Back on May 5th I ended my last post here by saying “I will do my best to get out another update before we start on our newest adventure heading to the East Coast and back.”
Hmmmmm, given that this is now the 3rd of November, I think we can safely say that has turned out to be an eXtreme failure! And I do sincerely apologize for any angst or concern this may have caused some of you. However I’ll do my best here to rectify the situation by finally making some time to put together this update, which I will again endeavor to be the first of many more to come.
The short answer to the questions many of you sent asking along the lines of “What’s been happening?!?!” is in the title of this long delayed update and a favorite quote of mine if that wasn’t already painfully obvious.
BTW, that quote of ‘Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans’ is widely remembered as John Lennon’s, thanks to his 1980 song Beautiful Boy. But the phrase first appeared decades earlier, in a 1957 Reader’s Digest piece by Allen Saunders. Lennon gave it wings, but Saunders gave it birth and I’ll just say thanks to them both.
“Life” in my case and Christine’s is lived based on what we refer to as “The No Plan Plan” and is one of constant curiosity and eXploration. These have been traits for both of us for most of our lives and the root of what led us both to become single handed sailors for so many years before our serendipitous meeting back on November 22, 2013 happily turned us into double handed sailors, lovers and life partners on sv Learnativity, mv Möbius and now the XRV Lance.
For those who may not know it or for those interested in a repeat telling of the whole story of how we came to merge our single handed lives into one, you can find all the details in my previous post several years ago “The simple comment that Changed My Life Forever Better”
But I digress………………… (some things never change no matter how long you wait) Both of those traits of endless curiosity and living on The No Plan Plan also helps explain the eXtreme delay in getting this new new update posted for you. Having been so long and with SO much having happened since that last update I think I’ll tackle this the same way as one would do trying to eat an elephant; one bite at a time! My intent then is to start by answering as best I can, some of those questions of “What’s been happening?!?” and “Why not updates for over six months?!!?” by providing a few details as context as to why I simply have not had any time to write any updates since I left off back on May 5th. Suffice it to say my first few posts will be travelogues indeed as since that last update, we have put on over 20,000 km / 12,500 miles on Lance’s first “test drive”.
All this driving time was also interspersed with visiting friends and family all across the US and Canada and it simply did not leave ANY time for writing blog post updates. Hope you can understand and I do sincerely appreciate your eXtreme patience with me for those of you still following along after all this time.
My intent with today’s blog is to provide you with a bit more detail on the four different routes we drove to make what turned out to be a giant counterclockwise loop from Road Runner Ranch (our place here in Searchlight NV) across to the East Cost of the US, up into the Maritime provinces in Canada, back across Canada to RavensRidge on Saturna Island and most recently our move with both Lance and Totu (our 2006 Toyota Tundra pickup) from Saturna back to Searchlight. So get a comfy seat and your beverage of choice and come along for the first leg of the “test drive” as we make our way from Searchlight to Portland Maine in time for Julia’s wedding on June 21st.
June 10-20, 2025 Searchlight NV to Portland ME 5021km/3120 miles
Picking up where I left off in the last post in May, we both had our noses pressed hard against our individual grindstones; Christine finishing the manuscript for her upcoming new novel and me pushing to get Lance further along with his transformation into a livable XRV. We had two hard deadlines to meet;
1. Get Christine’s manuscript sent off to the Developmental Editor in England she has hired
2. Be in Portland Maine in time to attend the wedding of my niece Julia on June 21st.
Oblivious that we had apparently become delirious from the stress and strain of these rapidly approaching deadlines “one of us” had the brilliant idea that driving rather than flying to Portland for Julia’s wedding was the perfect opportunity to take Lance on his “Maiden voyage” to see how well our designs would work out in the real world and return with all the new ideas for improvements and edits to the build. This iterative approach has been a common method for us with our projects such as when we were finishing Mobius and decided to spend a year cruising around the Turkish coasts on extended sea trials to work out the bugs and find out what was working well, what was not and what changes we wanted to make before truly setting off on the high seas.
These cross country driving trips were also in keeping with our past as over the years while we were out sailing the world, we would fly back and taken several similar large road trips all across the US and Canada in rented vehicles we outfitted to be mini RV’s. We are “bi-coastal Grandparents” with two Granddaughters in the LA area and a Grandson in Ft. Lauderdale and our son Skyler up in Vancouver BC. And dear friends and family literally spread out all across both countries and many more.
So I committed to getting Lance to the point of having a comfortable bed to sleep on, counters and cooktops to prep meals with and seating to eat along the way. So was born the agreement that I would get Lance as close as possible to this stage and as soon as Christine hit the button to send her manuscript through the ether to the editor in England we would fire up Lance and hit the road. As time ticked away Christine set a deadline to send off her manuscript the morning of June 10th and the race was on to be on the road by 10 o’clock on the 10th.
Portland Maine here we come!
Well, almost!
A few days before the 10th I had taken Lance into Vegas to put new front steering tires on him. All six tires (duals on the rear axle) still had a pretty good amount of tread on them but for a bit of added confidence and safety putting on a new set of steering tires was a good idea and this also gave me the chance to take Lance out on the highway for the approximately 160 mile round trip up to Vegas and back after he had been sitting here on RoadRunner Ranch for almost six months. Then after the wedding we could take advantage of New Hampshire not having any sales tax to buy the four new tires for the rear axle and give Lance new shoes all the way around for the rest of our marathon test drive up the East coast into the Maritime provinces and across Canada back to the Best Coast and our place on Saturna Island. That all worked out well as you can see as I jump the timeline a bit to June 19th when we put on the four new rear tires.
Meanwhile, back to the morning of June 10th, as Christine was putting the finishing touches on the draft manuscript of her new book getting it ready to sent off, I went out to finish stowing everything we had loaded into Lance for the big test drive out to Julia’s wedding. Of course our co-pilots, Razz and Zoe were even more eXcited and always ready to hit the road.
Just before 10am I fired him up in prep for leaving but turns out he wasn’t going anywhere as the air compressor had decided to stop working. Lance has air brakes and after the air pressure in his 3 tanks gets below about 90 PSI, all the brakes go ON and can’t be taking off until they get back to their topped up pressure of 125PSI.
I informed Christine of this new twist in the plot of my own novel and told her she had a bit more time if she wanted to send off her manuscript.
I had been having some problems previously with the air compressor not cooperating but had always got it going but it took me the better part of the day to find THIS problem with a split in the rubber elbow Not a stock part and too late to get one shipped in so MacGyver time it was.
A a bit of self amalgamating tape (the yellow stuff) and some zip ties and it was time to fire up Lance again and see if this had fixed the problem and the compressor was filling up the air tanks.
