Cape May Welcome monuments grace both sides of the bridge where the harbor narrows
Cape May Beach House
A New House in the Old Style
Still in Cape May you ask? Yes, challenging weather kept us here till Wednesday. We were all set to leave, but when I turned on the engine and the instruments, not one of the electronic instruments was functioning: no GPS to run the electronic chart, no depth, no wind direction/speed, no speed over ground, therefore no departure. The authorized Raymarine sales/service dealers were all too busy to see us until next week. Randy walked over to West Marine to buy a volt meter so we could diagnose the problem and a fellow there gave him a card for Scott, a marine electrician at Electronic Marine Concepts. Before we could do the diagnostic checks, Scott came over, diagnosed the problem as a GPS antenna that had shorted out and was depriving the other instruments of their required power. They ordered the antenna and Scott installed it today. Scott is a sailor and was familiar with Peter McNeely, our host, for whom he had installed electronics on McNeelys’ sail boat.
We are grateful that the antenna broke at the dock in a pretty, boat-friendly city and not out on the ocean. We are also grateful that Scott was familiar with Raymarine systems, was available so quickly and was so nice to work with. Unfortunately we lost over favorable weather window and will wait till Saturday to try again. Unfortunately, these delays ate up all our remaining buffer days before our return trip to Florida, so we chose to push out our return trip to July 4, eat the airline penalties, and rebook hotel and rental cars in Maine and Florida. You gotta be nimble.