Recent journal entries have been somewhat technical, which is the polite way of saying boring for most people. And while that is true, I’ve spent the better part of the last week fixing things around the boat which is in-and-of-it-self boring for me too. But you do what you have to do.
I woke up at 6:00 am so that I could turn on and warm-up the SSB, then listen to the Marine Weather Center broadcast which starts at 6:30. With great anticipation I set the frequency, and waited for 6:30 to come around, it did and I heard nothing, I looked to make sure that I didn’t screw something up, everything was right, I still heard nothing, I was bummed, it was working yesterday but I got nothing today. Oh, crap.
Weather is an important part of your psyche when you are living aboard a boat, anchored in water with nature swirling around you. Everything in a cruiser’s life is controlled for the most part by the weather, you can’t change it, you can only adapt, adjust and keep moving forward. Knowing what might be headed your way gives you an opportunity to fine tune your day, week, or month.
I left the radio on while I made my granola for breakfast, I ate it sitting on the bench seat near the stove, and out of the blue, there was someone talking… I’m thinking, who the hell is talking outside at this hour, (things don’t start moving around the anchorage until 10 or 11) I open the companionway hatch and look outside trying to find where the talking was coming from… Then I hear, ‘Good Copy’, what the… I’ve heard that before, that’s the weather guy on the radio. I sat down at the Nav station, turned the SSB speaker up a bit and there is was, weather guy talking, it would fade in and out, but it was 99% understandable.
I listened for a while, the weather guy was talking directly to ‘subscribers’, as in ‘Sailing Vessel SeaSaw, your planning on leaving Cat Island for Turks tomorrow…’ all on the radio, I’m thinking, how is this possible? I didn’t hear anyone else on the radio asking a question… How the hell is that happening… and wait a damn minute, I’m a subscriber, I want to ask a question. I log into the Maine Weather website to see how to do it… I navigate to the subscriber’s page, and at the top you can ‘join in’ the webcast. My head says, ‘Hey Mike, that might be the way it works’, ha ha ha… (I think both sides of the conversation, or maybe I’ve been alone at sea too long)… Anyway, that’s how they’re doing it. Now I spend the next 5 minutes trying to figure out how to ask a question myself, I try and it’s not getting through. While I’m trying to navigate the website, I hear an SSB transmission from SV Cookie Monster, I’m thinking, wait a minute, there is a Cookie Monster here in Elizabeth Harbor, I’ve heard them on the VHF George Town sailors and cruisers radio net, it has to be the same. I’ll be damned.
After three attempts I get a question through the system, I hear Chris, the weather guy, say ‘Aine has a question’, which he answers and then says ‘Good Copy’ and I typed into the webcast chat ‘Good Copy’, he says ‘good’ and moves on to the next question from a different boat. Wa Hoo, I figured it out, I’m technical… oh crap, that boring now. Oh well, I’ll take my successes where I can get them these days.
Basically, the question was; when would be the better time to leave George Town to head north, the answer was, not today… tomorrow. So, George Town gets me for another day.
Later that afternoon I hail Cookie Monster on the VHF and ask if they would listen to my SSB transmission so that I could get an idea if the transmitter is working. They agreed, they listened, not so good was the consensus, I still have some installation issues to address. The folks from Cookie Monster were very helpful and generous with their time and recommended I contact an SSB guru they knew and forwarded his email to me.
Just look, I can make an award winning cheese burger too. Did you see, it’s on an actual hamburger bun! It was damn good too, good texture, perfect cheese melt, good spice, a little mustard, and kosher dill pickle.
had to cook all of them so the meat wouldn’t go bad, I’ll eat them for lunches and dinners down the road.
Breakfast – Granola with Blueberry, Lunch – Baloney Sandwich, red grapes, Cheetos, Dinner – Cheese Burger, beer (diet ginger beer, it’s all I got).