Global Warming Explained

Bill writes: I am the utility company. Think about it. On the boat we have to be totally self sufficient. We must produce our own power; provide water, and fuel, for cooking. Here on Triumph we have two big 120 watt solar panels that provide us with our electricity. We store the power from the solar panels in our batteries. Generally, we produce enough power for all of our needs, provided that it’s a sunny day. As a back up to “Mr. and Mrs. Sunshine”, we have “Eco” our little Honda generator. We’ve only fired it up once in two weeks, and I was a little premature that day, thinking that it would stay cloudy all day. As the generator ran, the sun came out, and stayed out.

Our power consumption includes lights, water pumps for pressure water, and music on the stereo. We have Sirius satellite radio so we have great tunes and entertainment. We also have an “inverter” that changes 12 volt power to house current, so we can charge the computers, run the blow dryer, charge the shavers, and run the microwave. Our refrigeration system is 12 volt, and it is probably the biggest user of power on the boat.

We do our cooking on a propane stove and oven. We have a propane barbecue grill that we use often. We carry a spare bottle of propane because there are only a few places here in the out islands where you can refill. In the oven, we can cook bread, pizza, and anything else, just like home.

Water, precious water. We started off with 100 gallons, and in that last 10 days we’ve used about 20 gallons. We have three sources of water. We can buy it at a marina along the way, for about $.35/gallon, we can catch rainwater, or, we can ask for a gift from our friends on “Awesome Asset” who are our cruising buddies. They have a water maker, we do not. We conserve water as much as possible. Elaine used about 1 ½ gallons for her shower, I use ½ gallon. We use a spray bottle to rinse the dishes. The other day it rained, and I caught water, and used some of it to do a load of laundry. I was able to put about 5 gallons in our tanks before it quit raining. We also washed off the boat.

So, since we burn so little fuel, we have a very low “carbon footprint” as they say. Since we are not contributing to global warming, this explains the cool weather we’ve all been having this year. And now you know the whole story.