Land Life in the Desert

It doesn't take long to settle back into life on land. We don't miss the long morning treks to the toilets and showers, and doing the laundry is pretty easy. Jumping in the car to head to the grocery or hardware store is a snap. Instead of boat chores, there are house chores to attend to, but they're not all that time-consuming, so we're spending our time on other things. David is studying for his Nevada Master Electrician's Exam and I'm working on our 2016 IRS returns. I've also just volunteered to be on the planning committee for an upcoming high school class reunion. On a friend's recommendation, we're looking into some free on-line courses that might be fun. All take up a considerable amount of time and we're enjoying the change of pace.

We do appreciate the long morning walks around the Stallion Mountain Golf Course. We've got a pleasant routine of waking in the morning around 5:30, having a cuppa, checking the morning temps in Vegas and Chesapeake, reading the news (always alarming lately) and then heading out for our walk. The paved walk around the golf course is about 3.5 miles long and if we head out before sunrise, we miss the early morning golfers. I particularly enjoy seeing the local animals ... desert cottontails, herons, coots and ducks … they all seem to be waking up then, too. There's a falcon that sits in the same spot everyday, patiently waiting for an opportunity to swoop down on an unsuspecting bunny. Sometimes, we see the resident coyotes trotting along on the hillside, heading for their daytime retreat.

The views of the Strip when the early morning sun reflects off the buildings are quite beautiful. It's hard to imagine while we're enjoying the quiet and peace of our walk, that we're so close to the hustle-bustle of the Strip. It's walkable if we chose to make the trek. Heck, we can see the Linq's High Roller, currently the world's tallest Ferris wheel, from our front yard.

David has planned several outdoor tasks including staining the new raised planters that he and Paul built on our last visit. Mary and Karen are looking forward to planting veggies soon. The backyard irrigation system is complete and with our newly acquired knowledge about native plants, trips to the local nursery have been on the agenda. It's like a scavenger hunt finding just the right plants to achieve our goals of beauty and color combined with low maintenance, xeriscaping and reasonable cost.

We've been up making the rounds of local doctors and dentists for past-due check-ups and physicals, having lab work done and generally catching up on healthcare that we've delayed. The verdict? We're healthy … must be our crazy lifestyle.

We've taken the time to visit a few local places that we've not seen before. This year's Chinese New Year display at the Bellagio was a pleasant hour spent. Our day at the Springs Preserve was outstanding and we plan to return soon and probably buy a membership. We've revisited places we especially enjoy like the Clark County Wetlands Park, one of my favorite places in Las Vegas. We saw a roadrunner there the other day. We plan to head to the Henderson Bird Preserve one morning soon, too.

Added to the agenda, we've recently learned about the China Ranch Date Farm, which is only about 1-1/2 hours away. It sounds interesting, so I've put it on our local “to-see & do” list. I mean, what do we know about dates? Could be a fun, learning experience.

Yes, we're keeping busy. Land life is certainly a different kind of life than we're used to, but we're easily adaptable and, for the most part, we find it enjoyable. It's a relief not worrying about whether the anchor will drag or what the wind is going to do tonight or tomorrow. On the other hand … we've scheduled our return trip to Nine of Cups at the end of February. Can't get too used to this land life nor being anchored in the same spot for too long!

Visiting the Springs Preserve

Ever since we started coming to Las Vegas, the Springs Preserve has been on my “to-see & do” list, but we never seem to make it. The tickets are $17/pp for Seniors and about half price for resident Seniors (that's us). We, however, are Bank of America customers and the first full weekend of every month BOA sponsors “Museums on Us”, free admission to about 150 museums across the country, including the Springs Preserve. We figured it was time to visit. You can tell when you're getting close to the highway exit for the Preserve. The resident critters catch your attention and invite you in.

Built around Las Vegas' original water source, the Las Vegas Springs, the Springs Preserve encompasses about 180 acres of land within sight of the Las Vegas Strip. Owned and operated by the Las Vegas Valley Water district, the Preserve is dedicated to celebrating the history and culture of the Las Vegas Valley and encouraging environmental stewardship. The sprawling facilities offer two museums, galleries, outstanding botanical gardens, interpretive walking trails and so much more … definitely more than we could absorb in a single visit.

We began our visit at the Nevada State Museum. Christopher the Columbian Mammoth greeted us on arrival. We learned about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals that roamed the Las Vegas Valley tens of millennia ago and we found it fascinating

We wandered through exhibit after exhibit, taking in not only sights, but sounds. From the desert animal cries of coyotes, owls hooting and rattlesnakes hissing to the sounds of miners working their claims and steam trains chugging and slot machines spilling out coins. The history of the Las Vegas Valley was recounted before our eyes … and ears.

We headed to the botanical gardens for a guided tour by the Preserve's volunteer Master Gardeners. We had a mission here. We're in the process of planning the landscaping for our backyard and are, of course, especially interested in native plants and certainly desert tolerant plants. We currently have a rather uninteresting collection of cacti, yucca and aloe in the front yard, and we are searching for a bit more variety in the back. The three tour guides were excellent. I wish we'd brought notebook and pencil, but we did the best we could with our poor memories and photos of plants that would fit well in the yard. Brochures were offered and accepted and ongoing classes and gardening events might well be in our future.

We walked along some of the interpretive trails, listening to mockingbirds sing and watching butterflies and hummingbirds flit about. We ended up in Boomtown 1905, a new exhibit that has just opened featuring a streetscape of Las Vegas at the turn of the 20th century. We took a peek inside the bank and the Wells Fargo stagecoach then progressed down the street to the mercantile, movie theater (showing silent movies), the Arizona Club, the hotel and the train station.

