Position N 27° 22.225’.
W 82° 37.075’.
Longboat Key Club Moorings, FL
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Well, here we are still at
the dock! Finally Jim our electronics guy, on December 31st, fathomed
out the problem with our redundant autopilot installation, it was the autopilot
computer. He had another customer about to have the exact same system installed
on his boat and Jim had an idea...he called the other gentleman who was up
north and not due in Florida for another week to ask him if he could use the
computer from his job to diagnose if indeed it was the problem in my
installation, he agreed. In no time Jim had the unit installed and would you
know it, all was well, hurrah! It has taken two months to get to this point.
Jim made another call to his other customer who agreed with Jim to leaving my
successful installation intact, Jim assured him that he would get him another
computer for his boat without delay. All I have to do now is call Nobeltec to
get some help with setting up my software so the new autopilot and AIS is
recognised by my Admiral 11 software. Once done Jim will return, probably next
week, and we will go out for a sea trial to calibrate the fluxgate compass and
‘voilà’ everything should work and we can go to sea!
The Christmas and New Year
holidays are past, ‘Partners’ has shed here regalia. The Admiral expressed,
regarding her decorations, “she (‘Partners’) was like a young girl all dressed
up for a party”. She did look good and HT did her usual good job with the
decorations, miniature tree and lights. Today is January 1st 2013 so
she is busy taking everything down and stowing it for another year...I wonder
where we will be spending next Christmas and New Year
Oh no! Yet another
problem, the Nobeltec software cannot ‘see’ the Simrad AP28 pilot! Jim used the
AIS unit to convert the NMEA 2000 data so that we could use a USB cable to
transmitted information to the navigation computer. The problem is the AIS data
in the common cable is blocking the autopilot data information. There is a
solution, however, which will require another piece of equipment! The jury is
still out and the delays continue our next appointment to install the added
equipment is January 10th! Hopefully we will be able to get
everything done in one day, we will have to wait and see. Our target date to be
under way is still mid month. (As you will see later, we are optimists).
Danny, the rigger, arrived
today to install our dinghy hoist, we can’t wait as to be able to hoist the
dinghy up to the boat deck by just pushing a button will be an absolute luxury!
It only took half a day to complete the installation, fantastic, no more hand
cranking! We chose a Warn 800 lb hoist as it was recommended by several other Krogen
cruisers in a conversation concerning the subject on the Krogen Cruisers
website. Camaraderie is wonderful and saves so much ‘reinvention of the wheel’.
We did an about turn on
the plan for our dinghy to install a consol and steering. We decided that it
would reduce the usable space too much and cause us carrying capacity problem
with our gear and bicycles. The answer...we bought a new 20hp Tohatsu four
stroke outboard with tiller steering and settle for the hand steering after
all. I also installed a new water separator filter and fuel line. We are set
but unfortunately can’t use the dinghy or our new hoist at the dock due to the
pilings which are either side of us, so we will just have to be patient...
 |
| This should hold it, right! |
January 29th -
We haven’t left yet, the problem with the autopilot not ‘seeing’ the navigation
software is a Nobeltec problem; after many conversations with Nobeltec they
have admitted that they don’t know how to solve my problem! Apparently Admiral
11, our software, has been around for a while and has received many patches and
fixes over the years and still has some glitches. Nobeltec’s solution to this
was to launch a completely new and updated programme called Trident Time Zero.
The long and short of all this is that Nobeltec agreed to replace my Admiral
software with Trident at a very reasonable charge. All is well and everything
is now ‘talking’ to each other. We are waiting to hear from Jim so we can
arrange an appointment to do the sea trial and calibrate the autopilots
fluxgate compass. Unfortunately though he is in the middle of rewiring a
commercial fishing boat that had been ‘grounded’ by the US Coastguard! We are
hoping that we can get the sea trial done in the next week and be cruising
early in February...we hope!
Lavinia is still busy
provisioning and between foods, supplies, the new 670 lbs of anchor chain,
enough oil for three oil changes and much additional gear our waterline has
vanished! I said many months ago that when we painted the bottom next that we
would raise the antifouling paint and boot stripe at least one inch...well, I
think that we will go up 1½”! Jeff from down the dock, who was
visiting Ron and Pam next door to us actually knocked on the pilot house door
to let us know that our waterline had gone! They all thought that we were
sinking! I was filling the water tanks at the time and they were concerned that
the water was just flowing from a leak in the tank straight into the bilge and
sinking us! No, it is just a lot of supplies and extra weight at the beginning
of our cruise. I am sure that when we ‘find our way around’ and get to know
where we can re-provision the amount of stores will diminish. HT is so worried
she won’t do a good job that I am sure she has bought too much...we’ll see.
Just like everyone we want the things we are familiar with and feel that we may
not be able to buy in the countries we will be visiting so are stocking up
heavily to ensure we have PG tips tea, our favourite brand s of coffee,
cereals, soups, preserves etc., I expect we will find new local products that
we like equally, we’ll see...in reading it appears that many of the Caribbean
islands have European goods as well as item familiar to us here in the States.
I originate from England so am looking forward to some of the things that I
have been deprived of since living here in America for the last 33 years.
I am hoping that my next
blog entry will be fired off from Miami or if not there then the Bahamas, we
really are ready to get going! We are beginning to feel the conflicting
emotions of sadness leaving so many good friends and, of course, our family
member behind, in favour of the ‘can’t wait’ excitement of what lies ahead for
us and The Travels of Partners. I am busying myself reading the pilot books I
have for the Bahamas and pawing over charts and possible alternative courses we
can take to cross over from Miami and beginning to look at weather patterns and
windows for our crossing of the Gulf Stream...a lot of ‘second guessing’ going
on. We will be fine I’m sure; even with much boating experience this adventure
is still a little nerve racking for me! Can’t wait to get some miles under the
keel...
While
we are at it here are some pictures of our salon with the new and most
comfortable, Ekornes Stressless Chairs, the new small chest of draws between
them.
I
am still practicing with my new Nikon camera and was fortunate to be able to
snap this picture of an Osprey stopping for a rest in between fishing sorties...
Note – The ‘glossary of the terms’ page
contains all the writers abbreviations and colloquialisms.