It was! It was late by now but we figured it would be psychologically best for us to still leave and put in a few miles just so we had officially started the trip. The weather had been getting hotter and hotter with daytime temps in the low 40’sC well over 100F but being in this dessert area it cools down nicely at night and makes for pleasant sleeping and evening drives.
Laughlin Nevada is about 60 miles south of us right on the banks of the Colorado River and we had been several times so I reminded Christine that I had said we’d leave at “10 on the 10th” but had conveniently left off the AM/PM detail!
And so it was that at 22:00 hours on June 10th, we pulled out of RoadRunner Ranch and headed south on Hwy 95 to Laughlin.
Portland here we come!
Well, almost.
Lance goes to Laughlin
We hadn’t eaten yet so we decided to go to the In-N-Out Burger place in Laughlin and go camp out on the river to enjoy our last night in Nevada for awhile. However, Laughlin sits about 3800 feet lower than our place near Searchlight which we were reminded of as the night time temperatures continued to rise the whole way there and turned out that Laughlin had set a new record that day of 116F/47C!
Just after midnight now and with fresh piping hot burgers and fries the night had cooled down to a mere 112F/42C so we were headed for the banks of the Colorado River less than a mile away as quick as we could. We almost made it to the intersection at the end of Casino Boulevard where we would turn Right down to the river when the low air pressure alarm when off! Drat! Apparently that MacGyver fix hadn’t quite done the job.
I knew we had less than a minute before the pressure would drop below 90psi and the brakes would all come ON so I pulled over into the right hand turn lane at the end of Casino Drive where there is a big boat launching ramp into the river. Just got into that turn lane when the brakes came on. Guess what dear!? This is home for the night!
I’ll skip most of the gory details and just say that I was able to go buy a cordless compressor and get enough air in the tanks to move Lance into that boat launch ramp parking spot that had been freshly paved. It took another two days to finally get back on the road again that involved a rental car to make a trip up to Vegas to get a new cylinder head to rebuild the compressor. Oh, and did I mention that it set a new record of 117F the next day.
My Brilliant Beautiful Bride knew what what we needed to cool down and survive was ELEVATION so once again at 22:00 hours on the 12th Lance was again ready to roll and we headed out of Laughlin bound for Flagstaff Arizona and quickly climbed up to over 4000 ft where we found an ideal little truck stop just after midnight where it was now under 70F/21C and all four of us (Zoe & Razz were along of course) had a much needed and much cooler sleep. By the next night we had climbed up over 8000ft and when we woke up that morning it was a very chilly 34F/1C so as Christine knew, elevation easily solved our high temp problem.
They’re going to get married and we ARE going to be there!
We were now a bit behind schedule so we had relatively full days of driving but enjoyed ever mile of it as the weather and the geography changed as we made our way to Portland for the wedding for sure this time! You can check out that map above (click to enlarge any photo) and see our route if you’re interested. And we still had enough time to get the four new tires as we passed through sales tax free Concord New Hampshire.
Most importantly though, we arrived in Portland the morning of June 20th with plenty of time to spare, by my standards at least and enjoyed the evening with all the other friends and family there for the big day tomorrow. It was very windy that night but we awoke to a beautiful sunny Saturday and Ben & Julia had perfect weather for their outdoor afternoon wedding. Julia is my sisters daughter and so I may be a wee bit biased but THAT is a Beautiful Bride! And they had the perfect backdrop of the inner harbour that included some gorgeous schooners and tall ships for that extra touch. Seems like a pretty ideal ending to this first leg of our test drive in Lance and I’ll be back in MUCH less than six months with the next three legs of this eXtremely wonderful set of adventures we had.
For those interested in the build of Lance I have continued to make quite a bit of progress since I left off back in May, both along the way of those routes and in the time we had at RavensRidge on Saturna. I think I will perhaps change from doing posts that are chronological and instead cover specific parts of the build such as plumbing, electrical, interior cabinetry, etc. Let me know what you think of that change and I’ll do my best to get back to posting a new update every week of so.
Lastly, my sincere thanks for your patience and my apologies for keeping you waiting and somewhat concerned for so long.
See you here again soon and remember you can add any questions, comments or suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” at the bottom of each post.
As predicted when I left off in the last update here, it has been a VERY BUSY time the past month for us but we’ve made the move and are now settling into our new Southern Home Base down near Searchlight Nevada.
There are some photos and details about our new 10 acre property in that PREVIOUS POST back on Dec. 8th so you can check that out if you’d like and I’ll just pick up from where we left off.
BONUS: Be sure to read to the end to see the bonus video that Drone Captain Christine put together.
Our son Skyler flew down from Vancouver BC on the 23rd of December to join us for the holidays in Klamath Falls and he was a HUGE help getting all my tools, equipment, materials and such packed up from the workshop I’d set up in Klamath Falls. Along with our personal belongings and food we managed to get everything loaded into Lance and the beds of the two pickup trucks we now find ourselves with.
We were a bit sad to leave as we had really enjoyed our time getting to know Klamath Falls and the surrounding area of southern Oregon. This is the parting shot just after noon on Boxing Day (Dec 26th) as we bid a very fond adieu to what had worked out to be a great home and workshop and hit the road for the almost 700 mile drive down to our new Southern Home Base just north of Searchlight NV. We broke the trip up into two legs with an overnight stop in Fallon Nevada and it turned out to be a great drive with clear dry roads after we got about a hundred miles south of Klamath Falls and enjoyed the ever increasing temperatures as the miles rolled by. We arrived at the property late in the afternoon of the 27th with big smiles for all three drivers and both pups. And just in time to catch this beautiful sunset which we’ve now discovered is most every night here.
Christine has been getting her drone flying skills dusted off and this shot she grabbed a few days ago from up above the spot we’re setting up to live on for the next few months will give you an idea of the layout. Those two big white rectangles are 40 foot “High Cube” (9’6” high) shipping containers that came with the property along with a lot of great items inside that you’ll soon see. The other white rectangle is the 2012 25 foot travel trailer that will be home for us for now.
** See the Bonus drone video at the end. As Skyler and I unloaded the crates of our belongings and coolers of food, Christine got to work storing it all away and organizing our new home. As sharp eyes might notice, she even baked a loaf of banana bread! Looking aft in the trailer you can see that we’ve got everything we need with a nice U shaped settee and an adjacent full bathroom & shower. Then a separate bedroom in the rear with a Queen bed and even an office for Christine to work at just out of sight in the rear left corner here at the foot of the bed. And check out our views out the windows! This floorplan helps to show how the bedroom & settee are in a slide out section along the right side of the trailer that really helps open up the space.