An old operating player piano was being demonstrated at the Arizona Club and the kids were thrilled to take their turns “pumping” out out WWI tunes. Several small houses lined the opposite side of the street and it was interesting to view the period furniture and furnishings.

We never made it to the Origen Museum nor did we tour the galleries nor suss out all the garden art that's placed throughout the grounds. Many trails were left unwalked. Too much to see, too little time, but there's always another day. We'd rate the Springs Preserve an “A” place to visit.

The Blue View - What Size Wire Do I Need?

In last week's blog on installing our new batteries, I promised to (or maybe warned of?) write a blog on how to determine the right wire size for marine applications. As an electrical current is passed through a wire, the resistance of the wire causes it to heat up. If the wire is too small for the current passing through it, it will heat up enough to melt the insulation, resulting in a possible short-circuit or, worse, a fire. How much current a wire can safely carry depends on the wire size, the melting point of the cable insulation, and the ambient temperature. If the plan is to add or replace an electrical circuit, or to upgrade equipment, it's a good idea to make sure the wire size is adequate for the electrical current it will be carrying.

Wire in the U.S. uses the AWG (American Wire Gauge) system to indicate the wire size. An 18 AWG wire is the smallest wire size allowed to be used as a current carrying wire aboard a boat. (Smaller wire sizes may be used for communications cables, electronics cables passing less than 1 amp of current, etc.). An 18 AWG wire has a conductor size of 1.02mm – slightly larger than the lead in a mechanical pencil. As the AWG number gets smaller, the wire size increases. Thus, a 10 AWG wire is larger than an 18 AWG wire. The numbers were originally derived from the number of times a wire had to be drawn through a tool to get the indicated size. A 10 AWG wire had to be drawn ten times while a 30 AWG wire had to be drawn 30 times.

I suspect that when the AWG system was invented, the largest wire size envisioned was a size 0 wire, which is slightly bigger than a ball point pen. Wire sizes larger than 0 are now commonly used, however, and, after considerable head-scratching no doubt, it was decided to add a zero for each size larger than size 0 AWG. The next size is 00 AWG, then 000 AWG, and so on. Eventually, it was decided to start using the cross-sectional area of the wire to define its size rather than continuing to add zeroes, so thankfully, there is no wire size larger than 000000 AWG wire (6/0 AWG) in the AWG system.

BTW, when you go to the chandlery to buy some wire, you don't want to sound like a dummy, so be sure to pronounce the wire size correctly. For sizes smaller than 0 AWG, the size can be stated as “18 AWG wire” or “Size 18 wire” - no surprises there. But for sizes larger than 1 AWG the colloquial pronunciation of zero – aught - is used. The wire size is stated as the number of zeroes followed by “aught”, so a size 0 AWG would be called a “one aught wire”, and a size 000 AWG wire would be called a “three aught wire”.

The first piece of information needed when calculating wire size is the amount of current the wire will be carrying. If the only thing connected to the wire is a bilge pump, all I need to do is check the amperage of the pump, which is usually printed on the pump or in the manual for the pump. If there are several loads on the circuit, I would add up the current required by each of the electrical devices likely to be running at any given time. For example, a circuit might have two fans, several lights and an outlet that is used for charging Marcie's laptop, and adding up the current required for each device might total 12 amps.

For the batteries I installed last week, the calculation is slightly more complicated. The biggest load is, by far, the windlass (not counting the starter, which is on a different battery bank and only runs for a few seconds at a time). We might also be running the deck washdown pump, the nav instruments, a few lights, and perhaps the refrigerator is also running. Adding all these loads up, the total current would be around 180 amps. (This is actually quite unlikely, since we would almost surely be running the engine while doing all this, but let's assume we have an engine problem and we need to raise anchor without it).

On the other hand, we have a very large alternator with a maximum charging current of 200 amps. This is higher than the maximum load of 180 amps we would ever expect to draw from the batteries, so I'll use 200 amps as the maximum current the battery cables need to carry.

The next piece of information I need is the temperature rating of the insulation for the wire type I will be using. Good marine-grade wiring, which is what I plan to use for my cables, is usually rated for 105° C. If I use a different type of cable, I will need to know its temperature rating.

Finally, I need to think about where the wire will be routed. If it passes through the engine room or some other area that is significantly hotter than normal room temperature, the insulation is already closer to its melting temperature, and the wire can't carry as much current before the insulation becomes overheated.

The first table below (which I extracted from the Code of Federal Regulations and modified slightly to make it easier, hopefully, to understand) lists the allowable current for cables of different sizes and types. It looks confusing at first glance, but is quite simple to figure out. My battery cables must be able to handle at least 200 amps, and I am using wire that has insulation rated for 105° C. The column for this type of wire is highlighted. If I look down the column until I find an allowable current of at least 200 amps, I see that I need a wire that is no smaller than 2 AWG. Just to be on the safe side, I actually decided to use cable size 0 AWG (“one aught”), which is rated for a current of 285 amps.

This cable doesn't pass through the engine room, but the cable from the alternator to my battery switch does. It should also be able to carry 200 amps safely, but this time, since the cable passes through a much hotter area, the same size cable cannot carry as much current before the insulation begins to overheat. The second table above shows how much I must derate the cable. Looking down the column for wire with insulation rated for 105° C, I see that the allowable current must be derated by a factor of 0.85. If I use the same size cable as I did for the batteries, which was rated for 285 amps, it will only carry 285 * 0.85 = 245 amps, which is safe for the maximum alternator output of 200 amps.

Next week, I'll discuss how to determine the right size fuse or circuit breaker for a circuit.