March 9 - Beginning the Canopy for Solar Panels

With the new imperative for solar powered refrigeration after the flood, we've decided to slow down on sanding and painting and focus on the canopy for the solar panels.  As I have stated several times earlier, this entire project changes daily as we figure out what will work best.  We now plan to install all solar panels on a canopy above the superstructure and build a sundeck above the cockpit.

The project begins...

The extended colums on the canopy backbone will not only provide a place to mount radio antenas and such but will also allow for a system to lift the panels on a hinge to face the sun on one side of the boat or the other. This will serve as sort of a crude solar tracking mechanism that should provide significant additional performance from the solar panels in the early morning and late afternoon if we need it.

Towards the end of the day, a gunoe comes by with a young couple in it that landed a huge snooke right in front of the boat and then hooked and lost an even bigger one. This inspired Carter to finally get his fishing poles out. 

He's already been periodically trying for weeks to spear one of the talapia that are constantly swimming by the boat and finally nailed one today. 

 Fish for dinner tonight!

Then he got the pole out.

He caught two alligator garrs.  Check out the teeth!  These went back into the water.  The talapia went into the fridge.  :-)

He plans to keep stalking the snook.