gregory smith

AIS for dirt dwellers

As you may know, Lisa and I are now living in Vero Beach with no boat at all. Lisa has a new hobby taking pictures of cruising boats on the ICW as they pass our condo. She posts these pics on Trawler Life so keep an eye out and you may see your boat. To make her “job” a bit easier I set up a simple AIS station that talks to an iPad running TZiBoat. Just like on Privateer, she gets an audible AIS proximity alert and then heads to the window to set up the photo shoot.

It is possible there are others like us who live on the ICW and would also enjoy keeping track of boat traffic so I am posting the set-up I am using. Yes, we are on land but the gear would work equally well as an emergency back-up on a boat for an all up cost of about $210.

The heart of the system id the AIS receiver from Quark Electronics.

My setup has the black box plugged into a USP power supply and a handmade VHF antenna connected via a short BNC cable (Amazon $8). The VHF dipole is just two pieces of inner core from a piece of coax about 16.7 ” each which works well at 162 MHz. The two dipoles join at a connector (Amazon $6 for 2).

The antenna itself is taped to the plastic molding between two panes of glass on the inside of the exterior wall facing the ICW and gets at least partial coverage of the waterway. Our windows are impact rated and UV tinted so are not good conductors. With this set-up, our range is between 2-3 miles. It would be better if I could lead the antenna outdoors, but no easy way to do that.

Here is a screen shot from the iPad connected to the AIS via wifi, with the AIS in station mode on our home LAN. The big RED boat (i wish) is us. The GREEN boat is anchored, the RED boat (Island Fever II) is tripping the AIS proximity alarm and the ORANGE boat info is being received from the TIMEZERO cloud data server over the internet. Note that RED and GREEN signals are near real time but the ORANGE boat signal came from our AIS receiver as a node in the crowd that fed the server. Since the ORANGE boat is now out of our range the signal will time degrade and soon disappear.

At installation one has the choice of setting the AIS receiver in either ad hoc mode ( wired or wireless link direct to your device) or in station mode ( as a node on your local LAN). In station mode, when using capable nav software such as TZiBoat the system acts like a virtual AIS ground station feeding the TIMEZERO cloud server. Other systems, such as Predict Wing and AquaMap perform this integration in a similar fashion.

Not quite the same as being aboard, but then when I now hear the AIS proximity alarm I don’t need to run to the bridge to take evasive action!

End of an era, and a new Privateer, a Back Cove 372 (and it is already sold).

We sold our beloved Krogen this summer (2024). Painful to see her go. The decision to sell her was wrapped up in a bigger decision to ease out of the live aboard lifestyle, albeit in baby steps. More on that later.

As our faithful readers know, we have been full time cruising on the Krogen for the last eight years, following the seasons North to South. and back. Our time in the Bahamas has been wonderful and even if the trips up and down have been at times tedious, and at other times overly exciting, we have enjoyed every minute.

So why get out, you may ask? As I look out the picture window in our apartment in Newport, RI and see the cold wind kicking up the water in the now empty harbor, I ask myself the same question. Two issues drove the decision, first off, I am not getting any younger and at 76, I can tell I am not as sharp as I used to be. A little slower to respond during complex maneuvers, getting behind the power curve, as they say. In my military flying years ago and then later in my boat driving days, I looked forward to challenging maneuvers. When in the past a tricky parking procedure, wind and current and tight quarters for example, would excite me, of late it just built the anxiety. Better to go out on a high note.

The second reason we decided to ease out of this lifestyle was, frankly, it was expensive. For us the boat represented a major portion of our life savings. Every year it was worth a little less and so every year our net worth dropped along with it. That worked OK for the last eight years but wasn’t sustainable forever. And keeping her in perfect condition, which it seemed I owed her, wasn’t cheap either. An understatement.

But we weren’t ready to give up the life style completely. We have now entered our next cruising phase, which will be as part time cruisers aboard a different boat and part time land lubbers (hence the cold and wintry scene as I write this).