Keeping in mind that we are both used to living full time in boats, for us this is HUGE!
Skyler started unloading all the crates and materials from Lance and I started to figure out where to put them for now in the two containers. The one you see here on the Left will be my workshop area and the other one out of site in this photo over on the far Right closer to the trailer provides storage for everything else AND houses all our fresh water and electrical power equipment that allows us to live 100% off grid. Could not have been a better present than all the time we got with Skyler and all the hard work he so cheerfully gifted us with to make this latest transition of the Nauti Nomadic Grandparents so memorable. Thanks Sky!
It will take me awhile to build workbenches and storage racks but for now all my tools and equipment are very safely stored away inside the two containers.
Part of what made this property such a Goldilocks just right find for us was that one of the things inside the containers was sixteen 305 Watt solar panels and so Skyler and I got to work setting those up in two different locations to try out for now. Eight of those solar panels we propped up against the wall of the container as you can see here which made it a short run for the power cables to go into the MPPT controller inside. Of course the HIGHEST priority was getting the new Puppy Play Pen set up for Zoe and Razz to enjoy. The other eight solar panels we propped up against the south facing side of the trailer to try out that orientation as I monitor the daily production to see what generates the most power to keep our big new battery bank fully charged every day.
All very rough and tentative till we live with all this for awhile and decide best location on the acreage to build on and then I will build proper ground mount racks for all these and perhaps more solar panels. In that previous post you may recall seeing this pallet full of boxes that had arrived at the Klamath Falls workshop which contained the other two key components of our off grid power system. this 15 kWh 54 Volt upright EG4 lithium battery and ………. …….. this EG4 6000XP all in one MPPT solar charge controller, inverter charger.
The battery weighs a svelte 128kg/282 lbs. but Skyler and were able to get it wrestled out of Lance and into the container and get the 6000XP mounted above it and all secured to the steel walls of the container. These two smaller vertical boxes I mounted on on the side at the mid point are the isolation switches and circuit breakers for the high voltage power coming in on the Red and Black wires you see here which come from each of the two strings of solar panels (8 panels in each). We soon had everything wired up and in this shot I’m busy configuring all the settings before turning it on for the first time. Just amazing how far these kinds of off grid systems have come and we were able to go from no power at all when we arrived to having a full 240VAC split phase power system in less than one day. We had about 190L/50 USG of fresh water that I had filled up the trailer’s water tank with on my way bringing it back from where we bought it in Tucson so we had plenty of potable water for drinking, cooking and showers the first few days but now time for a more full time setup and another part of what made this property such a great find for us. These four 1250L/330USG IBC Totes as they are called (Interim Bulk Containers) also came with the property along with a fifth empty one that we’ll use in the future to bring more fresh water from the town water system in Searchlight that is just a few miles away. The pumps you see at the bottom here are now all set up to provide pressurized fresh water to a tap on the outside of the container and a hose from there to the trailer provides all the fresh water we need for day to day living.
It will take us a bit longer to get everything setup and be able to get back to working on books and Lance but we’re off to a great start and new year.
Can’t be all work and no play so in the midst of all this we also took time to celebrate the new year in our new home base. Christine and I adopted giving “experiences” rather than “stuff” to each other for gifts and this year I got us three tickets to go see the “Immersed in Van Gogh” experience in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve which is less than an hour’s drive north from our property.
Then Christine had rented a boat for the three of us to go out on Lake Mohave for New Year’s Day. This shot is looking about due East from our place and off in the distance about center (click to expand any photo) you can see the Colorado River flowing South. Hoover/Boulder Dam is to the North and Davis Dam to the South which creates Lake Mohave in between. It only takes about 15 minutes to drive from our place to the marina on Lake Mohave. I will leave you with this shot of what our humble new abode is looking like with yet another super sunset that Christine loves to photograph.
I know many of you are shaking your heads and wondering what drew us here but perhaps these two days with New Years eve in Las Vegas and then New Year’s Day out on the lake both being minutes away from our otherwise eXtremely remote spot might help you understand a wee bit better what makes this such a Goldilocks place for us.
Location, location, location right??!!
BONUS VIDEO:
As promised, here is a short video that Christine has put together as she dusts off her drone flying skills for this quick flyover what we are thinking of calling “RoadRunner Ranch”. Although we have not yet spotted one here yet I hope this quick flyover part of our 10 acres will help you visualize this location and maybe help you see what we see. In any case do enjoy and thanks Captain Christine!
Hope all of you have 2025 off to a great start as well and I’m looking forward to getting back to regular updates in the next few weeks as I get my new workshop up and running and get back to working Lance. Thanks for joining us on yet another adventure and please leave any questions or comments in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
Christine and I are still working our way through our recent “difficult but clear” decision to send our beloved dog Ruby off on her final passage which you may have read about in my last update Iposted here. We both want to say thanks to all of you who sent such kind thoughts in your comments, text messages, Emails and calls. All much appreciated and we are most grateful for bringing us even more memories of all our adventures and travels with Ruby the Wonderdog.
As the randomness of life would have it, it turns out this was just the warmup for us as we now find ourselves confronted with an even more “difficult but clear” decision to make which I will explain as best I can below.
I won’t bore you with too many of the details, but I have recently received confirmation that I have a rare condition called Ménière’s Disease that affects my inner ear and balance. In my case, the primary symptoms are sudden onset Vertigo which makes me dizzy and disoriented without any warning when I am moving around and increased tinnitus that has been ringing in my ears for many years. Currently, there is no cure or treatment for Ménière’s disease, and the symptoms are predicted to increase in frequency and severity over the coming years. We will just have to wait and see.
Right now, these random bouts of vertigo are not too frequent and only occur when I am moving around. The bigger problem is when I am unable to grab onto something, and I lose my balance and fall. In several instances over the past months while we have been underway on Möbius, I’ve hit my head badly and worse, I’ve aggravated the four cracked disks in my back from a serious motorcycle accident I survived many years ago. This has triggered severely painful spasms that incapacitate me for several days. I’m no stranger to pain and can deal with that, but as you might imagine, with this all happening on a moving boat while underway, it has been very stressful for poor Christine. She has often reminded me that her worst fear is waking up for her night watch and finding herself alone on the boat. With this news, and her first-hand observation of a fall or two, she tells me her anxiety level has skyrocketed.
