Quest for megafauna:

Ever since I was a little kid growing up in Idaho, I have always loved collecting cool rock. But what fascinated me even more, was the idea of rocks with the remains of creatures that lived millions of years ago. However, when I moved to Florida, I was understandably somewhat depressed. Because not only does Florida not have dinosaur remains, but it doesn't even have cool rocks.
    But it wasn't until last year that I learned that although FL doesn't have dino remains, it does have a treasure trove of fossils from other prehistoric eras. Last week me and Vikki took a trip up to the peace river, which is famous for its fossils. The water levels were very low, so we could easily stand in the middle of the river and screen wash the black gravel bottom. Which is full of broken pieces of bone and the occasional whole fossil. That day we found several large fossilized dugong rib bones as well as a reasonably large megalodon shark.
Attached are some pictures from a diving trip off of Venice beach...can't wait to go back:) 

Future plans for powering the boat:

The boat came with a very nice, almost unused Yanmar diesel engine, which costs around 15,000 to replace, so I am definitely not getting rid of it; even though I would prefer to convert the boat to run on electric. But I am still trying to make the boat eco-friendly, and diesel is not exactly green or cheep. So that made me think...hmmm bio-diesel could power my boat and be green. And if there is no one else getting the used cooking oil, from the restaurants in my tiny hometown; then maybe it could be cheep as well.:) We shall see...

solar car project

For the past several years I have been working on a solar powered car. It is not meant to be practical...more like a kind of test vehicle to try out ideas on. Anyways, now that I have a good sized bank of ultra-capacitors, I intend to try to experiment with them over x-mass break and see how they work on the car's power system. Because ultra-capacitors can charge much faster than batteries, they have the ability to recapture some of the energy lost through braking. By using the cars electric motor as a generator in the breaking action. Hybrid cars do this, but are only just starting to use ultra-capacitors.

Seabreeze Restoration part 5: Green Power

Now that I have a storage solution, I need a sustainable and readily available source of energy. In Florida wind and solar are the easiest solutions. But wind generators are expensive, and difficult to build to standards that can survive marine environments; so for now I've decided to go for solar. To charge my capacitor bank, I need a solar panel that produces exactly 12 volts. And as most panels actually produce around 18 volts, to effectively charge batteries. I will have to build a custom panel. Surprisingly, building a panel is not terribly difficult. And it cuts a huge chunk off the price of solar power, if you buy the cells off of ebay, and connect them yourself. One thing that also give me an edge is that I work as the studio manager of the sculpture department, and thus have access to all of the studio's fancy tools :)   Basically all that needs to be done, is solder the cells together, then submerge them in a layer of marine epoxy against a sheet of glass, supported inside an aluminum frame. Piece of cake ;)

Seabreeze Restoration part 4: Power Storage

To me a sailboat is a basically a giant experiment. A floating oasis upon which I can test alternative ways to live comfortably an sustainably with the natural world. In order to enjoy modern conveniences you need some form of power, and if you have power, you need a way to efficiently store that power for later use. Batteries or fuel are the traditional way to achieve this; but both will eventually run out or degrade.
    A bit of modern technology that stands to replace battery technology and solve the issue of energy storage, is the ultra-capacitor. Ultra-capacitors function like batteries but do not store energy through chemical reactions. They last virtually forever, having millions of charge and discharge cycles without degrading. And can be charged and discharged almost instantly, unlike batteries that require several hours to charge. There only drawback is that they still weigh slightly more than batteries and are a little expensive.
    I recently bought 10 large ultra-capacitors that will store enough power to run all of the appliances on the boat without ever needing to be replaced. 
Again, we have the technology to make our world way more sustainable, we just need to use it.

Seabreeze Restoration part 3: Bottom Paint

One issue that I am struggling to find an environmentally friendly solution to, is bottom paint. If you leave your boat in the water, you have to deal with the massive numbers of organisms (such as barnacles) that will try to attach themselves to the side of the hull. This is a problem because they add significant weight and friction to the hull. Which makes the boat move slower and use more fuel. Traditional bottom paint slowly leaches toxins into the water, that repel these organisms. However, recent studies are linking some serious environmental effects to the use of these paints. I haven't come up with a solution to for this yet, but I am doing a research project to test several alternative bottom coatings, to see what I can find out. 

Seabreeze Restoration part 2: Toilets

This is a short post, but I just want to vent my disgust, for how insensitive humans can be to the environment. While trying to figure out the plumbing system on the boat, I discovered that their wasn't a way to pump out the sewage holding tank. And that the only way to void the tank, was over the side. This aparently used to be fairly standard practice. I also found out that even today, if you are a certain number of miles offshore, you are still allowed to empty your tanks directly into the ocean. Yuk :(