Sandy Dreams

 Those of you that know me know I'm a huge fuel nerd. So of course I'm going to modify the ambulance. One thing I did was bought a computer chip that changes air fuel mixture. It is made by SCT I emailed the guys and told them what truck I had year and engine and what I wanted. They can give you more HP better shifting, anything you want. So they set me up with best fuel economy. They told me I would get 3 to 4 MPG and they were right. It plugs into the OBD2 port on your vehicle since mine was already pre programmed I didn't have to do much. The only thing I changed was the max RPM I lowered it to 3400 and I lowered the max MPH to 80. I can change them higher if I need to enter in an ambulance race. The next thing I did was add fuel. Since the ambulance has so many external compartments I took advantage of one. I added three 12 gallon boat fuel tanks. They fit perfect. Then I installed the pump it's a 12 volt transfer fuel pump. Then I installed quick connect boat fitti...

 Alaskan is the boat I have been driving the most. It is 30 feet and has two 300hp Mercury.  In St Thomas we are mainly Yamaha engines because that is what the dealership sells. I think I like the Mercury engine better because they run really well. I can carry up to 14 passengers and I cruise about 30 knots. We saw orcas again yesterday. I think they were resident orcas. We don't see them very often. 

 Well today was absolutely beautiful it was 73°, zero wind, and 36% humidity. It doesn't get much better than that. Everyone keeps telling me it rains everyday and that I live in a rain forest. But so far I've had really nice weather. I helped the Boss fuel the new boat which is 1200 HP so it doesn't drive by very many fuel docks without getting fuel. Then I had two trips. We saw a bunch of Whales! So I took some pictures. This is what my passengers see! I actually saw that breach one of my guests took this photo. This is what I see as boat captain! This is my view from the cockpit-- this is what I  look at all day long. The purple humpback whale is from New Jersey. I think the red whale in the first picture has a wedgie! That is the Chilkat Mountain Range. I need a better camera. The picture doesn't do it justice. We had another 20 foot tide yesterday.

 We had a company party on the new boat this afternoon. Me being the fuel nerd I'm at the helm looking at fuel consumption. It was roughly 75 gallons an hour at 28 knots. The new boat is super nice.  We ate, drank, watched whales, then the polar bear challenge! Captain John led the way and went first  Captain Ryan went NEVER! They tried to shame me into it. Guess I'm a huge baby when it comes to 40 degree cold water! 

I tried a new product to cook on the ambulance: Induction stove top cooking. The one I selected was made by True Induction. It's a double burner and can be inset. At the time I bought it I thought I was going to build all new kitchen counters but the ones already installed in the ambulance were really nice and I decided not to tear them out. So my stove ended up being a counter top stove.  This is where I place it when I am cooking. If I need counter space I can move it out of the way. When I originally started to design and build/order things I knew I didn't want to use propane. Sandy Dreams is propane and I didn't want to mess with the hassles I've had to deal with on the boat. (The extra hose plumbing, tanks, space, etc.)  So that left me with two options electric or induction. I also have a single burner electric stove on Sandy and even though it works I've never been impressed with it.  So never owning an induction stove before I didn't know what to expect....

 Today after my two trips I had to take all the new deck hands out and run drills. We did man overboard drills and fire drills. After that we took Beacon the new boat out for a spin and did some practice docking. The new boat is really nice. It has four engines. All the avionics are Garmin products similar to the Lear Jet 75.

 This is another product review. I purchased an ICECO VL60D/65 fridge/freezer. I have a smaller version on Sandy Dream so this is my second purchase from this company. It works perfect.  It has lots of options. Each side is separate and you can pick you temperature that you want. I keep the larger side on zero and the smaller on 32 degrees. This unit will run on 12 volts DC or 110 volts AC. If it is plugged in to both it runs off of AC power and will automatically switch to DC if there is a loss of power. I have been running my strictly on DC that way I can turn my inverter off when I'm out working.  Those are the temperature of each side. They are always within a couple of degrees of wherever they are set. Right now my beer is 30° Perfect!! The left side is a little deeper. I am currently using that side as a freezer. But it doesn't matter you can freeze both sides or refrigerate both sides whatever your needs are. I bought a slide for mine it slides under the bed when n...

Yesterday I had a couple of firsts! I saw my first calf or baby whale. I saw a calf again today so it might start to be common. I also saw an adult whale breach five times in a row. I wasn't able to get video, someone has to drive the boat. I did get a good video of a whale diving today. This is our brand new boat. It showed up on Sunday. I'm not sure if I'll get to drive it being the bottom of the totem pole. 