After much discussion of our options and processing through stages of denial, anger and frustration we have both come to accept the painful but clear conclusion that it is no longer safe or sensible for us to continue our nomadic adventures exploring the world by sea aboard the good ship Möbius. After investing and immersing ourselves so completely for the past five years to bring our Goldilocks “just right, just for us” dreams to the reality that is Möbius, ending our voyages just as we were getting started is sad and disappointing to say the least. Yet for us, this does not diminish in the least the incredible experiences we’ve had joining forces with SO many eXtremely talented people to collaboratively design and build this boat of our dreams. We remain eternally grateful to each one of you. In the short time since setting off to eXplore the world on her, we have already had so many truly awemazing adventures together visiting places we had never seen before and making the transition from sail to power. Mirroring our recent experience with losing Ruby, it will be painful to let Möbius go, but it is equally clear to us that this is the smart and right thing to do. She is an amazing boat, and we adore her, but she deserves and needs owners who can take her on the ocean-crossing voyages she has proven to be so capable of and is currently tugging at her dock lines to continue.
I’m not sure that it has fully sunk in for either of us yet, but we are going to be “swallowing the anchor” as the saying goes. However, we have accepted the eXciting new challenge of dreaming up a whole new home for us and new way of equally eXtreme eXploration of the world by land. At this point in time, we have no idea just what that will look like, but we’ll figure that out over the next few months and are anxious to get started on this as soon as possible. We love these kinds of challenges, and we think we have been quite successful so far. Why would we change now?! Heck, we made the transition from voyaging by sail to power and transformed our aquatic Goldilocks dreams into reality by designing and building Möbius, and we have just covered over 8200 nautical smiles since leaving Turkey at the end of October. How hard can the next transition from sea to land be? Maybe we’ll end up following that natural progression with age I’ve heard some mention: Sailboat –> Powerboat –> RV –> Hearse. hehehe
So, what’s next for us? Our immediate plans are to stay living aboard Möbius safely docked here at Tidewater Marina in Norfolk VA where we recently enjoyed having our son Skyler here for a week long visit and our two Granddaughters and their parents aboard for the July 4th week. Now that we have been able to spend time with our thee children and grandchildren and discuss our big decision with them, our top priorities are to get our personal gear down to the bare minimum on Möbius and get her spick and span and shipshape as we seek out her new owners. As most of you know, Möbius is our full-time home and everything we own is onboard so it will take a good bit of time and work to transfer all our personal gear from the boat to shore.
Trust me when I say that I know this is a LOT to take in and process! We are feeling more than a bit overwhelmed by this sudden and complete change in plans, but we both wanted to deliver this news to you as directly and transparently as possible as we work our way through it all. It won’t be fast or easy to find the new owners for Möbius, but now that we have made the decision we are highly motivated to find them so she will be the deal of a lifetime for someone out there such that we and they can both begin our new adventures right away.
And of course, if YOU have been dreaming about exploring the world by sea sooner than later on a boat that has proven herself an eXtremely capable exploration passagemaker, here is your chance to fulfill those dreams NOWl! So, if this boat is calling your name or you know anyone else who might like to become the new owner of Möbius, please email us at wayne.christine@mobius.world. It will take us a few weeks at least to get Möbius decluttered and ready to put on the market and we will create a “Möbius for Sale” blog post with videos, photos and details of all her equipment and systems and publish that as soon as we can.
I realize that this is likely as unexpected and surprising to you as it has been to us, and I apologize for veering off onto this personal tangent on the Mobius.World blog. Having each of you choose to join us on this grand “Project Goldilocks” adventure has been a huge part of what has made the journey so far so special and meaningful for both me and Christine, and we are grateful for your encouragement and companionship throughout. Therefore, it seemed only appropriate to share this unexpected new development with you directly today.
That’s more than enough from me for now. Please don’t fret or worry, as this is NOT a life-threatening condition, just a lifestyle-threatening one. I’m still very appreciative and grateful for everything I am so fortunate to have in life. At 70 years young, I still lead a very charmed, adventurous and eXciting life. Despite this new wrinkle, I’m otherwise very fit, healthy, and energetic. I have the best partner in life and love, my Captain Christine at my side. And I have more love and care from more family and friends like you than I deserve. So, could I be any more fortunate? Methinks not!
I appreciate that you may be feeling the urge to respond to this update, and I thank you for that, but no response is needed nor expected. For us it is onward and upward, as we close out one set of adventures and begin the next.
So don’t worry, we’re not done yet! We’ll keep you posted here on our next steps as we continue our newest round of awemazing adventures in life.
I don’t recall just when or how she acquired the moniker of Ruby the Wonderdog, but it was very early on as a pup and my First Mate aboard the Good Ship Learnativity as we sailed out of San Francisco back in 2007 and set out to explore the world together. This is my very first photo of her the day I picked her up on the 12th of October, 2007 when she was about six weeks old.
Today, almost 16 years later, Ruby weighed her last anchor and headed off on her final passage. As you might imagine, Christine and I are riding life’s rollercoaster of emotions today which includes a lot of sadness but if you chose to continue reading, I hope you will indulge me this personal detour. I’d like to remind myself just how much Ruby was THE Wonderdog as we celebrate and appreciate the profound joy she brought into our lives and that of countless others she met along the way. Like most of the awemazing events in my life, Ruby came into my life when the forces of serendipity and synchronicity combined to have us meet and be bonded forever after.
