Aboard No Boundaries
January 5, 2010
What do you do when you plan for a tropical winter and wind up in a deep freeze?
Our sailboat is a really good boat, and it is a comfortable, safe home for us. It has been a good home through some pretty harsh winters in Baltimore, but in Baltimore, we were tied up to a dock, running on shore power, which is not a lot different from being in a house. A boat like ours is not insulated the way a house is, but we kept warm.
We were not really sure what we would do about really cold weather when we arrived at Cumberland Island on New Years Day, but we have learned a few tricks. We keep thinking things will get better so we can visit the island, but so far, we don’t have the guts to get in the dinghy and run over there in this cold. I don’t know if we will ever get to see the island.
If we did not have a generator, our situation would be a bit more dire. We have electric space heaters designed for boats, but without electricity, they are worthless. There are propane heaters for boats, but they have their own problems, not the least being the need to store more propane than is required for cooking. Some boats even use wood-fired stoves, but we have never thought that sounded like a good idea. The electric heaters take up little space, they don’t require special ventilation, and we are going to run the generator anyway.
Our first line of attack on the cold was to dig out one of the little heaters and run it during our morning generator run. We closed the doors to the forward and aft cabins, heating only the main salon. I cooked breakfast, and all that heat was quite comfortable during the morning. Then we turned off the generator, and we turned off the heater. The temperature began to drop. We managed well until mid-afternoon. I made some hot tea, but it was still uncomfortable.
Then I remembered why we don’t use our oil lamps in the summer – they put out heat. We have three oil lamps, one in the forward, one in the main salon, and one in the aft. We lit them all, and it was amazing how they took the edge off the cold. Cooking dinner put more heat in the cabin during the early evening.
We always run the generator after dinner in order to have hot water and top off the batteries. This time it also allowed us to run our heater in the main salon, and we dug out another to heat our stateroom. We were comfortable until it was time to go to bed.
We don’t run any of our heat sources when we are asleep. The generator is under the bed, and we wouldn’t want to sleep over that noise, even though it seems pretty quiet when we are in other parts of the boat. We don’t want lamps burning when we are asleep. That doesn’t make sense. So we bundle up with two blankets and a quilt. That keeps us toasty until we get up in the morning.
The final element of our strategy is the oven. I try not to light it unless I actually need it, but I also try to plan my baking to coincide with otherwise cold times. Today I started baking cookies in late afternoon, just as the heat of the morning was dying down and the outside air was cooling as the sun goes down.
So far we are fine. They say that tonight will be the coldest so far, and then things will let up for a few days. We are trying to figure out if we have the courage to cruise out in this cold and go south far enough to get into the fifties. Can you believe that this is even a problem in Florida? Our problems seem big to us, but I am glad that I am not a farmer with orange groves. We will figure out something.
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