Small Town Ketchikan, AK

(July 8th, 2017)

Thursday morning, after breakfast and coffee, I got to work on the satellite issue.   My initial hunch was a cabling issue between the below-decks router and the above-decks antenna housing (mounted on the pole).  I thought maybe I’d drop the pole down into the dinghy, remove the satellite dome, and make sure the connector was secured at the top, then work my way back.   This task proved more difficult than I hoped, primarily because all the joints on the pole were well sealed, so simply removing the screws did not easily release the components from each other.  I changed plans and went after the below decks cabling instead.

During install, and to make future removals of the pole and/or satellite dome easier, we had a waterproof Ethernet coupler installed inside the boat near the pole.  It’s a Garmin product which seemed perfect for this use-case.  My thought was that this coupler, or the Ethernet cable connectors at the coupler, could be bad in some way or another.

I dropped down deep in the aft locker with my phone camera and light and took pictures of the wiring at the connectors, then brought the coupler itself up to test it–drawing out the wiring by colors on paper and how they connect through the coupler, a process that ended up revealing the cause of the problem.   The two ends that connect to the coupler matched their pin wiring directly, but the Garmin coupler flips the pinout across the coupler, connecting Pin 1 to Pin 1, 2

to 2, etc.  This is fine, except that the Ethernet plugs on the end of the two cables were wired flipped from each other, with the assumption that the coupler did NOT flip the pinout.  I built a make-shift coupler from some old computer parts I had on the boat (for some unknown reason) to test my theory, then cut the cable and flipped the wires back using 3M Scotchlok connectors.   Viola!   Satellite online!!

Yesterday in Ketchikan it was 78 degrees F — Today about 75F

Later I mounted (but did not wire) the cockpit LED strips under the cockpit table.  Devon and the girls went for showers and the girls later spent a few hours FaceTiming their cousins and grandparents since we had WiFi at the marina.

In the evening the fleet met up at Float 9 near s/v Foxy for a happy hour and going away (for a few crew).  We had tons of great food, wine, and the girls had lots of fun with Matt from m/v Lioness who taught them how to tie bowlines.

I also managed to install PlexMedia server on the Raspberry Pi and copied our movie collection over.  The boat tv has a Plex app on it so I figured this would be a fairly easy way to play the collection of movies on the TV whenever we wanted.  We also have Plex apps on our iPads/iPhones.    I stayed up later than the others to watch a movie on NetFlix and drink some wine.   All in all, a productive Thursday.

Friday was a sort of lazy day — Devon worked for a few hours and I did research on the Internet and tested the satellite phone, internet, and weather forecasting systems.   The girls FaceTimed theircousins a bunch more as well.   Later we walked to Safeway again for the free shuttle and headed downtown for the fleet dinner at Dwyers Crab House.  It was great getting everyone together and of course the girls had fun sitting near Jim and Matt.  They have been having the greatest time hanging out with some of the adults in the group.  After dinner, we took a cab back to the marina and did our usual bedtime routine followed by a bit of wine.   It was still about 70F

A side note about the shuttle driver.   She’s a local, obviously, and as a shuttle/bus driver she sees other locals regularly.  I was amazed at how much she knew about all the people at each stop, letting various people know (without them even asking) how soon their particular bus was going to be there to get to wherever they seemed to want to go, again without them telling her.   Anyway, she was almost mom-like to several of the riders she encountered.  Pretty cool and it’s clear from our time in Ketchikan that it’s a pretty small town where most people know each other.  According to our on-board Wikipedia server, Ketchikan is about the same size and population as Woodinville, WA near our house.

Saturday was the big boat chores day.  We started the day by loading our garbage and dirty laundry into our folding dock cart, dropping the garbage (including the remaining parts of our old windlass,) and walking to the laundromat.

The laundromat near Bar Harbor marina is cool, it has big industrial sized washers and dryers as well as a dry cleaner in the back.  Lots of locals as well as visiting boaters were there waiting for their loads to finish up.   We loaded up two washers and then towed our cart the rest of the way to Safeway for some groceries.  We got breakfast at the Starbucks inside Safeway, I broke a mug on the shelf, and then it was time to check the laundry so I left the girls and headed back to the laundromat to put the clothes in the dryer.   While the girls continued grocery shopping, I stopped by Tongass Trading/Marine store which is fantastic.  They have a bit of everything; guns, ammo, fishing, hardware, etc.  It’s an Ace Hardware, a sporting goods, and a more traditional marine store.  I got our Alaska fishing licenses, a few fishing goodies, and some electrical connectors to finish up the cockpit LEDs.

Back at Safeway I grabbed some wine and spirits from the liquor store, helped the others pack the cart with the groceries they’d purchased and we walked back.   Devon and Ellie went on to the boat while Morgan and I stopped by the laundromat one last time to gather our dried clothes, then headed back to the boat ourselves.

Morgan and I folded clothes and cleaned up the boat, while Devon and Ellie went back out, visiting the yarn store downtown, the shipping company near the Safeway (to send some packages), and the Taco Time!  Unfortunately, it was the “not-so-Taco-Time” since they didn’t have Crustos.   Kids Meals without Crustos just won’t fly, so they defaulted back to McDonald’s for early dinner and brought that back.

Ruby Slippers motored over to the airport to drop pick up some new crew flying in, which included our Sail Alaska fleeces and our new Raymarine P70s Autopilot Control that Trevor at Marine Servicenter had ordered for us back in Anacortes.   Later in the evening Devon filled the water tanks from the dock (in heavy rain) and the girls camped out on the dinette bed while we watched an episode of the Original Star Trek on Netflix.

Next stop, Aiken Cove on Prince of Wales Island.