As I was preparing to head off sailing around the world singlehanded, I had thought I might get a cat at some point but my dear friend Grace happened to mention that her two dogs had just had a litter and she was looking for a good home for the last one. It was the classic love at first sight ,and we’ve been together ever since. Ruby was a “Spoodle”, cross between Poodle and Cocker Spaniel and both her parents, Grace’s dogs, were Spoodles. And when I say she was small I’m not exaggerating as you can see here in this picture with my daughter Lia’s little Papillion “Piglet”. And Oh, the places we did go! We started by sailing down the West coast of North, Central and South America to Rapa Nue aka Easter Island where we turned right and headed West to Pitcairn, Gambier and on through most of the Polynesian islands. Westward to more islands such as American Samoa, Niue, Tonga, Fiji, Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Vanuatu with multiple passages between all of these for about the next five years. Aboard Möbius this past year, the Wonderdog sailed with Christine, myself and her buddy Barney, along the coasts of Turkey, Greece and Sicily then across the Med and North Africa, across the Atlantic to Martinique in the Caribbean and up through the Bahamas to Florida and now her final port here in Portsmouth Virginia. Being all Black other than a small White blaze on her chest, Ruby was typically difficult to see in photos but if you look closely or click to enlarge, you’ll see her on the other side of me as we crossed the equator in 2009. This would be our first of seven times we crossed the equator together. In 2013 when serendipity and synchronicity again combined to have the awemazing Christine and I meet for the first time in Fiji, Ruby was there too as seen in this first photo ever taken of us a few hours after we met. That first photo above was taken on our dear friends Ian & Coleen’s boat Summer Spirit in Vuda Point Marina. Ruby fell in love with both of them, and vice versa, probably spending more time aboard Summer Spirit than Learnativity in all the years we were back and forth to Fiji and Vuda Point. Ruby loved running up and down beaches and this one in Majuro in the Marshall Islands was one of her favorites. In multiple passages up to Majuro from Fiji, we probably spent over a year’s time there, the last two with Christine aboard as well. The Wonderdog was always a marvel of balance that would make any gymnast or circus act envious and perched herself at the bow every dinghy ride no matter the conditions and never fell off once. Though she jumped off as soon as we got near the beach as she just couldn’t wait to swim ashore and hit the beach running. Another of her many skills, she became and expert and sniffing out and then digging out crabs no matter how deep down under the sand they went, and then eat with great gusto and lips carefully bared so as not to get bit by their claws. On rare occasion she would take a back seat to her best buddy Barney as long as it meant another trip to the beach. We soon became a family of four when Christine’s dog at the time Barney joined us, and he and Ruby became best buddies immediately almost more than did Christine and I. However it quickly became apparent that Barney was “my” dog and Ruby was velcro’d to Christine from the very first day they met. In any case, we were now a family of four. Both Ruby and Barney were great snuggle buddies, sometimes along side us sometimes alongside each other. Always at the ready for the next adventure, or the next meal. Can’t say that it was her favorite thing to do but Ruby was no stranger to dressing up for special occasions such as being Bridesmaid along with Barney as Groom at our wedding in 2015. And celebrating each Christmas with us as Santa’s little helpers. Along for the ride with all our family and friends such as one of Lia and Brian’s many times aboard starting with this first one in Puntarenas Costa Rico along with their little dog Piglet. Son Skyler on one of our many visits to Vancouver BC. And my apologies to SO many other friends and family I’m leaving out here.
If you believe in dog years, Ruby would be about 110 years old now and Christine and I have known for the past few months that age was beginning to catch up with her. She had lost most of her hearing the past year and was developing cataracts in both eyes, but she was still as frisky as a pup at times racing up and down the side decks, eating, drinking, pooping and sleeping well and seemed to continue to enjoy life together with us. So we’ve been keeping a close eye on her, and this past week she started to go downhill down rapidly. Barney noticed the change as well this past week and in an apparent common scenario, for the first time he began to give her some very serious grooming sessions licking her head to toe for half an hour or more multiple times a day. Ruby seemed to signal us as well as her appetite diminished as did her weight this past week, and she ate and drank very little the last 24 hours.
The decision was not easy but it was clear to all four of us that this fateful time had arrived. So a few hours ago, we snuggled together with our dearest friend and crewmember for one last time, shed more than a few tears and kissed Ruby the Wonderdog Bon Voyage for her final passage in this life, with us by her side.
Over our years together the boats Ruby and I have lived and sailed upon have changed, but I’d like to think that we have both stayed largely the same and as bonded together as ever.
This was us in Fiji in 2009 and ….. …… this is us this morning in Portsmouth Virginia, fourteen years later.
FYI, totally unintended coincidence but yes of course I’m still wearing the same shirt!
We have seen a lot of the world together and watched a lot of sunsets over the years, my dearest Ruby. My rough guesstimates are that together we’ve checked into more than 33 countries, flown almost one hundred thousand air miles, tens of thousand road miles in cars, trucks, RV’s and motorcycles, countless more miles on trains, taxis and busses and sailed over 60 thousand nautical miles.
Ruby, words can not possibly articulate how rich and charmed my life has been since you first entered it. I will never be able to thank you enough for all the many gifts and profound joy you have given me during our almost sixteen years together. I think I may be ready for a world without The Wonderdog in it, but I’m not at all sure if I will ever be ready for a world without my partner Ruby.
Lucky for me, there really is no such world as I will always have and cherish the treasure trove of memories from all our shared experiences in life together.
Thank you my friend, my partner, my beloved Ruby. Fair winds and following seas as you weigh anchor and set out upon your latest voyage with me at your side as always!
Another 2+ weeks go zipping by and May is already half over! Lots of changes for us in this time as we crossed over from the Bahamas where we left off in the last update, and entered US waters for the first time on Möbius as we begin to make our way North along the East coast of the US. Here is a quick summary of our travels the past two weeks.
Bahamas to Florida
In the last update we were anchored off of Coopers Town on the NE coast of Great Abacos waiting for a storm front to pass and provide us with a good weather window to make our second “Atlantic crossing” over to Florida.
We left Coopers Town on May 3rd and anchored for the night on the NE corner of a tiny little island Mangrove Cay which Christine knew from past visits here on her boat, would provide us with a good jumping off point for the crossing.
Speaking of jumping off, SpaceX was thoughtful enough to provide us with quite the send off as you can see in this great shot Christine captured with the twilight launch of their latest “Falcon Heavy” rocket on our last night off Coopers Town. It was much more spectacular when seen from this distance compared to the close up view she got when we were anchored off Cape Canaveral last week.
Not to be outdone, Mother Nature also helped to send us off on our crossing with this beautiful sunset as we were anchored off Mangrove Cay.
My reference to “skinny dipping” in the title is because we have spent most of the past month dipping our very skinny boat in the very “skinny” waters with depths of under 3m/10ft in most places. In the Bahamas this is known as “The Banks” and you can see this very vividly in the sat photo here with all that light turquoise coloured skinny waters. This is one of the many reasons we worked so hard to keep Möbius as “skinny” as possible with a draft of about 1.3m/4.3ft so we are good in up to about 5 feet of water. Seeing these skinny depths is a bit disconcerting at first but you soon get used to it and just pay a lot more attention to depths on the charts as you go.
Our spot off Mangrove Cay was very peaceful and next morning we had the anchor up by 7am and headed for West Palm Beach which was just a bit south of due West. In this heat map you can see the warm waters that create the Gulf Stream that flows North at up to 6 knots at times so we “crabbed” our way across it with the boat pointing ESE at times in order to make the straight line across to West Palm Beach. Our Furuno Auto Pilot worked well to make this very easy and the crossing went without any problems taking about 10 hours with an overall passage average of about 8.2 knots in spite of fighting the current a bit.
Back in the USA!
We have both been into West Palm Beach inlet on previous boat trips in the US and it provides a very easy entry and is an official Port of Entry which we needed as this was our first landing in the USA. As with most countries the checking in process is getting much faster and easier being done online and with aps on your phone. In the USA this is done with the “CBP Roam” app from US Custom & Border Protection which we have been using in the USVI and Puerto Rico so it all went without a hitch once we had anchored inside the inlet near the bottom of this photo.
