Blog#75 Technical glitches...
Cassini's blog
Simon and Sally, Nigel and Catherine
Sun 31 Dec 2023 11:57
| Technical glitches... We have missed a few days as we have been distracted by a technical issue on the boat. Our depth sounder has recently started being erratic and has stopped giving us accurate depth information. As you can imagine it is fairly important that we know what depth of water we are operating in, especially in the Caribbean where you often have to go close to your minimum depth to access the places you want to see. After having carried out extensive fault finding we were no nearer solving the problem, so we called in a local electronics company to help. Danny from Marionics spent 3 hours on the boat and eventually came to the conclusion that the transducer was the faulty part. The slightly tricky bit is that there is more than one type of transducer. Marionics have one type and Signal Locker from English Harbour have another. There are also different types of wire connectors - some have five wires and some have nine, and there are other options between! As yet we are not sure which is going to be the right solution. A further complication is that to change the transducer we have to have the boat lifted out of the water. This is never cheap. We also have to stay out overnight for the epoxy which they use to fix it in place to cure. We are not allowed to live on the boat while it is out of the water and so we have lost our home for the night! Fortunately the marina and boatyard doing the work also has a hotel and we have managed to book a couple of rooms. At least we can have a decent long shower without worrying about running out of water. Unfortunately, this has messed up our plans with Colin and Julia who are staying with us at the moment, but they are making the most of their time in Antigua and seeing as much of the island as they can. Of course it's now the weekend, and Monday is New Year's day and a Bank Holiday, so we can't start the process until Tuesday morning. It will be a frustrating and expensive start to the New Year but hopefully once the work is completed we will be good to go. We can then approach each Caribbean island with some confidence that we know how deep the water is. Nigel the Navigator |
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