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...