Wednesday May 21, 2025
With a full day at dock we took advantage of the time to get some basics on the boat done as well as share with you a “tech” fix we found.
We start with the laundry. I’ll fess up to the fact that I am obsessed with getting laundry done, especially when there is a good laundromat nearby, which is the case here in Port McNeill. No more than a five minute walk up the ramp and a couple of blocks over there is a large, clean, fully functioning laundromat. Three dollars to wash and 1 dollar for every 15 minutes to dry. We got there at 8:00 am and we had the entire place to ourselves.
After this we completed what we fondly call “booze and veg up.” There will not be another opportunity to get fresh product or a selection of alcohol until we reach ShearWater and there it will be limited. Everything is available in Ketchikan but if you stay at the marina in town it is a long hike to both the grocery store and the liquor store. Best to do it here in Port McNeill.
Next item up is a somewhat long tale—and discovery—about GPS. We have full navigation capability on our RayMarine and use Navonics as our navigation app. However, we like to plot the course on our iPad and then adjust accordingly with our wireless auto pilot. This gives us both redundancy and a discipline of never “setting and forgetting” our course. We started using Navionics on an earlier version iPad that didn’t have GPS built in. The year was 2016 and it was our first Nordic Tug. The picture above is a stand alone Bluetooth GPS device called a “Bad Elf”. It worked great for years, even though my new iPad had an internal GPS, we preferred using Marlene’s older iPad as it fit perfectly in the helm and if something happened to it, well it was old. However, all good things come to an end and this died. I tried everything to revive it to no avail. It’s dead. But no worries, I purchased a new cellular enabled IPad Pro two years ago that has built in Assisted GPS. We started using this as our backup—and now our main—navigation tool. Unfortunately, almost from the beginning, every so often the app and the GPS would lose its connection and we would lose our GPS location on the iPad, which we don’t like to have happen. This usually occurred when we would enter denser urban areas, like city marinas. Secondly, because we are charging on our DC batteries while underway, the iPad was running on empty in about 4 hours. Many of our cruise last 10. What to do?
Marlene figured out the battery problem. We needed to go into settings and put the iPad on “Low Power Mode,” then going into the Navionics app and take it out of the default “Hi-Def” mode. Doing these two things completely changed our battery life. We can now go more than 8 hours and still be at 75% battery life.
As to the GPS issue I did some searching and thinking about the issue and realized that we had several problems. First up, in cellular mode built in GPS on the iPad uses “Assisted GPS,” which means that in addition to just taking GPS readings it looks for assistance to get an even finer GPS fix, which is great if you have good cellular coverage but a real issue when it gets spotty, or as many places in Alaska, non existent. I realized that what I needed to do was turn off WiFi and put the iPad in airplane mode. The GPS still works fine in this mode but it is no longer dependent on either Assistance or WiFI. Since we made this change we have not encountered any issues. Finally, as a back up we will purchase a new stand alone blue tooth enabled GPS device that Marlene can use on her iPad. Then, one final note, most RayMarine/Navonic users would say, “just plot the course on your chart plotter. It’s easy, fast, and failsafe.” All this is true but, for us, it still isn’t as user friendly, and most importantly, we do NOT want to set the course on our Chart Plotter as we like having entire screen to monitor other boats on AIS. We prefer to control our boat manually with our wireless Auto Pilot, as it reacts very quickly in case we encounter a log, and keeps one of us in charge of the helm. Just personal preference, but it works for us.
Enough tech talk. Back to cruising. We are planning on leaving Port McNeill tomorrow at sunrise which is 5:30 a.m. The winds are expected to be light in the morning, building in the afternoon. We anticipate 2 feet waves at 9 to 10 second intervals, which Buoy Weather translates into “ Light and variable winds with smooth seas. Very short period waves”. Our cruise to Allison Harbor will take approximately 4 hours, putting us into Allison Harbor around 10:00 a.m. at the latest. We may encounter some light rain and fog requiring us to run with Radar (which is a good idea anyway). Several other boats came into the harbor this afternoon arriving from Blind Channel. We anticipate company our our journey. Besides misery or blessings loves company, right? Stay tuned.
I am enjoying reading about your adventures! May the wind and waves be with you.