Christmas in Costa Rica

     For the first time in many years the crew of Slacker is not on board her for Christmas. We are in beautiful Costa Rica for the next week and will then be returning to Mazatlan. While the holidays are a time for family they are also a time for thoughts of friends both old and new, near and far. Julie and I wish all of you a joyous Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Pimp your Engel!

When we first arrived back at the boat this year it was over 100 deg in the cabin during the day.  Whats better in that kind of heat than ice cream?  I fired up our trusty Engel freezer to keep the frozen stuff frozen and it did the job despite the heat.  After a day or so I noticed that it wasn't cycling on and off as usual.  With the ambient temperature so high it just couldn't keep up. 

Solution?  One little computer fan blowing across the condensor did the trick.  True, the fan is on all the time but it draws less than 2 amps in 24 hours and that is more than paid back by reduced run time.  Now we have ice cream all the time and the freezer is back back to its usual 1 minuet on 2 minuets off schedule.