Sunday 03 Jul 2011

Sunday 03 Jul 2011
I joined Phil, Curt, and Mary at the required Safety at Sea (SAS) seminar hosted by Shoreline Yacht Club while Ed continued to work on the SSB radio. The SAS class was led by Chuck Hawley from West Marine. He’s the guy that does most of the West Advisor videos on the West Marine web site. He’s a wealth of information and had a very entertaining presentation style. The most memorable things I learned from the seminar were: 1. Use pressure rather than a tourniquet to stop heavy bleeding; 2. Most boating fatalities are from small power boats, 3. Most drowning victims were not wearing life vests, 4. A very small percentage of boating accidents and fatalities involve sailboats. The class made me feel more confident and ready to cross the Pacific.

Back on Second Chance, Ed checked and cleaned the antenna ground strap, replaced the faulty pig tail connector with crimped butt connectors, tested and got the equipment to work with a stronger signal. We replaced the wood panels, tested the SailMail service, and retrieved the weather reports as GRIdded Binary files called GRIBs. We then got the new computer to work with the new driver software that we downloaded from Phil’s hotel room the previous night. Feeling a real sense of accomplishment, we joined the crew for dinner at Outback and celebrated our success!