Category Archives: living aboard

Interested in Big Things & Happy in Small Ways

Posted on by under interior, living aboard, Pete's Harbor, Systems

Navigation and a sunny spot all-in-one!
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This has been a great week. First off, for a few weeks we’ve been away from the dramatics of a soul that we’ve spent way too much time listening to the meandering orations of. For us, this means no more wincing when hearing something not-quite-right and wondering if one has a duty to speak up or if one should just let it slide. It is so peaceful now. And, great to have conversations now with more logical folks who don’t have sensitive personality issues. I didn’t realize how bad it had been until we weren’t exposed to it anymore. We’ve been gone from Pete’s for almost a month now. We are sorry to learn that some of our former slipmates have been having troubles as the old marina owner is finally exercising her rights and giving people the “real” boot. While some folks had lesser motives, some of our neighbors were bravely staying put for what they really believed in. We’re proud of them for sticking to their beliefs but so sorry that they may have been manipulated and poorly advised about how to go about it all. Even so, it seems most are landing well and soon their ordeal will end and they’ll have their own days of rest away from the dramatics. Ill have to update the blog with all the saga–but not now.

This week, I’ve had my fill of information coming in about big picture issues and current affairs while at the same time, we’re getting little tasks around Mahdee done. Our Mahdee list is long–reclean the chain and turn it in the locker after we’ve decided what to do about the mild rusting on the first 100′ that’s mostly been in the water; reorganize and put away things in the forecastle (again!); install a bit more netting for stowage of things while underway; touch up on the brightwork; these last few days David has been installing the Newport bulkhead heater in the main saloon and I’m happy to see it all coming together. My part seems to be finding things for David and varnishing the wood pad for the through deck part. Yes, there’s always a bit of varnish work to do!

The thru-deck pipe and wood pad
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The marina down the road from Pete’s where we had the storage trailer is undergoing change and that means we’ve got to find another location for our storage trailer to sit. The price range of spots is quite wide–from $50 to $500 per month! and it is a bit difficult to decide what is best in terms of location. The Bay area is just so huge. We looked at things from Mare Island, Antioch, Hayward, and the South Bay. There’s nothing that’s right adjacent to a good spot to put Mahdee except for Antioch. There’s a nice yard within bike distance of a lovely marina with visitors’ docks–but that’s quite hot in the summertime so we’d have to be careful of what we store there. And, it’s quite far to get to at any other time. Fingers crossed that we’ll have another location pop up that looks good this week or we’ll just have to block and brace things to have the trailer moved out to Antioch at the end of the month.

David thinking about how to route a fuel line for the saloon stove past the Cummins engine under the charthouse sole
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Beryl’s antics on deck while watching the seabirds in this fishing harbor are really fun as well. We’ve not been using the wood burning stove for a few days as it’s both warmer and I’m beginning to ration my remaining hardwood supply. A friend mentioned a tree they’ve cut down in their yard last summer and lots of wood to get rid of, so perhaps we’ll be getting a bit more wood supply soon. In the meanwhile, it’s cooking on the Taylors kero and no cakes or baking in the wonderful oven of the woodburning shipmate.

Creaky Internet Woes

Posted on by under anchoring, living aboard, Systems

We are not lacking in mobile internet capabilities–or so we thought.  The last few days have been unexpectedly challenging.  I think we have been utterly spoiled by having DSL for the last few months.  Our neighbor’s boat had to leave before the one year period of their DSL, so it was convenient that we routed the wire over to our boat and kept the line in use for the remaining months of their year.  Before that, the same neighbor spoiled us with wifi access.  I can’t really blame our neighbor for us being spoiled, but so it is.

Our arsenal for mobile access has since 2006 included a Treo with truly unlimited EVDO 3g that is tetherable to a computer.  We have also recently purchased and tested a Virgin Mobile Overdrive Pro 4g hotspot.  Our computers include the new multiseat Linux Shuttle computer, an eMachines laptop, a Raspberry Pi, and a Nokia N810.  The N810 is a great always on navigation machine because it includes NOAA charts and has a built in GPS that can run my custom anchor watch program which alarms if our anchor drags.   It’s getting a little long in the tooth and we would like to use the Raspberry Pi as its replacement, but we don’t have a functioning chart/navigation application running on the Pi yet.  Nevertheless, days before getting underway, the SD card with the entire Pi operating system fragged itself.  I spent the last days and hours with the DSL connection rebuilding the OS and installing all of the programs it had previously had.  We also have not yet found a good DC powered monitor for the Raspberry Pi.

As we got ready to get underway, we rediscovered that the DC charger for the Nokia was intermittent and unreliable.  That meant that we needed to run an inverter to keep the N810 running–especially since its battery is getting very old and doesn’t hold the charge it once did.  So, the N810 was sort of marginal.  Then, while connecting Brenda’s Emachine laptop to the Overdrive Pro hotspot, the laptop power supply went out–along with the DC 12V-5V power supply for the Overdrive Pro.  The Emachine power supply is built onto the mother board of the computer.  That left us with one really functional computer–the Shuttle which is energy efficient for a full sized computer, but not exactly a miser either.  The Shuttle runs off a 500W inverter that also powers the two monitors for the two user logons.