Our current plan is to cruise New England waters in the summer then park the boat and live on land somewhere warm in the winter. That all sounds a little loose because it is. Just now I am waiting on a slot for cataract surgery in Boston in January, which is why we are here in Newport for the winter. We had originally thought we might just make Newport our permanent home, but it was 27 degrees the other morning. Enough said about that experiment.

With all that preamble, lets get to the fun part, the new Privateer. She is a Back Cove 372. This boat would best be described as “Down East style” and is sort of a poor man’s Sabre. Back Cove Yachts is the sister company to Sabre and the Back Coves are the simpler and more basic of the two. A goal in choosing the next boat, and the Back Cove in particular, was to simplify my life as captain and chief mechanic. While Sabres are twins with IPS drives, Back Coves are singles with direct shaft drive. A picture:

Privateer at Bristol Marine for haul out. Fall 2024

We bought her in September, 2024, and managed to get a few local cruises in before the cold weather forced us to get her hauled. First impressions are encouraging and its fun to go 15 knots and get there in half the time. That said, the ride is not nearly as relaxing as in the Krogen.

So after going through all that trouble and expense, why sell the new Privateer? That’s a longer story, but the quick answer is, it was time to move to Florida full time. More on that soon.

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Snorkeling Rangers Garden at Warderick Wells, Exumas, Bahamas

A wonderful snorkel opportunity awaits you when visiting Warderick Wells, moored either at the north field or Emerald Rock. The Google image below shows the small cut at the southwest end of the north mooring field (aka HQ or the horse shoe). The red star in the image is the turning mark for folks rounding the sand bar heading to moorings 16-22. The two yellow circles are dingy moorings. The southernmost mooring gets you closer to the coral.

Just west of the moorings are a a couple of coral mounds (green arrow) that are full of fish, turtles and an occasional sleeping nurse shark. Swim from there to the deeper coral and the other green arrow just outside the cut and south of the “No Wake” buoy (pink star).

Rangers Garden at Warderick Wells

This is an area of moderate current so the deep coral in the cut makes for a great drift dive. Alternatively, time your dive for slack. As a general rule, slack in this cut is about 45 minutes before, and up to 15 minutes after, Nassau high and low tide. Winds and the height of the previous tide will determine actual slack, which lasts 20-30 minutes. The easiest way to determine slack is to just watch the boats on the moorings in the north field. As the ebb approaches low tide slack, the boats at ball #16 and 17 will begin to swing off the current and into the wind. Slack will be 20-30 minutes after this. On the flood, the same thing will happen to the boats on balls #4-6 as they begin to lose the effect of the current and bend to the wind. Flood is milder than the ebb.

If you have weak swimmers aboard, try anchoring your dinghy on the sand bar to the west of the shallow coral and swim over. There will be only mild current at this coral and it is easy to get out of the current by swimming back to the sand bar. The flood current at the dinghy moorings is usually weak to moderate, but the ebb can be stronger than average swimmers can handle and the current in the cut itself even stronger.

Eagle Ray school

The high point of your dive will be swimming with the spotted eagle rays. We have seen as many as ten rays in a school. They hang around the deep coral and often swim through the mooring field. They are so accustomed to snorkelers that they will pass under you and allow you to get within a few feet before they accelerate ever so slightly in order to keep their distance. Just stay in place and they will often circle underneath you. Bring your camera.

Plenty of nurse sharks in the area. Often resting on the bottom. They usually make the rounds of the moored boats looking for handouts. (Bad idea).

There are also a few resident reef sharks that will keep an eye on you while you are snorkeling in the area. They keep their distance so unless you are looking out a ways you may never see them.

Turtles are also well accustomed to divers so they tend to let you get closer than in other settings. Expect to see many schools of fish in the area. Jacks, snapper, wrasses and more.

Yellow Tail snapper

Somehow the grouper and the lobster, usually shy, know they are protected in the park.

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