With one more passage in the logbooks, it seemed worthy of a celebration so we popped the cork on a cold bottle of bubbly fresh out of the fridge and took in all the entertainment provided by all the commercial and recreational ships and boats in this very busy spot in the good ‘ole USA.
We anchored in the lower Right corner of what is labelled as the “Turning Basin” in this chart as this is where lots of the big cargo and cruise line ships dock over on the far Left of this chart. We were also back in more skinny waters anchoring in 5-8 ft of water but all worked out fine. Next day we took the dinghy ashore in the dinghy and I went to the nearby CBP office to get a Cruising License while Christine headed for the grocery stores to top up our fridges and freezers for the next few weeks.
Fun with Family & Friends
Our Grandson Liam lives just a few miles South of West Palm so Christine had made arrangements for Liam, Tim, Ashley to drive up for some more time aboard on the weekend. Ashley’s Dad Dan was also able to make the trip so he got his first visit onboard and even caught a feisty little Mangrove Snapper from the Aft Deck! Christine and Tim cooked up some burgers on our grill to top off the evening. Tim & Liam stayed for a sleep over to put the icing on the cake and then Ashley came and picked them up on Sunday afternoon. Way too short but a great visit none the less.
From West Palm we made our way North along the coast before heading into the Intercoastal Waterway or ICW at Fort Pierce near Jensen Beach were our dear friends Steve & Kathleen live. A good anchorage on the South side of the bridge with a very well done dinghy dock to make it easy to come and go ashore and we spent three days anchored there enjoying some extended time with Steve & Kathleen both on Möbius and in their home where Kathleen treated us to a “low country boil” meal of shrimp, sausage, corn and more. Steve was kind enough to loan us his pickup truck for our stay so we were able to get lots done and had a great visit with them.
We continued up the ICW to Coco Beach that is close to where our friends Pam & Dave live and we were able to host them aboard Möbius for their first visit and then go ashore for a craft market that was going on that day. In the next few weeks we will be day-tripping our way North to Norfolk and we will do quite a bit of that travelling along the amazing ICW that you can see in the map above. The ICW is quite fascinating and though it keeps you busy steering the constantly winding narrow channel we enjoyed more “skinny dipping” our way along this scenic “Ditch” as it is often called.
The deepest sections are typically about 8-12 feet deep at best but is well marked on the charts and with Red/Green markers like this one to guide your way. Popular amongst the animal kingdom as well! Traversing the ICW involves going under lots of bridges, some that are fixed such as this one and others that are draw bridges where we have to time for an opening to get through. We have an air draft of about 8.2m/26.9ft so there are also some bridges with clearances of around 30ft that we can go through without needing them to open. From Coco Beach we decided to head back out of the ICW to make the jump up to Charlottesville South Carolina offshore and avoid the tighter sections along Georgia that Christine is not too fond of having spent a LOT of time cruising the ICW in many of her previous boats over the years.
Launching Off Shore
Even better though was that this gave us a chance to go have the very interesting experience of traversing the lock at Cape Canaveral and
….. have a truly front row seat of the launch of yet another SpaceX rocket in the wee hours of the 14th that Christine stayed up to grab this photo.
If you click to enlarge this photo, the one below and the chart above you will see how interesting this route out to the Atlantic was. We took a hard right turn off the ICW just North of Coco Beach as per the chart above, to traverse the canal you can see at the top of this photo. That involved just making it in time for the 17:00 opening of the bridge that is just off the top of the photo that is looing due West.
Here is the opposite view looking due East towards the Atlantic with Cape Canaveral off to the far Left. We anchored just to the Left of the breakwater sticking out near the bottom of this photo to put us right beside the entrance into the lock on the Left. The Canaveral lock opens for business at 6am so we had the anchor up about 5:50 to catch the sunrise and round the end of the breakwater into the lock just after six. Christine slid us alongside the well built rails on our Starboard/Right side and I tied two lines fore and aft just to secure us while the doors closed behind us and then soon opened in front. Not too dramatic as there is less than a foot of height change but still a fun experience. Exiting out of the lock we called the bridge keeper to ask for his next opening and soon slid our way through. Passing several large cruise ships and then some commercial docks you see here as the sun rose to welcome us back out into the Atlantic. As usual, Weather Wonder Woman Christine continues her masterful work at scheduling our passages in just the right weather windows. The passage up to Charlottesville was about 300 nm/345 miles/556 km and we had the anchor down in the ICW just North of Charlottesville just under 31 hours after entering the Canaveral Lock. That averages out to 9.7 knots which is our fastest passage time ever thanks to getting off shore enough to catch some of the Gulf Stream which had us doing up to 13 knots at times. Fuel burn for this trip was equally as great averaging 1.38L/nm or 2.75 USG/nm We knew when we left that we would likely get “spanked” a bit by Mother Nature just before arriving in Charlottesville and things were a bit more “sporty” for the last two hours as we made our way back to shore and into the welcoming arms of the breakwater. However we were soon back into calm waters once inside the breakwater leading into Charleston.
Back in the ICW
Once inside we turned Right to get back into the ICW for about an hour of smooth sailing up the ICW and pulled over into a small waterway in the tidal grasslands where we enjoyed a very peaceful anchorage and a great sleep that night. The green on this screen grab from Google Maps is all grasslands and marsh and will give you a bit of an idea of our fascinating scenery the past few days as we snaked our way along rivers that all interconnect to provide a shallow passage inland. We anchored for the night of May 15th just off the SW corner of Butler Island which I’ve tried to show on this crude little map. There was a big blow forecast for last night (Wednesday May 17, 2023) so we motored about 15 nautical miles (28km/17 miles) further up the Waccamaw River and then took a fork to the Left at Bull Creek where we have now been anchored for the past 2 nights just off to the side of this narrow river. So far we’ve only seen two small boats with local fishermen go by so we’ve been enjoying the eXtremely relaxing scenery and wildlife. The tidal based currents flowing through these rivers gently swings us around about twice a day and this our view looking South. It is quite the amazing feeling to be so truly isolated in this magical wilderness where the only sounds are the wild birds ashore, the buzzing of dragonflies like this one that wildlife photographer eXtraordinaire Christine managed to capture on one of our lifelines. and the occasional splash of alligators alongside the boat. Click to enlarge and look close in about the middle to see one that stopped by yesterday. Turned out to be a smart spot to lay over as we have been far enough inland that we hardly got any of the 40+ knot gusts apparently happing over on the cost beside us. Today (Thursday) has been an overcast and drizzly day so we’ve been enjoying a quite day in the SuperSalon surrounded by this ever so peaceful greenery surrounding us allowing us to catch up with some online jobs such as getting this update put together and posted for you. We’ll pick up the anchor tomorrow and continue to day hop our way up the ICW and various rivers as we make our way North to Norfolk where we have a reservation in a marina there starting on June first and where we will likely stay put for the rest of the summer. Lest you think I’ve forgotten I am still working on the second installment of what has worked out best and least well of the features and equipment on Möbius and will get that uploaded in the next week or so as time allows with cruising every day. The logbook says we just passed 7900 nautical miles in the past 8 months with an eXtensive range of experiences along the way and hope that sharing those with you will be of interest and use so do stay tuned for that and my chronicling of our travels as we work our way North through all these awemazing waterways.
