Technical Difficulties
Anyone following the website with a degree of regularity will have just about given up that it would ever be updated again. Despite having nearly full redundancy in our communication systems, Murphy's Law struck and took out both our computers...leaving us without email or electronic navigation since the end of July. Fortunately, we carry paper charts for old-fashioned navigation and we kept a weekly schedule with Vancouver via the ham radio, so we could let our families know we were still floating.
How did this misfortune come about? How could TWO computers give up on us? Well, the first incident was avoidable. We had left our removable companionway hatch unsecured in the cockpit on the crossing from Fatu Hiva to Ua Huka in the Marquesas. The weather was rough and a spiteful wave knocked the door into the air and it tumbled into the cabin, landing end first on the laptop, directly above the hard disk. That wasn't the only casualty of the crossing...both of us ended up coincidentally tossing our dinners on the exact same part of the deck (despite our attempts to miss the boat) on our respective watches (luckily, seasickness is a rare event for us, but these seas got us both!). The computer was hit hard enough to leave a mark in the plastic casing, so we were't that surprised when it gave up the ghost with the blue screen of death after three valiant reboots (yes, like some sappy hollywood death scene, it actually took a few last over-acted breaths before completely croaking).
The much newer and shinier "backup" laptop pulled a "Titanic"...lasting only a few days of her maiden voyage before hitting some unseen iceberg, flooding, then sinking rapidly into the black abyss (or in this case the blue screen of abyss), taking some not-yet-backed-up photos unwillingly to their graves. The most difficult aspect of this electronic void was missing tidal information for our neck of the woods. We had a hard copy Pacific tide guide, but it offered tides for only two locations in the Tuamotus, whose narrow entrances require diligent timing to avoid the normal swift tidal streams. Fortunately, we had figured out rough correlations between some of the locations in our tidal software and those in our book. Combined with lots of eyeballing at each of the passes, our tidal guestimates were enough to get us safely in and out of passes at four atolls: Raroia, Kauehi, Raraka, and Fakarava (we'll update you about those adventures in subsequent blogs).
Nearly all of our computer files (except about a week's worth of emails and photos) were backed up on our external hard disk, so rebuilding the computers should have been theoretically simple...load the emergency CD and let the software do the rest. AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Day after painful day, Gary worked on recovering data from our dead hard drives and rebuilding two new ones in stinky Papeete, Tahiti. We began to wonder if going computerless was a better option...We found that being out of touch completely in the Tuamotus made for a more exotic experience. But alas, over the long run its way nicer to communicate with family and friends.
How did this misfortune come about? How could TWO computers give up on us? Well, the first incident was avoidable. We had left our removable companionway hatch unsecured in the cockpit on the crossing from Fatu Hiva to Ua Huka in the Marquesas. The weather was rough and a spiteful wave knocked the door into the air and it tumbled into the cabin, landing end first on the laptop, directly above the hard disk. That wasn't the only casualty of the crossing...both of us ended up coincidentally tossing our dinners on the exact same part of the deck (despite our attempts to miss the boat) on our respective watches (luckily, seasickness is a rare event for us, but these seas got us both!). The computer was hit hard enough to leave a mark in the plastic casing, so we were't that surprised when it gave up the ghost with the blue screen of death after three valiant reboots (yes, like some sappy hollywood death scene, it actually took a few last over-acted breaths before completely croaking).
The much newer and shinier "backup" laptop pulled a "Titanic"...lasting only a few days of her maiden voyage before hitting some unseen iceberg, flooding, then sinking rapidly into the black abyss (or in this case the blue screen of abyss), taking some not-yet-backed-up photos unwillingly to their graves. The most difficult aspect of this electronic void was missing tidal information for our neck of the woods. We had a hard copy Pacific tide guide, but it offered tides for only two locations in the Tuamotus, whose narrow entrances require diligent timing to avoid the normal swift tidal streams. Fortunately, we had figured out rough correlations between some of the locations in our tidal software and those in our book. Combined with lots of eyeballing at each of the passes, our tidal guestimates were enough to get us safely in and out of passes at four atolls: Raroia, Kauehi, Raraka, and Fakarava (we'll update you about those adventures in subsequent blogs).
Nearly all of our computer files (except about a week's worth of emails and photos) were backed up on our external hard disk, so rebuilding the computers should have been theoretically simple...load the emergency CD and let the software do the rest. AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Day after painful day, Gary worked on recovering data from our dead hard drives and rebuilding two new ones in stinky Papeete, Tahiti. We began to wonder if going computerless was a better option...We found that being out of touch completely in the Tuamotus made for a more exotic experience. But alas, over the long run its way nicer to communicate with family and friends.
posted by G.Mann at 4:46 PM
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