Our SSB Radio Works
08 October 2014 | Southwestern YC - San Diego
Pat
We arrived in San Diego on Sunday October 5. We anchored in Mariner Basin, just outside Mission Bay. This spot has some nostalgia for us for two reasons. First, Melodie and I used to rent 14 foot sail boats back when we lived here in the 1980's. Second, I anchored here on s/v New Moon when I did my first Baja Ha-Ha back in 2006. That trip was a charter with Club Nautique. The anchorage was nice, but we took a few hits from some very large birds.
We pulled into San Diego and the Southwestern Yacht Club on Monday October 6. Our plan to take our time going down the coast worked well. We came up with two lists, one a "to do" list and the other a shopping list. The club made a mistake on the scheduling of our slip. I had emailed them back in January to reserve a spot. I called them in July to confirm the dates. They somehow got us leaving on October 23, 4 days early. I thought I had resolved the snafu at that time. That is until we arrived at the guest dock and saw a poster with 10/6-10/23 marked on it. They were no able to extend our time at the guest slip, but there is a trimaran on an end tie that we can raft up to. They comp'd us a day's rent for the inconvenience.
Finally some good news on the SSB radio. A guy named Shea Weston runs a shop here on Shelter Island. You may recall I had ICom America ship our radio to him so he could re-install it. Latitude 38 mentioned him by name this month, calling him "a guru" in the HF radio world. He was excellent. He got the radio up and running, tweaked our software program so the computer could control the radio for email and weather. Then he connected our Iridium phone so we can use that if needed. Using the Iridium for data is plan "b" because it's air time is so expensive. Then he sorted out a problem with our Bullet2HP wifi booster. Now we can get wifi inside the boat when it was requiring us to go inside the club house for a connection. That and his hourly rate was 20% cheaper than the guy who couldn't find the blown fuse.
Now we have to get cracking on the other items on the list. Only 18 more days until we enter Mexico!