Anybody Want a Used Chartplotter? Only Used 4 days.

G.K. Chesterton

Our Hero

"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; 

an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered."

We found ourselves turned around in midICW heading back to Vero, our chartplotter insisting there were no satellites in the sky.  Running through the possibilities we considered and quickly rejected that total nuclear war had caused the US government to remove all nav aids to foreign missiles.  Plotter failure ranked as the number one scenario.

A black and foul mood reigned on deck and below.  Our two day window to the Bahamas was blown.

Giving up on our Cobra chartplotter, which has now failed on us 3 times in 10 months we phoned Defender to order a replacement.  It was then we discovered that my credit card was missing.  This did not prove fatal to the ordering process as I have used the card so often on the phone the relevant numbers are on the tip of my tongue.  Frequent use has me muttering expiration dates and verification codes in my sleep.

As we crashed our way headlong into the 30 knot winds out of the north and attendant waves along the ICW it occurred to us how much less advantageous it would have been had the chartplotter failed two hours out of West Palm, headed for West End.  

The credit card we discovered with our next phone call was waiting for us at the marina office in Vero Beach, abandoned by us when we filled the diesel tanks before leaving for the now aborted crossing.  Had we got to the Bahamas sans credit card life would have been quite a bit more interesting.

On our return to our old mooring ball we were greeted by two dinghies bearing concerned friends.  Tonight we are joining a celebratory dinner with a variety of couples from other boats.

Then the weather information came to us.   No two day window.  Maybe we could have gone but we are reluctant to head off in "maybe" weather.  We are thinking now that we would have found ourselves confined to the boat, quarantined by weather for several days.

So maybe we will just mosy on down the waterway.  And enjoy ourselves.

Today I force loaded a new bios into the old chartplotter and like one of the local Christian ministers I have witnessed a miracle.  The Cobra is now officially dubed Lazarus 3.  Too little too late.  Twice disabled by software issues this is relegated to the storage locker. 

The bottom of the storage locker.