Ordered my MMSI number yesterday, by email. Amazing how the Canadian government has moved in to the 21st century. Lets see how long it takes to process the application. Sent the application Monday at noon and I did receive a reply by 2 pm saying I will receive my number by email when the app is processed. Hope I have it by the weekend :)

So Saturday morning they began to raise the anchor. It was so slow ..like watching the minute hand of a clock, but it finally broke the surface.The ship was originally powered by steam and still had the same motors for the anchor windless, so the crew was using compressed air to power the windless.  Attached are a couple of additional pictures from Saturday morning as they prepared to leave for Port.

The SS Keewatin is a passenger liner that once sailed between Port Arthur / Fort William and Port McNicoll in Ontario, Canada. She carried passengers between these ports for the Canadian Pacific Railway's Great Lakes Steamship Service. The Keewatin also carried packaged freight goods for the railway at these ports.^[1]

Built by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Scotland as Hull No. 453, the Keewatin was launched 6 July 1907 and entered service in the following year. She ran continuously for almost 60 seasons, being retired in 1966.

Just a couple of pics of the keewadin at anchor at Giants Tomb Isl. Oh and the tug that towed her all this way... The gull would'nt go away until I took it's picture. They are well trained, show up as soon as the BBQ is started :)

OK so finally settled on the radio model that I am happy with. I returned the first one  Standard Horizon 1600 and upgraded to a 1700...built in GPS. Its cool plugged it in and the GPS locked on the satellites and OMG I have Lat and Long on my Radio ...so DSC will work. Now all I have to do is apply for a MMSI number and I will be a happy boater......Check out my new radio shack.. well the start of it. 2 Meter radio to be added later this year when I get my Ham license.. brought to you from the mouth of the Mushquash River.

"Tech is Good"

I did take all the comments to heart and replaced my VHF radio on the weekend. Tim and Thunder Bay radio reported an excellent signal and good audio deviation. Now the install of the radio was easy, the wiring for the older Standard Horizon radio worked with the new on just fine. I did have to rewire the Remote Mic, that required some fishing and taking most of the back end of the boat apart to run the cable. Oh and the supplied cable was too short so I had to by the extension available from Standard Horizon for the cost of $50. I lucked out and found one at Bay Port in Midland so that completed the radio install.

The frustration started when I tried to get the GPS and the radio to talk, this allows the radio to automatically  report location data when the emergency DSC button is pushed. So I hooked everything up according to the supplied manuals and nothing happened. WONDERFUL....... but I kinda expected it.

So three days of testing and various configuration changes and it still isn't working. There is suppose to be a little satellite icon in the top right corner of the radio display and even that is not there...hummm wonder if it's a problem with the brand new radio????????????????????  just another possible cause in the list.

I am now in the middle of a conversation with Garmin about NMEA protocols. the Question is....are their NMEA sentences  propitiatory or they do actually meet NMEA specs. One manual (the radio) says the the sentences should be "RNC" and that is their preferred one. Garmin sentences are named "GPRNC" ,  I am not sure what to think, but I have asked that question to Garmin....lets see what the come back with.

Oh and I figured while I was spending the money and the time at the dock I installed Satellite radio....Not much of an install used Velcro and plugged it in to the power point on the DC distribution panel.
Photos to be uploaded when I get them

Well had a few more complaints about the VHF radio on the boat. The complaints are about the Deviation level  (modulation on FM transmission) when I am at the remote mic in the cockpit. So a little experiment and found that the mic at the radio works OK but the one at the helm audio is very low. Standard Horizon does not carry a replacement for it. so I will be picking up my new radio and RAM Mic this week and will have yet another project this weekend.

standard horizon

A little wing on wing sailing in really light air today check out the video