But there is more.  First, in pre-launch tests, the Treo hooked up great to the Shuttle and the Overdrive Pro worked with the Shuttle hooked up directly through the USB cable.  Once underway, we discovered that those preliminary successes were statistical flukes.

The Overdrive Pro routinely locked up the computer when connected via the USB cord.  The problem seems to be related to the sierra kernel module.  We went through dozens of roulette reboots hoping for another success.  After hours wasted in reboots, we dug out an old D-link USB dongle.  I discovered that I can’t do anything via Network Manager with wifi devices while using Xmonad.  I can’t find my notes on how to connect manually.  Brenda finds out that it is easy in her Gnome desktop even though just about everything else looks foreign with the update to Gnome3.  The connection with a plug in USB Wifi dongle works for about 30 seconds at a go.  So Brenda must do the reconnects. That works for me–not her!

We then switched to the Treo and found it impossible to connect.  Soon, the Treo would not connect even on the phone.  We did dozens of module reloads and reboots and were blocked at one of three points: Treo won’t accept a USB device number, Network Manager won’t recognize Treo even though it has a USB address, and when the first two problems are randomly overcome, the Treo won’t connect with Sprint.  We are back to reboot roulette and I hate that!  The Sprint help desk worked on the third problem while Brenda was on our back-up pre-pay cell phone and now she can’t make any outgoing phone calls at all and of course no data either.  Thanks, Sprint. We have to go to a Sprint store for a hard reset of the phone now. So, the Treo is now only usable for incoming calls and no internet.  The Overdrive Pro requires a network restart every 30 seconds.  Hardly enough time to Google what the heck is going on, let alone how to fix it.  The N810 works and has a great internet connection via the Overdrive Pro, but searching on the web really taxes its tiny brain.

So today, it was off to Fry’s to buy a new laptop for Brenda, a new USB Wifi dongle for the Shuttle, a DC charger for the Nokia N810, and a DC power supply for the Overdrive Pro (and a new 12V battery so that we can raise our anchor without having to start up the Honda EU2000 genset–that’s another story) I feel like we have been through an electrical storm that blew out nearly all of our electronics.  I have empathy for cruisers that find themselves in a similar electrical situation while anchored off of some south pacific island and are thousand of miles from a Fry’s store.

The new USB Wifi dongle doesn’t fix the problem with the Shuttle computer.  I suspect that there is some power saving feature that is to blame.  But, iwconfig shows that the USB device is not using power saving.  The next possibility is that the computer OS is responsible for the power saving.  I add a blacklist file in /etc/pm/config.d/blacklist with the line: HOOK_BLACKLIST=”wireless”  But that doesn’t fix the problem either.  Then I found a site that suggests configuring the Overdrive Pro to only accept 802.11g connections.  That made a huge improvement.  I don’t know why, but allowing the 802.11n mode was a problem.  On a roll now, I then found a site that confirms that the direct USB mode with the Overdrive Pro only works when certain modules are loaded in a specific order–hence the randomness.  But, they find that the sierra module that I noticed was really malfunctioning isn’t even needed for the Overdrive Pro.  So, I blacklisted that module and may try connecting via the USB cord tomorrow because the Wifi connection is not as robust as I would like.  And tomorrow it’s off to a Sprint store to see if they can fix the Treo, as well as installing that new windlass battery so that we are ready for re-anchoring during the storm that may hit over the weekend.

These are the creaky Internet Woes…next story will be the creaky body woes that go with getting underway again.

Stash and Lash and Weather Windows

Posted on by under living aboard, Weather

Stash and Lash. That’s the key to a happy me. After we’ve been sitting tied to a dock for any length of time, we tend to have things sitting all over the place and it takes me anywhere from a few hours to a couple days to get everything put away where I’d like it to be. We also have the typical list of pre-passage activities to do–just in case we decide to go somewhere a bit far away.  We’ve been in one place for too long. We have far too many things sitting out and about just waiting to be flung across the cabin in a seaway. Most things aboard Mahdee do have a place–the old adage of a place for everything and everything in its place works well. We also have piles of periodicals and just “stuff” sitting around and about. Those things are the problems. No place for sundry “stuff” because, well, the particular “stuff” doesn’t really belong on the boat.

Usually we have one large rubbermaid bin filled with the stuff that I just don’t know what to do about. I can tell, when we get underway this time, we’ll have two or three rubbermaid bins of questionable things. I suppose that’s OK for now.

Since we’re getting underway and we’re not quite sure where we’re going, I’ve been keeping an eye on the weather. It’s really too bad that we’re committed to a few things here in the Bay area during the next few weeks. The weather is showing a very nice window of calm waters and literally no winds along the California and Oregon coastline from Point Conception all the way up to the Columbia River. Really amazingly nice weather for going North right now. Too bad we don’t really want to go North right now.

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