She made it!

Susan made it to Texas! Tuesday of this week she drove from Atlanta to the marina in just over 12 hours. She didn't make it all the way to the boat before a party broke out on the pier. Who needs dinner when there are good friends, good drinks and good munchies? For the first couple of days the boat has looked like a bomb went off as Susan is trying to find a place for all the stuff. As I suspected (and she commented on in the last post) she's trying to sink us. There is an ever growing pile of stuff that isn't staying. Thank goodness. :-)

Sails and more sails. We noticed that the jib (sail in front of the mast) was looking a bit worn. Actually not the sail but the sacrificial canvas that is sewn around the edges to protect the sail from sun's UV rays when it is rolled up. Our neighbor Ted from Another Life came over and helped me take the sail down this past weekend so I could take it to a sail maker to get it repaired, which I did on Monday morning. There was also a spot on the mainsail that didn't look right that I wanted a professional to look at. As luck would have it the sail maker was going to be at our marina on Tuesday and he said he'd stop by and look at it. A quick look and he showed me the sail had a small tear in it. A small tear but one that was in a section of the sail that had been damaged by exposure to the sun. So now we have a new mainsail on order. Five weeks! We hoped to be out of here before then. But looking at the bright side, when we leave our sails will be in good shape and we won't have to worry about them.

AIS MMSI M-O-U-S-E! Not Mickey Mouse at all, really. Automatic Identification System (AIS) is kind of like the beacon planes use so they can be identified. AIS is voluntary for us but an important safety tool. It transmits over VHF information like our position, the vessel's name, heading and speed. AIS on commercial ships broadcast even more information. With AIS we'll see on our chart plotter all boats and ships within several miles that are transmitting AIS. And they will see us. On a clear day, no big deal. At night or when it's foggy it is nice to see and be seen. Because the vessel's name is displayed it allows for another to call you on the radio by name rather than to say, "hey, you, on that sailboat over there. What are your intentions when you reach the end of the channel?"

To make AIS work, you need a Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) number. You can get a free MMSI for a recreational vessel of less than 65 feet as long as you don't intend to sail outside the US. Since our intention is to sail outside the US I had to get a radio license from the FCC and an MMSI as part of that license. This is not free and I thought it might take quite some time to acquire said license. Thanks to Ted again he pointed me at how to apply online. I submitted the application, along with a $215 payment on Sunday night. Tuesday morning I had my license and MMSI number in an email. Not bad!

So our AIS transceiver is on order and on its way. Now I just have to figure out how to get it installed properly. If you'd like, just for fun, you can go to www.marinetraffic.com and drill down any place in the world (near land) and see who has AIS, what kind of boat they are and where they are.

Sorry to those of you that want more pictures than words. I'll try to get some pictures soon.