Monday August 7, 2017
Final
equipment installation before resuming the trek
Lucky me – when I went over to the chandlery this morning, I encountered
the clerk who I had spoken to about a month ago about ensuring the store
remained stocked up with VHF antennas on the off chance I would need one or
two. When I told her I would need to
order two, she told me she had two in the back room and was I the guy who had
called a month ago about them? Clearly
yesterday’s clerk had not investigated the back room. I bought them both and after breakfast at the
marina café got down to seven hours of labor installing the two antennas, a new
AIS-capable VHF radio at the lower helm, a new Camino 108S AIS transponder with
NEMA 2000 network. I removed the old
faulty radio from the flying bridge and put the old lower helm radio up there.
Mary spent the afternoon over in Paducah 27 miles away in a
quilting shop and visiting the National Quilting Museum. At 4 PM she called to say we had dinner
reservations here in Grand Rivers at the famous Patti’s 1880 Settlement
Restaurant. I just finished the last
electrical connection of all my work in time to get showered for dinner, but I
did not have time to test any of the equipment.
After dinner, I switched it all on and everything worked! We now have AIS data at the lower Garmin
chart plotter and on my laptop navigation software. I need one more NEMA 2000 connector to be
able to get the data to the Garmin plotter on the flying bridge and will have
to have it sent to the owner for him to bring to the boat when we deliver it to
him.
We have made the decision to leave here on Wednesday 9 August to
attempt a passage of the Mississippi River from Cairo, IL to Grafton, IL above
St Louis.