 I had the day off today so I decided to do a little exploring. So far I have not been to Juneau. I have been staying in an area called Auke Bay or I drive north up glacier highway.  Today we drove south to Juneau once past the airport off to my right was the Mendenhall wetlands a large area where the fresh water meets the saltwater.  Mendenhall Wetlands Downtown Juneau reminds me of St Thomas. Lots of jewelry stores. There are 4 cruise ships in today. Lots of water falls off the mountain from the melting snow.  Way up you can see the water coming down the mountain. See! Just like St Thomas! On our drive south we hiked a little on Sheep Creek trail. I forgot my phone so no pictures. Use your imagination! Then we drove as far south as we could go.  All the roads in Juneau are a dead end. Hopefully I'll have a non cruise ship day while I'm here and I'll go check out downtown Juneau a little better. I didn't feel like dealing with the tourist today.

 I was going to write one big blog about each system on the ambulance but I think it would be too long. So I am going to review each one independently. The shower I built a very unique shower system. It recycles the water indefinitely. Starting off with the shower room. I used an outdoor compartment that use to house the hard flat boards for neck injuries. I removed all the vertical dividers and shelves and built the room.  The shower room. So it is a little awkward because you have to leave the main living space and go outside to get in the shower room. But that was the only way to make it work without major construction. The walk to the shower room. I make the walk in my swimsuit and flip flops. It was a little chilly when I was in the Northern Rockies! Underneath the shower I built a fiberglass holding tank. I'm not exactly sure how many gallons I'm guessing 12 to 15. That is where the water starts it's journey. The water is pumped from there to a cleanable screen filter...

 Today on my morning trip I saw my first sleeping whale. It wasn't that exciting he didn't do much. So the basic schedule of the Northern Pacific humpback whale is... they come to Alaska to eat. They don't socialize or hangout with each other all they care about is the krill buffet. They eat about 20 hours a day so to see the sleeping whale is rare. They surface and shut down most of their brain except a small part to remember to breathe once every 5 minutes or so. They look like a huge log. The rest of the time they will dive for about 10 minutes and eat as ma many small krill plankton and small herring as possible. A whales throat isn't large enough to eat a big fish. They are trying to eat around a ton of food a day.  Once they leave  and Juneau, AK 90% go to Hawaii and 10% go to the Baja/Mexico. They don't eat in the warm waters -- they socialize, hang out, and have their calves. They will lose a third of their weight during the trip. When they leave Alaska they...

 Juneau normally has a 14 to 16 foot tide. Today it was 22 feet. I had my first three trip day so I wasn't around to get the very bottom and very top but I got pretty close. Low Tide High Tide I tried to get the same picture. Pretty crazy especially when I am used to an eight to twelve inch tide in St Thomas. I also went to a new place today. Benjamin island, so all the stellar sea lions hang out there.  It's hard to see but all those rocks are covered with sea lions. I finally am able to check my solar panels. They haven't been checked since Perkins. I parked under the bar and inspected them from my bar stool! They are all still there and working. They didn't show up in the picture. But I can see them...so the glue and flex tape works perfectly Tonight the northern lights are a 4 out of 10 and the visibility is really good. I think I will set my alarm and check it out.

 I have been doing at least one trip a day. Tomorrow I have three. Three days ago I had a 5:30pm to 8:30pm trip. After work I went to grab a bite to eat and when I left the restaurant it was partly cloudy and beyond the clouds the sky was bluish in color. So I asked a local if that was the Northern lights. He said yes but it wasn't very good.  So I have learned that there is an Aurora index 1 to 10 and you can look up the rating for any day. If it's above a 4 then you can see the Northern lights. But it also needs to be clear out. If I get a good night for them I'll try to get some pictures. The whale watching has been good. I have been getting trained on all the different boats. I have been deleting turtle facts so I can make room to remember the whale facts.  It's a big change going from an eighty passenger boat with a crew of 4 to a boat that carries 6 to 16 passengers with either just me or one mate if we are over 6. Today I had a mid morning trip. So Sis and I went...

 There wasn't much going on yesterday so I had the day off. I went to the car wash to give the ambulance a bath. I had to go to the bank and get a small loan to wash the truck -- that's how dirty it was. I'm also surprised that Customs let me import that 500 pounds of Canadian rock and dirt.  All clean! Hopefully I'll gain an extra mile per gallon after unloading all that rock and dirt. What to do on a day off? With a clean ambulance first we went to The National Shrine of St Therese.  The grounds were really well kept. The church was out on a peninsula in Aiken bay.  This is the entrance to the Shrine. The view from the Shrine! We also did some hiking in Auk village park which is our new spot. It's really close to town. I forget to take pictures... I'll get some next time.  We also did some normal boring ADULTING, you know shopping, filling up with fuel, all that fun stuff. Today we had a Captains meeting this morning and I have a trip at 5:30 this evening....

Louis offered me the day off today because I arrived late last night. But I chose to go ahead and start training. I probably should have taken him up on the day off, I might not get one until September. They have 5 different boats from 6 passengers to 16. They don't really assign a captain to a specific boat. Today I am training with Captain John which is great for me because I've known him for about 10 years.  I have lots to learn about whales, glaciers, and the local waters. We have two types of whales the humpback and orcas. John says the orcas are rare to see although we saw a pod this morning. Killer whales My drive to work this morning. Mendenhall glacier. My first glacier!