Overcoming Range Anxiety

 

    I'm not sure if Range Anxiety is actually listed in the latest DSM as a genuine psychiatric disorder, but to any new owners of all electric vehicles it is definitely viscerally real. Just how far can you go on the last charge and how accurate is the mileage estimate on the car's display?

    After driving the entire US West Coast and then across the country from San Diego to North Carolina on the East Coast in a 2012 Tesla Model S, I can definitely say I've overcome range anxiety completely - I now have lots more time to deal with my other anxieties. Too bad we don't own the Tesla, it was only a delivery. 

We stopped at lots of Tesla Supperchargers along the way. You can see the saguaro cactus behind the supercharger posts here in Arizona.

Most of the Superchargers are in mall parking lots, hotels, truck stops, chain hotels or near fast food restaurants. This one was in a 1920s gas station and rest stop on the original Highway 66.

Driving through the California desert was way hot. The Tesla AC worked hard. This is a dash picture while charging in the dessert. In the bottom right you can see the outside temperature at 116*F (47*C). At these temperatures the Tesla AC has to run at full blast to cool the batteries while they're charging.

If you drive a Tesla and use the Superchargers you are automatically part of The Club. That means hanging at a Supercharger off the Interstate you are bound to take up a conversation with another Tesla traveler. "Where you from? How far are you going? What year is that one? Did you hear the latest thing Elon Tweeted? Great cars, have a good day"

The car behaved beautifully all the way across. It should be super reliable too as it only has 17 moving parts in its drive train. To say the least, I've drunk the Koolaid and am totally bought into the Tesla.

Best stops across country: 

Winslow, Arizona and Santa Fe,  New Mexico

Best t-shirt:

 Make Orwell 

Fiction Again

Now that we've made it to Winston-Salem, North Carolina,  with the Tesla intact, we are busy packing up and getting ready to fly back to the Seychelles. That's if we can successfully jump through all the Covid-induced hoops to get approved for entry. Then it'll be boat maintenance and a shake down before we can start our passage to South Africa.

Paul

Back in the USS A - What a Slog

We finally made Key West. A slog of trip. Must have been payback for the nice Panama to Cayman passage. We did an easy and pleasant checkout of the Caymans (pronounced Kay-Mon) in Georgetown. Bill ran off to find new sunglasses, as Neptune ate his sunglasses, and my prescription sunglasses, on the last passage.  The Caymans is an easy cruising destination, great diving, free moorings, good food shopping and easy and free check-in check-out.
After the Caymans, it was light winds and took us two slow days to make the first 120 miles. This is when we found out that our intermittent engine overheating issue was not so intermittent. It overheated and we had to sail… even in very light winds, think doldrums. The next day and a bit was nice downwind sailing to the western tip of Cuba. We rounded it about 6 miles off in the big ship traffic separation lanes. It was clearly rush hour when we exited the lanes and in the end we had to call a small container ship, Expandsa, and make sure they actually saw us, before running us over.
After this it was close hauled the entire 200 miles to Dry Torutgas (located 60 miles from Key West). As the evening closed in the wind picked up. It was now 25 kts on the nose. We double reefed the main and rolled up most of the headsail for a bouncy, laid over on our side, a hull slamming night ride.  It lightened up again the next day a bit and we pushed on toward the Dry Tortugas, slowly. Fort Jefferson is the Civil War era fort located in the national park in the Dry Tortugas. As a kid growing up in Florida I always wanted to take my own boat and visit here. It just had an allure for my teenage eye. After throwing in a few extra tacks as we approached the entrance to the Dry Tortugas we sailed past the markers to the park in the dark. The plan was to drop the dinghy in the water and side tie to Jeorgia. Then to push us into a location among the reefs that we could  anchor for the night, to hopefully get the engine running the next day. The winds were up, the seas were bouncy and the tidal current was just too strong for us to move the boat with the dinghy. So back up on deck with the outboard and the dink. Its now midnight and there were signs of potential crew mutiny. To put a stop to this, I ordered the rum rations cut to zero till morale improved.
We sailed overnight to near the entrance to the main shipping channel in Key West. Where, without hesitation the wind began to not cooperate. By about 4pm we had worked our way up the SW Channel entrance. We dropped the dink back in the water and started pushing us down the channel at 2.3kts. We had about 9 miles to go.  By about 7:30pm the tide looked like it was starting to turn on us and the mutiny was looking more evident. The local SeaTow was engaged and we got a tow into the marina, Nice place, ONLY $130 a night. Highest priced marina I’ve ever been in.
Got Mark, the diesel mechanic down this morning. What a treat. He really knows these Volvo 2003 engines – the good, the bad and the ugly. In about an hour he figured out what had been causing the deteriorating cooling issue. We will test the theory this afternoon or tomorrow and then hopefully report glowing and cool success.
Looks like my childhood bucket-list trip to Fort Jefferson is just going to have to wait.
To Jim on Sound Effect: If this sounds eerily familiar, let me point out that I have not been offered a job yet.
Paul