This morning I woke up to find that the webcam at the marina has been restored - hooray! - followed by the e-mail from the marina that they have indeed been deemed non-essential and are thereby shut down until further notice. There's just no way of knowing when things will return to anything resembling normalcy in this world's situation, unfortunately. It's frustrating, for sure. And for some of us in the areas we're in where last season was delayed due to flooding, to have a 2nd year where things are put indefinitely on hold is agonizing. B-O-A-T. Break Out Another Thousand. Or if you prefer: Boat; a hole in the water into which you pour money. Both are common sayings in the boating community. And I'm sure most owners have heard, and laugh at them as I do. One doesn't buy a boat without realizing that it's almost never going to be an investment with a positive gain (flipping aside), and that yes, you are spending money on recreational value. What we're faced with now though, is a different animal. We still pay seasonal (or monthly) fees, depending on location. For us, it's not the same as saying 'well, guess I can't hook the trailer up yet'. We suffer money loss regardless of if the boat goes in the water or not, regardless of circumstances. A Marina is not going to say "oh hey, sorry about the bad luck, here's your money back for what you didn't get to use." And as a recreational activity, we as owners shouldn't ever expect such. But it does drive one mad, knowing that while we've made the choice to spend money on a hobbie that returns value in the form of enjoyment and entertainment - now we're spending money with zero value in return, without any choice in the matter, short of trying to cut your loss by selling it altogether. Surely some owners are contemplating that. Myself, I've already paid my fees for the year. And just as I did last year, only to wait for months into the season before I could be able to relax away from people, I will wait again. Ironic, that when being told to isolate oneself, we aren't allowed to go to the one place that would be the most isolated. I guess the fear of the bar hopping crowd mingling is more than the few of us that don't. And if you don't think that I'm looking for a cheap trailer sailor to use instead, you'd be very mistaken.
So instead of a trip up on Saturday, my parts on order are starting to pile up in the corner. Other than the battery box, thankfully it's all small things. Small enough in fact that the box will serve as a nice place to hold them all once the time comes to get back up there. While I've been staring at the bits scattered about, I started watching more videos again, and somehow, I don't know fully, I came across some research I had started previously.
On my Excalibur, my first boat, I splurged and bought a fancy 7" touch screen chart plotter, VHF with AIS receiver and hooked them all together all shiny and neat. With this boat though, as I never intended it to be a forever boat, I simply haven't put that same money into the navigation. I'm on Lake Ontario which, while it can get quite ferocious, is still a lake. That means shores in all four directions. I am rarely ever out of sight of land in most cases, instead out for weekends to anchor somewhere in the quiet lake environment. I do have a handheld VHF that reaches plenty for where I usually am. Granted I did run very high quality coax up the mast, but the fixed VHF radio transmits but doesn't receive. While I could transmit an SOS, I wouldn't hear any reply unless it was in range of the handheld. I've considered replacing it with a new AIS receiving model again, but they have a relatively small screen on them to view targets unless you output to a chart plotter. I don't have a plotter, nor do I want to spend that kind of money on one for a boat that I won't be using for more than hopefully a couple more seasons. There's logic to be had for buying one now and then just taking it with me to my next boat, but I'd rather not do that. If I wait until the next boat comes along, I would have a much better idea of what I want, what fits where, what is actually needed versus what might already be equipped, and so on.
This does present the challenge of having no charts other than the paper chart on the boat. I do have a depth readout from the Raymarine fish finder in the boat, purchased solely for that reason. And I am pretty familiar with the local area from where I normally sail, but it would be nice to have larger charts and a better readout. I do have some basic apps on my phone that I've toyed with, I've used OpenCPN on a laptop with a USB GPS antenna, and I even used a promotion this year when I got my latest phone to pick up a Samsung 8" Tablet that I intended to use as a plotter, running either openCPN or a paid Navionics subscription. That's actually how I backed myself into what I was looking at before. So now I have on order, a Raspberry Pi 4, and a dAISy HAT AIS receiver module with case, and a 24" 12v (kind of) TV/Monitor. I am going to make myself a Nav Station, of sorts. I'm sure many have already known these tricks, but here's the scoop:
The Raspberry Pi is a micro computer, about the size of a couple decks of cards stacked. From there it has two HDMI outputs (the Pi 3 has a single large one, the Pi 4 has dual mini's that can run 4k output from them). It also has a bank of four USB ports. I believe two are USB 3 and the others are the older 2s, but either way. On this little guy, is a microSD card, that you load up with whatever version of the Linux / Pi operating system you wish. From there, you can run programs such as OpenCPN, and coupled with a USB GPS module, you have an instant Nav Computer. They also have released a Moitessier HAT which combines AIS, GNSS for GPS, and a gyroscope, which I will likely upgrade to once I've dialed in the system. The beauty of this all, is the very low cost of the hardware. The Pi itself, you can get a complete kit for under $100. Or, in the case of the dAISy Hat since it offers a custom case for it to fit, I can forgo the entire Pi 4 kit and just buy the core board, which put my total cost around $150ish or so, not counting the monitor. That, is a Sceptre 24" Ultra Thin that I found for another $100 on Amazon, and since it runs off a 12 VDC power adapter, I'll be able to go direct to the bank instead of needing to run the inverter. While it does have speakers, the general consensus is that they are junk, so I'll look for an alternative there. OR, I'll just run the bluetooth - I forgot to mention the Pi 4 comes with built in WiFi and Bluetooth - right to the stereo. And, it also means I can run Netflix off the Pi machine to watch on the monitor, or, it does have dual HDMI inputs on this particular model so I can still use my Roku stick for that. I still have to find a much better mounting solution and I do want to build a more traditional station for it to sit at. I know that sounds weird, since I'm not relying on paper charts but instead, digital on screen, but it would still be nice.
And the fun doesn't stop there. You can actually use VNC software or apps to, in effect, remote access the Pi machine from tablets or other devices, giving you what amounts to remote stations wherever you need. In my case, I have that 8" Tablet that I intend to mount on the cockpit bulkhead while under way. And while I could easily fire up Navionics or even OpenCPN on that, I can instead just remote into the Pi for the same setup, with the bonus of having the AIS targets shown thanks to that receiver. Of course, I get to test all that on my desk at home, since I can't go up and do anything yet. And they shipped my new solar panel. I think I need a storage unit to put all this stuff in...
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