Another beautiful day forecasted. I finished up the rest of the laundry while Scott waited for the part to arrive. Finally it came, so the guys dove into that project while Cindy and I took off in search of the liquor store. I’m glad I brought my strong backpack because a 6-pack of cider ale and a bottle of rum can get pretty heavy after 8 or 9 blocks of walking! When we returned, we made the guys some yummy Pina Colada drinks with the Williams-Sonoma mixer I had bought before we left on the trip. It’s good stuff, and I recommend it if you don’t have any of the ingredients to make it from scratch. We learned later on when we ran out of the stuff and made Pina Coladas from scratch, that you need to really stir the can of coconut cream really well (don’t just shake it) to get all of the yummy coconut cream out that stays at the bottom of the can. But those drinks from scratch were just as delicious.
We had a yummy salmon dinner with the same salsa recipe that we got from Carter, which turned out really good. The guys stayed up pretty late readying the boat for an early morning departure.
We had a yummy salmon dinner with the same salsa recipe that we got from Carter, which turned out really good. The guys stayed up pretty late readying the boat for an early morning departure.
-Admiral Marian
So after browsing the shops, we returned to the boat with the groceries all put away, and the guys resting in the afternoon sun. So nice……. 
That evening we decided not to go out to dinner, but to enjoy some of the food we just purchased. Then Cindy and I took our laundry up to the Laundromat and got a couple of loads in….the rest will have to wait til the morning……while we waited for the laundry, Jackie and Carter came over to our boat for a visit. Our original plans had been changed to spend another night in Vancouver, while we waited for a new part for Scott’s Nauticomp display to arrive the next morning. 
One thing of note was a call I made to a fishing fleet off the Tsawwassen Ferry terminal. I saw a number of floats in the water and was concerned that they may have been nets rather than crab pots. I made several calls to any boat in the fishing fleet and none answered. After the 3rd call the Victoria Coast Guard radioed to say they were crab floats, that they couldn’t have been nets. Hats off to the Coast Guard for taking the time to call me when the fishermen wouldn’t! Seeing the Lions Gate Bridge as we came in the harbor is stunning. 
Approaching Vancouver is stunning. Floatplanes are landing, cruise ships are departing, boats of every type mill about the harbor. Top it all of with a world class skyline and you understand why Coal Harbour marina is one of our favorite places to stay. 
Tom took the helm and gracefully landed us at the Customs dock. I called customs, told them about our supply of wine and lack of meat and produce products and we were the way in no time. Just a few minutes later we were tied up in a beautiful waterfront slip in Coal Harbour. 
Right across from Alanui was Senjero, a 57’ Nordhavn owned by Neil and Elaine Williamson, who we had met a few months earlier. We will be joining them on the FUBAR rally from San Diego to La Paz in November. I didn’t see Neil or Elaine, but I expect them to pass us on the way down the coast. 
Knowing we were going to be in Vancouver for a day or two, I took the opportunity to open up the helm console and attempt to connect the Nauticomp display, the FLIR camera and get the PC going. The first item we went after was the all important Nauticomp display. For those of you who aren’t boat savvy, this is essentially a $6,000 19” LCD display. Now you may be asking, how the heck can a 19” display cost $6,000, because it’s for a BOAT. You know what BOAT stands for? Break Out Another Thousand. Seriously the reason it’s $6,000 is because it has inputs for 10 devices. Two HDMI, two VGA, two S-Video, three Composite Video, and a Component Video. It also has a hardened case with an extremely small bezel. The fit to install the display requires 1/32nd of an inch accuracy in cutting the opening. It also has a lot of software features to scale the video and dim to red. All in all it’s a $3,000 piece of technology selling for $6,000 because it’s on a boat. Anyway, back to the story. We went to complete the installation of the display and discovered that the power supply was for a 24volt input, rather than the 12 volts that my house bank provides. A quick call to Nauticomp had the parts on the way next day air, for a modest fee. I’ll need to talk to my buddy Brian at Emerald Harbor Marine to see how we ended up with a 24v power supply on a 12v boat? Here is a picture of Tom and I in the middle of this electronics effort. 
Completing this phase of the installation was providing power to the 2nd ICOM VHF radio. A backup radio is essential for cruising and affords great flexibility in maintaining the ability to monitor CH16 and listen to weather or talk to fellow cruisers. 
As we headed north we noticed that there was a 180 degree error in our Radar alignment with the chart. Tom wanted to use the software to fix the problem but I was convinced it was a more fundamental issue than a simple alignment issue. A call to Furuno revealed the problem. I had upgraded the Navnet 1 chartplotter to a Navnet 2 unit. When I did this there was an installation wizard that should have been run, but I neglected to do it because I was told I could simply pull the old unit out and replace it with the new one. The result was the Antenna type was misconfigured. Setting the correct antenna type resolved the issue and the images align perfectly. Another of the innumerable configuration items that must be tracked and stored someplace so if you have a problem in the future, you have the notes to address them. 
While Marian and Cindy kept things working on the care and feeding front, Tom Brownlee and I dove into some of the various projects we needed to complete during this "Shake Down" portion of our trip. In any voyage there are things that NEED to get done, things that Need to get done and things that need to get done. On my list of things that NEEDED to get done were:
In Point Hudson we tackled the job of installing the loud hailer. For those of you that don't know a Loud Hailer is a trumpet like fixture that can both broadcast and listen to sounds. It's used so the skipper can listen to sounds (fog horns) or broadcast his own words, like "Pirate if you come near this boat I'll, well I'm not sure what I'll do but you won't like it", it can also broadcast your own fog horn a requirement from ages past. This project included drilling and taping screw holes in the radar mounting tower, something I haven't done in years and years. With Tom's help we drilled and taped the appropriate holes, mounted and wired the Loud Hailer and got it up and running in a matter of a few hours. We tested it by broadcasting a nice greeting to those walking by and by listening to conversations of people on the dock a few yards away. Scratch that project off the list!
