy people who have expensive toys. While there are some like that, many are people without much money. They are eking out a living on old boats. They live at anchor, working low wage jobs or living on small pensions.

There are anchorages of those people all over Florida. The anchoring field off of Key West comes to mind. It's a pretty sketchy anchorage at the best of times. Even minor storms cause boats to drag at anchor. There's also a significant low rent boating district off of Bradenton Beach. My lovely wife and I have anchored there a few times ourselves.

What concerns me is that these people are pretty far off the grid at the best of times. Many of them could go down with their boat and nobody would notice. People come and go all the time. Who's to say whether or not someone moved on or sank to the bottom?

Why should we care? Well, first of all, they are human beings like everyone else. That should be enough. There is more though, they are free people, not tied down to the rat race. I, for one, was excited to learn that there were people out there living good lives on less than $500/month. It's like they found a cheat code to life.

At the best of times, they are tolerated. Often they would be harassed by waterfront property owners who did no like to look at them. Law enforcement knows who pays their wages, and it's not the sea hobos on old boats. I'm sure many of those rich property owners don't care if those boaters survived the storms or not -as long as they are gone.

-Sixbears