Traveling to Berkeley
10 December 2006
Sean
I know a lot of you are wondering when we're going to go somewhere. That seemed to be the reoccurring theme when we visited last week. Well, today was the day. We headed off to the Berkeley marina 8.6 nautical miles away. We carefully plotted our course, stowed away the goods, listened to the weather report, prayed, and left. Here's a minute by minute replay of the whole event.
7:00 - This is the time we designated that the family would wake up. We had a lot to do and if we didn't get an early start, we wouldn't be able to get all the things done that we needed to. We woke up at 9:05 because the time on the alarm was set to PM instead of AM. First mistake.
9:05 - Casey jumps into our bed and wants to watch Magnum P.I. This has been our morning ritual since we discovered it on Monday. There's no time. We have to get moving. It's what Magnum would have done (I think).
9:30 - I get dressed and after loading some last remaining items, I decided to plot our course. I turn on our Garmin GPS. I boot our ship's computer. It's a state-of-the-art 400 mhz Pentium II with 640K of memory.:) I realize that this computer does not have the proper software to upload route and waypoint data to the Garmin GPS. I, thanks to a friend, had the necessary program on my USB drive, but had no way to load it on the ship's computer. The computer is so old that it doesn't know what USB is. I use Casey's computer to burn the program on a CDR. I'm back in business. I load the proper program and upload the route. Now I just need to activate the route on the GPS. I can't find it. I push buttons. Nothing. I end up resorting to the very thing software engineers never do - I read the manual. I feel like a failure. It turns out to be pretty simple. I'm back in business.
10:00 - Kathy has arranged for the "Beast" to be donated. They of course want 24 - 48 hours to pick it up. Kathy arranges for us just leave the keys and pink slip in the glove compartment. She comes back and triumphantly declares, "We're free of the Beast!" At that very moment her cell phone rings and she's told that the company that picks up the vehicle can't pick it with the keys and pink slip in the glove compartment. I guess it's against the rules.
10:30 - I remember that we still have stuff in our locker at the marina. I take Casey and we unload the remaining items. There are two propellers and shafts for our hydro-generator. There's a bucket with some miscellaneous parts. I have no idea where to put them. Kathy rejects the decision to throw them away. I put them in the dinghy.
11:00 - Alarms go off around the city of Richmond. It sounds like we're being attacked. Casey and I remember that these are the same alarms used in Sky Captain - World of Tomorrow. We rush down to the boat and tell everyone that we're being attacked by robots. No one is amused.
11:30 - We start the engine. Kathy walks up from the marina bathrooms and tells us that we have to move the truck, and find a new place to donate it. We stop the engine. The cell phone rings (again). It's the car donation company. They decide that they can't live without the 1984 Chevy Suburban and will pick it up with the keys and pink slip in the glove compartment.
12:00 - We start the engine. Everyone knows their part: Tara and Casey watch TV and Kathy and I move the boat. Hmmm... We're off and away. 8.6 miles until Berkeley.
We decide that we can use this time to test some systems on the boat. I start with my pocket pc. I can display my navigation charts and position using a blue tooth connector. I plug in my blue tooth connector and punch the correct buttons to connect my pocket pc. "I can't wait to impress the family with this." I think. Nothing. Hmm... I can't get it to work. I hear a huge noise. I rush up to the top. I see pain on Kathy's face. It appears that our cockpit seat that Kathy was standing on collapsed. I grab the remains and take it downstairs. It's my project for the next few days. I can rebuild it - make it better than it was.
12:30 - We decide that we should test the water maker. As captain, I tell Kathy to test the water maker. She runs downstairs and comes back. The through-hull is closed and won't allow water into the water maker. I told her to open it. She said that the shaft to the propeller is right next to it. I go down and open the through-hull. I here lots of noises and Kathy comes up top with a glass of water. "Would you like a taste of bay water?" she asks. I drink the whole cup. It passed the first test - I didn't go blind. I tell her to go for it.
12:45 - Kathy's making water. We're making real water from the bay at the rate of 20 gallons per hour. I start doing some mental calculations and it becomes clear to me that she won't be able to fill our 90 gallons of tanks in the time it takes to go to Berkeley.
12:46 - The water maker shuts itself off. We're not sure why.
12:47 - We try again. Water is being made again.
12:55 - Water maker shuts off again. That was fun. We start discussing theories of what is going wrong. We believe that our inverter is under powered. Hmmm...
2:00 - We're following the waypoints on our GPS which is being displayed on our radar. It all looks good. We have to make our final turn into the Berkeley channel. Kathy doesn't trust my GPS waypoints. I show her on the ship's computer. The maps aren't displaying correctly. I didn't copy the maps correctly to the hard disk. I left them on a CD and the navigation program was reading them from the CD. I, unfortunately, threw the CD away that morning. I boot up my backup computer (Casey's). I start getting cables out of my computer bag. "This is what having backup systems are for." I think. "I'll have everything back to normal in a minute. This is just like Scottie on the Enterprise. I'm going to have warp drive restored in nothing flat."
Casey's computer boots; checks for internet; virus scanning... "Come on! " I say to the computer. It doesn't help as it has to start like 200 programs. Finally it comes up. I start the software, connect the cables. Nothing. The computer is not reading the GPS. Hmmm... I come upstairs with my binoculars. I look through them. I can't see any navigational marks. I see masts of sailboats though (without the binoculars). "Yeah! We're good. This is the right course." I say trying to sound reassuring. I'm putting all my trust in the GPS waypoints I set that morning. As Captain, you're never supposed to show your concerns.
3:15 - We land at the dock. Piece of cake. It's was easy. I have just 5 days to figure out the water maker, fix the cockpit chair, load the correct navigation maps, get my pocket pc to talk to my GPS, and fix Casey's computer. Then we'll try again.