November 7th, 2013

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Thursday November 7. Going south again.

Thursday, November 7th, 2013

I wrote the below Wednesday evening but was too tired to drag my self to Mosquito Alley: I am back in the water. I took another day to fill in the low spots on the keel with epoxy putty. I touched up the scratches on the hull from the 200 plus locks abuse. I still have no working AIS . I am totally confused and I am just going to give it a rest. The SailMail is not working either yet. Chip Adams from Everett, Wa., who sold me the ICOM SSB radio and the Pactor modem back in 2004 has been of great help and I am real close on getting it to work without the control cable. It all seems to work  but I cannot make the connection yet. I think it is the puny little batteries that were sold to me in Amsterdam to replace the batteries  I bought in 2008 in Beaufort , N.C. I was told that the USB  hockey puck GPS antenna I have been using for my digital charts on the laptop for the last few years cannot be used for the AIS GPS receiver that needs to hook up to the VHF radio with AIS capability. So, I bought a Humminbird GPS receiver here but though I think it can be made to work I have not succeeded with it yet. So, my $400 multiplexer and the new $ 200 GPS receiver  are staring at me and I am ready to throw them overboard and tell them that Columbus and Magellan did just fine without them.  The weather forecast  for tomorrow looks very good NE  force 4/5// Today they were stronger. Right now, Wednesday evening they are Westerly, here. Do, I will plan to take off in the morning and make a stop in Barcelona , Friday evening or if the good conditions hold continue to Ibiza. I will try the SailMail again, underway, but iy might be a few days before I am on the internet again.

Thursday a.m.: A beautiful day to go south. I’ll be on my way after getting my bank account recharged and a few groceries.