Thanks for taking the time to join us here and please do leave any questions, comments and suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
The past three weeks have flown by as we enjoyed having friends aboard and we continue meandering our way from USVI to Puerto Rico and now into the Bahamas.
Picking up where we left off in the last update, we were in St. Thomas USVI after a super fun week with our Grandson Liam and his Mom & Dad, Ashley & Tim as we sadly took them over to the airport to fly back to Florida. We then anchored Möbius over on the East end of St. Thomas so that we could pick up our very good friends Bob & Sue from Victoria BC when they flew in a few days later. We spent the next few days moving Möbius along similar routes to the ones in the map above to show Sue & Bob around St. Thomas and St. John Islands. Bob & Sue were keen for some passage time aboard Möbius so they set up their return flights out of San Juan so they could join us on the relatively short trip from USVI over to Puerto Rico. So we moved over to Brewers Bay on the West end of St. Thomas for the last night in USVI before making the short jump over to the small island of Culebra that is part of Puerto Rico. The RED route on the map here. (click to enlarge) Christine & I had been to Culebra doing delivering a catamaran for some dear friends back in 2017 so it was fun for us to be back in this small island again as well. Next hop was over to Salinas on the South coast of the main island of Puerto Rico, GREEN on the map above, which was another spot that we had been to previously on that same delivery. Timing also worked out just perfect as some long time sailing friends of Christine were spending their last night on their sailboat in Salinas before sailing off to Antigua the next morning. We joined Willie, Mark, Dick & Deb for a fabulous group lobster dinner in the small restaurant at the Salinas Marina to send them off in grand fashion.
Mark kindly extended the lease on his rental car so we enjoyed that luxury to spend the day on the road with Sue & Bob seeing more of Puerto Rico including a stop for some delicious lunch at a roadside pig roast spot that was a favorite of Willie’s and then dropped Sue & Bob off at the San Jose airport. Bon voyage nos Amis, thanks for the memories.
And !poof! just like that everyone was gone and it was back to just the two of us on Möbius as the Captain took us out of Salinas Bay for our next leg of the journey. We needed to check out of Puerto Rico so we moved over to the small anchorage in Puerto Real on the far West end of PR. WHITE on the map. We stayed in Puerto Real for the night and enjoyed a good dinner out at the local restaurant by the marina. This was our first time in a marina this year, last time was in the Canary Islands in December before heading out on our Atlantic Crossing. Solar panels are working eXtremely well and we have not needed shore power since we left Greece back in October nor most of the past year but being on the dock was convenient for doing the check out and a date night before heading off for the Bahamas. More and more countries are automating their marine check in/out process to be done online and this is working better and better but still has some odd bugs in the system and took us a few hours to complete but all went well in the end. We anchored outside the marina for the day and left later in the afternoon to time our arrival in the Bahamas to be in daylight for good visual navigation. This would be about 600 nautical miles (690 miles/1,110 km) passage and would take us a bit less than three days. We decided to head for Clarence Town to check into the Bahamas, a favorite of Christine’s from her many years sailing the Bahamas in her previous boats years ago. You can click to enlarge this map but it is challenging to show the Bahamas on a map as it consists of more than 3,000 islands, cays, and islets and most of these only show up when you zoom way in. But the RED line in this map will give you a rough idea of our route. It is estimated that the Bahamas’ territory encompasses 470,000 km2 (180,000 sq mi) of ocean space with a total population of 400 thousand people spread across this area. As usual, Weather Wonder Woman Christine found us another great weather window with very calm wind and seas making for smooth sailing as we settled into passage making mode for the next three days. For those interested in the boat’s performance, I’ve highlighted some of the key stats on our Maretron N2KView screen here. I’ve set up two different SOG Speed Over Ground SOG meters, the one in Green is showing 9.5kts SOG averaged over about 3 minute intervals to give a better reading vs the one in Yellow showing 10.6kts which is the instantaneous SOG at the moment. When calculated for the entire 560nm passage our average SOG anchorage to anchorage was 8.5kts and our overall fuel burn average for the passage was 1.7 L/NM or 2.2 NM/USG. The RED circle is the EGT or Exhaust Gas Temperature showing 359 degrees C / 678 F which translates into about 80% load. We keep the EGT between 330-360C most of the time as this seems to be the best combination of ideal load, fuel burn and speed. We will continue to try out other settings and report on the results in future updates.
As you can see, conditions were ideal for power boating for most of our three days at sea and we only put the paravanes out for one night to reduce the roll when we encountered some larger swells out of the NE. The canine crew seemed to approve as well. We pulled into the well protected bay just off of Clarence Town on the North coast of Long Island and had the anchor down just after 10am Thursday, 13th of April. As you can see depths in most bays and cays in the Bahamas is very shallow, averaging about 2.4m/8ft here and will help you understand why we worked so hard with Dennis to minimize our draught which is about 1.4m/4.6ft. This is a relatively remote Port of Entry for the Bahamas and we had checked in online before arrival and then spoke with the agent by phone when we were anchored. He is based over in Stella Maris on the other side of Long Island but he kindly offered to make the 90 minute drive and met us at the Government Wharf I’ve pointed to above and we completed the paperwork and got our passports stamped there and we were now officially in the Bahamas! Christine went ashore the next day to stretch her legs and got a kick out of the slightly dark humour of the location of this Covid Test center from months previous. Fortunately she reported no dead men sighted. We had a good night’s sleep and woke up to find over 10 other boats anchored around us, the nerve! So we pulled up anchor and headed up to the very North end of Long island Green route here. Christine had picked out a lovely little bay just around the Northern tip of Long Island at Cape Santa Maria and she maneuvered us in and I dropped the anchor onto the sandy bottom in about 2.5m/8ft of water. This is the view looking South as we enjoyed sundowners just the way we like it; the only boat in the bay. After enjoying the tranquility of our private anchorage, we continued to follow our previous wakes through many of the small Bahamian islands and cays and yesterday morning we made the jump North to another favorite anchorage at Rudder Cut Cay. This photo will help you see how thin and small these cays are. This spot is quite famous amongst cruisers as it has a sunken statue of a mermaid playing a piano in the shallow waters here. I went into our archives and dug up this photo from May 8, 2017 with me checking it out. The mermaid said that she was working on her next composition and didn’t need any of my help so I let her be. There are also several of these large caves carved into the shore just beside us here and are large enough to take your dinghy inside of and make for some fun snorkeling.
