We've been using one panel leaned up against the shed for the last week or so and it's been providing enough power for lights, charging drills, headlights, laptops, radios, etc. Although I won't actually be able to hook up all four panels (for one kilowatt) until I get some more hardware from China, two should be sufficient to start using the fridge-freezer in the coming days. We've got quite used to having no fridge but it will make life a lot easier to have a freezer.
We still haven't been able to buy any guttering but some more should arrive on one of the next few ships so hopefully it won't be too long before we can start collecting water off the shed roof. I haven't had a shower for about a month now due to lack of water, but despite advice to the contrary it is quite possible to get soap to lather up in sea water. Sure, if you try to use a block of soap in the sea it just turns to inert rubber, but if you wet yourself down and rub frantically with a block of soap out of the water it works pretty well. It's quite refreshing to stand wet and starkers in the trade winds and it largely deals to the issues of smelliness. Shampoo is similarly [in]effective.
We haven't mastered fishing here yet. We caught a one inch flounder and a couple of small, unknown reef fish, so we couldn't eat them. Some of the reef fish cause Ciguatera and we don't know which is which yet. I've seen the skipjack tuna coming up into the reef around mid-tide but for one reason or another have not been able have a fish when they were there. They're not considered a great fish by most (much like Kahawai in NZ) but they look pretty damn good to me.
The coming days have us staring down the prospect of more bush and scrub cutting to start clearing the house site. There's also still some heavy gear to cart up from the beach that we've been procrastinating about doing.
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