Friday, July 18, 2008

Day 79 Clean clothes and more wind

I did the laundry this morning so we can take our trip next week with lots of clean clothes.  I don't think they will have laundry facilities at the boat yard where we are going let alone any where close.

The wind started up early and blew just about all day.  Back up into the 30's again and as always--from the North.  Patience Patience Patience!!

I met some other cruisers this morning while doing the laundry.  They got in yesterday morning from up North--lucky ducks.  They are on a Cascade 36 and heading South towards Mexico like us.  They are just well ahead of us.  I expect we will see them again as the cruising community can get very close as we cruise.  Many times you see the same boats over and over as you move from port to port.  Traveling friends.

Ran a few errands early this afternoon and found that the computer program(for reprogramming our VHF radios) that was due in today missed the truck but is being UPS's in for us tomorrow.  Not a big deal but at least it we will have the radios ready for when we leave.

I worked on the wind/autopilot program most of the afternoon with little success.  It still reads the wind direction from about 130 degrees wrong and I can't find any way to correct it.  I emailed the company that made it with a few questions.  Since the equipment is about 10 years old, I'm not sure that they can answer my questions.  They did last years when I emailed them but you never know.  

Since I didn't get very far with the autopilot, I went at the GPS we use for navigating the boat and pulled the manual and started pushing buttons.  Quite a unit.  Virtually all of our electronics are made by Raytheon and have stood the test of time over the last nine years and show no signs of having any problems.  I've looked at newer equipment, but there is no reason to replace what we have just because the newer equipment has screens that show pretty colors.  We can set up what are called "way points" in the GPS that will pin point exactly where we have been and where we want to go.  We can do the same thing on the autopilot and if we set up an entire string of these, it will take us to each in succession until we arrive at a final destination.  It's called "setting up a route".  We wouldn't even have to steer the boat.  As it hits each "way point" the autopilot would change course and do all the driving.  If I set these up for our trip up the coast, the boat would take us all the way all by itself.   Unfortunately, it only works this way when we are motoring since sailing requires many course changes as the wind changes.  But hey,  if we have to motor, at least we can do it comfortably.  We will have to stand watch all day and night( about 40 hours to get up the coast) to look for other ships and crab pots, but we have other programs that will help us with that.  

I'm amazed at the distance our AIS(automatic identification system) picks up other boats.  We've picked up transmissions from  boats over 80 miles away  This is a piece of equipment that picks up radio transmissions from bigger boats that are required to have a transmitter on them that tells us who, what, where, what direction and course they are traveling.  It also tells us where they are going and what speed they are doing, not to mention their radio call sign.  With this information, we can track them in relationship to us and see if they are going to come any where near us.  During the day, not big deal.  At night, it can really be a life saver.  In many ways, it is better than radar with the information it gives us.  The drawback is that all boats are not equipped with these transmitters.  Most commercial fishing boats aren't required to so that is where radar get important.  Since the Oregon coast has been shrouded in fog for most of the past week, I fully expect we will be using both radar and AIS all the way up the coast.

Let's all hope for fair breezes next week.  It will make the trip a lot easier--and cheaper if we don't have to motor all the way! 

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