And that’s a wrap for this Mobius Update folks. We continue to live and move on The No Plan Plan but in general we will continue to enjoy our time as we wander through the Bahamas and make our way North up to the East coast of the US. It is looking most likely that we will spend the summer months up in the Chesapeake Bay area where we can stay put for several months so Christine can have the time and quiet to focus on writing her next novel. I will continue to post updates along the way once or twice a month with some brief updates on places we get to and things we see. Hope these travel logs are of some interest and please let me know what you’d like more of and less of as well as any questions you have as we go.
My intent with today’s blog is to provide you with a bit more detail on the four different routes we drove to make what turned out to be a giant counterclockwise loop from Road Runner Ranch (our place here in Searchlight NV) across to the East Cost of the US, up into the Maritime provinces in Canada, back across Canada to RavensRidge on Saturna Island and most recently our move with both Lance and Totu (our 2006 Toyota Tundra pickup) from Saturna back to Searchlight. 
These cross country driving trips were also in keeping with our past as over the years while we were out sailing the world, we would fly back and taken several similar large road trips all across the US and Canada in rented vehicles we outfitted to be mini RV’s. We are “bi-coastal Grandparents” with two Granddaughters in the LA area and a Grandson in Ft. Lauderdale and our son Skyler up in Vancouver BC. And dear friends and family literally spread out all across both countries and many more.
A few days before the 10th I had taken Lance into Vegas to put new front steering tires on him. All six tires (duals on the rear axle) still had a pretty good amount of tread on them but for a bit of added confidence and safety putting on a new set of steering tires was a good idea and this also gave me the chance to take Lance out on the highway for the approximately 160 mile round trip up to Vegas and back after he had been sitting here on RoadRunner Ranch for almost six months. 
Then after the wedding we could take advantage of New Hampshire not having any sales tax to buy the four new tires for the rear axle and give Lance new shoes all the way around for the rest of our marathon test drive up the East coast into the Maritime provinces and across Canada back to the Best Coast and our place on Saturna Island. 
That all worked out well as you can see as I jump the timeline a bit to June 19th when we put on the four new rear tires. 
Of course our co-pilots, Razz and Zoe were even more eXcited and always ready to hit the road. 
I had been having some problems previously with the air compressor not cooperating but had always got it going but it took me the better part of the day to find THIS problem with a split in the rubber elbow 
Not a stock part and too late to get one shipped in so MacGyver time it was.
It was very windy that night but we awoke to a beautiful sunny Saturday and Ben & Julia had perfect weather for their outdoor afternoon wedding. 
Julia is my sisters daughter and so I may be a wee bit biased but THAT is a Beautiful Bride! 
And they had the perfect backdrop of the inner harbour that included some gorgeous schooners and tall ships for that extra touch. 
Christine has been getting her drone flying skills dusted off and this shot she grabbed a few days ago from up above the spot we’re setting up to live on for the next few months will give you an idea of the layout. Those two big white rectangles are 40 foot “High Cube” (9’6” high) shipping containers that came with the property along with a lot of great items inside that you’ll soon see. The other white rectangle is the 2012 25 foot travel trailer that will be home for us for now.
As Skyler and I unloaded the crates of our belongings and coolers of food, Christine got to work storing it all away and organizing our new home. As sharp eyes might notice, she even baked a loaf of banana bread! 
Looking aft in the trailer you can see that we’ve got everything we need with a nice U shaped settee and an adjacent full bathroom & shower. Then a separate bedroom in the rear with a Queen bed and even an office for Christine to work at just out of sight in the rear left corner here at the foot of the bed. And check out our views out the windows! 
Skyler started unloading all the crates and materials from Lance and I started to figure out where to put them for now in the two containers. The one you see here on the Left will be my workshop area and the other one out of site in this photo over on the far Right closer to the trailer provides storage for everything else AND houses all our fresh water and electrical power equipment that allows us to live 100% off grid. 
Could not have been a better present than all the time we got with Skyler and all the hard work he so cheerfully gifted us with to make this latest transition of the Nauti Nomadic Grandparents so memorable. 
Thanks Sky!
It will take me awhile to build workbenches and storage racks but for now all my tools and equipment are very safely stored away inside the two containers.
Part of what made this property such a Goldilocks just right find for us was that one of the things inside the containers was sixteen 305 Watt solar panels and so Skyler and I got to work setting those up in two different locations to try out for now. Eight of those solar panels we propped up against the wall of the container as you can see here which made it a short run for the power cables to go into the MPPT controller inside. 
The other eight solar panels we propped up against the south facing side of the trailer to try out that orientation as I monitor the daily production to see what generates the most power to keep our big new battery bank fully charged every day.
In that previous post you may recall seeing this pallet full of boxes that had arrived at the Klamath Falls workshop which contained the other two key components of our off grid power system. 
this 15 kWh 54 Volt upright EG4 lithium battery and ………. 
…….. this EG4 6000XP all in one MPPT solar charge controller, inverter charger. 
The battery weighs a svelte 128kg/282 lbs. but Skyler and were able to get it wrestled out of Lance and into the container and get the 6000XP mounted above it and all secured to the steel walls of the container. 
These two smaller vertical boxes I mounted on on the side at the mid point are the isolation switches and circuit breakers for the high voltage power coming in on the Red and Black wires you see here which come from each of the two strings of solar panels (8 panels in each). We soon had everything wired up and in this shot I’m busy configuring all the settings before turning it on for the first time. Just amazing how far these kinds of off grid systems have come and we were able to go from no power at all when we arrived to having a full 240VAC split phase power system in less than one day. 
These four 1250L/330USG IBC Totes as they are called (Interim Bulk Containers) also came with the property along with a fifth empty one that we’ll use in the future to bring more fresh water from the town water system in Searchlight that is just a few miles away. The pumps you see at the bottom here are now all set up to provide pressurized fresh water to a tap on the outside of the container and a hose from there to the trailer provides all the fresh water we need for day to day living.
I will leave you with this shot of what our humble new abode is looking like with yet another super sunset that Christine loves to photograph.
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