Seems like a fine thread for a personal novella stirred by reading this: After my grandfather sold his business and retired to Big Pine Key, Florida, he befrie

Seems like a fine thread for a personal novella stirred by reading this: After my grandfather sold his business and retired to Big Pine Key, Florida, he befriended a fellow who lived on No Name Key. No Name Key is connected to Big Pine by the "Old Wooden Bridge" (made of concrete). No Name Key is known for a rock quarry, being the practice grounds for the Bay of Pigs invasion, and for complete lack of public utilities. Now this is the early 90s, as my grandparents left the Keys after hurricane Andrew. In those days solar power was properly challenging. And yet the fellow in question had a fully solar powered house. He was a physicist by education, rescued from deliquency by an insightful first mate on a Navy ship. Per my grandmother he worked "not one day longer than required to retire to a life of poverty." In my grandfather he found a (mostly) willing source of free labor. And labor who was trained as an electronics technician during WW2. So the two worked on his solar house in the bad old days of solar on very little budget. His backup generator was the front third of an 80s something Honda Civic with a hotrodded alternator. In addition to the solar house, he also had a 9 meter(ish) sailing catamaran of his own design and construction. The catamaran, like anything he cared about, was meticulous. I never did understand how one could be both so haphazard and so careful, depending on the task at hand. He was a lazy sailor, but had traveled all over the East Coast and Carribean looking for his "soul mate." Indeed, he left the Keys to stay with a lady friend when hurricane Andrew hit. The problem with that plan? Said companion lived in Homestead. Oops. My grandmother suggested that perhaps he would have better romantic luck with a "smaller beer belly and fewer 'banana hammock' swim suits." When he sailed on the open water, he used a small commercial autopilot that used a servo to move the tiller. It was based on a compass heading set on a dial. It only "worked" if you weren't that particular about where you saw the sun rise above the horizon. That was perfect for his adventures. Grandpa died January 1, 2017, and I doubt his friend is in any condition to sail so many years later. But, if he is somehow still out there chasing soul mates, I guarantee the boat has solar power, and it's probably navigating with pypilot.