After I finished my last post, we had a nice cruise through the entrance to St. Catherines Sound and into the Bear River. We took advantage of a flood tide to run all the way to a nice anchorage in Buckhead Creek, just off the ICW at the junction of the Florida Passage (map). It was a pleasant evening, other than the unending supply of no-see-ums that confined us indoors.
Thursday we weighed anchor a bit after noon to arrive at the low spot on the Ogeechee near high tide. On a six foot tide we had just three feet under our keel there; before Sherman ended his march to the sea by taking Fort McAllister, Confederates would lure Union ships up the river until they ran aground there, and the fort would shell them until they sank.
Sunrise over the Ogeechee from our berth at Fort McAllister.
Once over the hump we were again in deep water, and we tied up on the face dock at the Fort McAllister Marina (map), port-side-to so we could unload the scooters. After wrapping up some lightning repairs that I had started in the morning at the anchorage, and a bit of cleaning up, we strolled over to the dockside restaurant, Fish Tales, and met our good friends John and Laura Lee for dinner. It was great catching up, and we agreed to meet again in our expected two-week stay.
Friday morning Captain Mike dropped by first thing to discuss our paint repairs. He allowed that his guys were pretty busy and he would likely have to do the work himself. After looking it over he agreed that he could get the worst of it, but not all of it, done in the two weeks we were willing to spend, and he would start Monday. We told the marina we'd take the monthly rate, and we settled in for an extended stay, including ordering a number of items on Amazon and eBay.
Friday afternoon, John came by and ran us to the hardware and grocery stores in town. We also swung by Ford Plantation and got a quick tour of his new boat, a lovely Selene 57 that they have named Division Belle. It's just a year or two newer than Vector, but the millwork is much nicer, as is common on the high-end trawlers of the era built in China, including the Krogens and Nordhavns. He also provided some history of the area, including the bit I wrote in my third paragraph, above.
I had come away from my first meeting with Captain Mike with a bit of an uneasy feeling, and first thing Saturday my fears were confirmed when he asked if he could come by. We crossed our fingers that he just needed another look before starting Monday, but, no. He came by to say that, after sleeping on it, he would not be able to take on the project. He was very apologetic, knowing we had detoured up the Ogeechee and taken a slip just to get this done.
Fish Tales restaurant on the dock. I did not think to snap a photo when they were open and busy.
Of course, by this time we now already had packages en route to us at the Marina. Mike offered to pick them up and forward them if need be. The critical ones were already scheduled to arrive Monday, having been ordered through Amazon Prime, and we made the decision to just stay the extra two nights to Monday, at least.
A number of packages had already arrived Thursday and Friday, including the replacement VHF antenna, the multiport USB-to-serial converter, the replacement VHF radio, and a replacement fuel filter for the transfer system. I spent the full three days making repairs, starting with the most critical system, the chart plotter computer, which needed a new USB converter.
That project should have been a slam-dunk. Load the drivers, plug in the converter, connect the four serial cables to it, and configure the correct COM port numbers in the chart software. And yet, nothing I could do would allow it to receive data from the lone 4800 bps port. It received data just fine from the three 38,400 bps ports, and it also sent data just fine to the 4800 bps port. Hunh.
I spent hours trying to troubleshoot this. It happened on all four ports. Yet all four ports worked fine when I connected it to my Linux laptop. I tried changing drivers, deleting and reinstalling every part of Windows infrastructure including the root hub and the USB controller. I moved it to each of the other two working USB ports. I bypassed cables and rigged my laptop up as an NMEA tester, crawling under the helm to double-check each connection point. Nada.
After an entire day of this, I gave up. I connected that cable back to the single-port, obsolete adapter that needed a pirated driver, which worked fine, and ordered a different four-port adapter in the hopes that I will have better results. The replacement is the same model as the one that fried, but was working fine before the strike. If it doesn't work, I will know the lightning scrambled something in the computer's USB hardware. This was the critical part I needed to receive yesterday; I will be testing it later today.
The very nice commercial-grade junction box for the AIS. I connected Louise's computer here.
By contrast, the replacement VHF antenna went into place smoothly, more so than I expected. The nice shiny new cable ran much more easily through the aluminum top frame than its older, more shopworn predecessor, and Shakespeare is even using a slightly thinner cable now as well. The replacement VHF radio was also easy; mostly just a drop-in, although I did need to add some connectors. As long as I had both radios out and side-by-side I bench tested them, confirming the old radio's NMEA ports are defunct. It's for sale now, to someone who does not need that feature.
I had ordered a replacement radar-plotter with screen damage on eBay, intending to cannibalize its main board to replace the damaged main board in our pilothouse unit, which lost one of its four NMEA ports. On Saturday, after I learned Captain Mike was bailing on us, I contacted the seller who, by sheer luck, had suffered a delay in shipping. I was able to wave it off for delivery at a later stop.
Instead I spent a few hours under the helm rerouting NMEA signals to get the last three pieces of equipment working. Those would be the flybridge radio, which needed position information for its emergency distress button, the stabilizers, which need speed information to activate (we've been bypassing the speed signal since the strike), and the backup nav station at Louise's seat, which needed position, speed, and AIS information.
That's all done now, with things generally working better than before the strike (I learn a little more each time I do this). The sheer number of NMEA connections and the complexity of the setup has also now prompted me to climb the learning curve and make a diagram with LibreOffice Draw, since I am tired of re-drawing everything by hand each time I make a change. Reading my own free-hand diagrams and scribbles in pencil while crouched under the helm was the source of some frustration.
After all that, I hardly need the replacement radar/plotter board, except that the dead port was also the emergency backup feed to the autopilot. We've never needed to use it, but it's nice to know we have it, and so I will make the swap when I have the parts.
Last night's sunset over the Little Ogeechee and Vernon rivers.
With things put back together and mostly working Sunday night, we felt comfortable checking out yesterday. We had previously agreed to join John and Laura Lee for dinner at Ford Plantation Wednesday, which we did not want to miss, but we reasoned we could make progress and even save a few bucks by leaving Fort McAllister yesterday, and then renting a car in Thunderbolt tomorrow to drive down. What will have taken us six hours across two days by boat will take just a half hour by car. It did give us a day to kill at anchor, but I still have plenty of work to do.
Even though it was something of a fool's errand, we enjoyed our short stay at Fort McAllister. Louise keeps saying it's the quietest marina we've ever stayed at, and that's even with a very popular tiki restaurant right on the dock. Fish Tales was actually quite good, and we returned Saturday evening for dinner and again Sunday just for a beer. The marina staff were friendly and accommodating, and even knocked some off the bill for our troubles.
In a short while we will weigh anchor with the tide to have following current most of the way to Thunderbolt. We'll anchor again tonight, and be at the dock at Thunderbolt Marina in time to get our $30 rental car from Hertz around noon. We're making a list of errands to do while we have wheels for a day.
Very good. First time reading the blog. I'll return. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI suppose it's better that you lost your painter right at the beginning; rather than half way through the project. Still, very disappointing. It can be very difficult to arrange tradespeople; both on the boat and at home. Good luck!
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