D@#n Nobeltec !!

Nobeltec navigational software:  I have been a faithful purchaser, regular updater, and user of this program since it first came out.  Oh, the money I've spent on almost every bell and whistle they have offered.  Then a few years ago the honeymoon ended.  I noticed when I went from twilight to evening mode, the red color they used wasn't very good.  It was too bright and not very scalable, so you couldn't really see outside effectively. It simply doesn't allow you to see anything outside the bridge windows unless you turn down the brightness of the monitor.  Then you can't view the nav program.  A true no win scenario.  Somewhere along this time-line Nobeltec came out with a new chart group called Vector charts.  Infinitely scalable with no pixilation.  There was one drawback I discovered after the fact.  You could not turn on the night view mode of the nav program, because it didn't support vector charts.  Vector charts only worked in day and twilight modes!  I travel around the clock and I travel from Washington State to the Bering Sea. So spending all this money for charts that are only good half the time was a real ripoff.  Last year Nobeltec came out with version 10 and everyone told us not to buy it as it was real "buggy".  Then I find out Nobeltec had been sold to The biggest Navigational software company in Europe, "MaxSea".  Rumors were rampant that Nobeltec wouldn't be around much longer.  I figured, this explains all the crumby updates and I'm wondering, what is going to happen? I call the new owners to get an answer.  Is the company going to close down and am I going to lose the thousands of dollars I've spent?  The new owners would not give me a satisfactory answer. They claimed, they didn't know what was going to happen.  Are you kidding me?  Time to start shopping for a new brand of nav software. Oh pooh!  There are many brands to choose from.  I have finally whittled it down to 2 of them.  Olex and ECC Globe.  Both of them start at about 5 or 6 thousand dollars for their "basic package" and top out at around 15 to 20 thousand for all the bells and whistles.  Whew, this just keeps getting better and better.  Now what do I do?  More to follow!

Better late than Never ?

The summer is over and I haven't done much of anything this year. Oh, I went cod jigging for a little while and enjoyed it, however, I wasn't able to really work. It is amazing what a simple act, like a tree falling over can do to your life. I guess I have to tell the whole story, so that it makes sense.  I was driving home one evening during a local windstorm, which we have all the time, when a big old dead tree fell on the truck I was driving. I went from about 35 mph to 0 mph, was thrown clear up completely off the road and dumped in a ditch.  I woke up laying on a stretcher with a young paramedic telling me I was the luckiest guy on the face of the earth. A trip to the emergency room, cat scans, MRI's,and a bunch of X rays.  They said they couldn't see any thing, so I was sent home to recover. Little by little, my back started to feel different.  I'd go numb in the left foot, then it would feel like someone had stuck a needle all the way down the leg.  Then my back started to hurt all the time.
Off to see a specialist, who had an MRI with dye done and showed me the results.  See right here Mr. Mann, your disc is torn and leaking.  I don't know how they didn't see this in the emergency room.  You have very few options at this point. You can do nothing and hope it heals on its own or you can operate and cut off the torn tissue and seal the disc.  Well, they ended up having to do that operation twice in two years.  I never did recover to the point where I felt I could really do my job, so I let the little maintenance things wait. Sanding , painting, that kind of stuff.  The engineering maintenance had to be done, but it took a long time with long breaks in between projects to let the back settle down. Well now we're at the end of the narrative.  I have just had spinal fusion, because there was no disc left between the vertebrae.  At this point the prognosis looks hopeful. If everything heals as it should and I'm able to rehab once the bone has set up.  I might just be able to fish again next year.  Any way, that's why I haven't been very good at keeping up with events.  I'll try to do better as time progresses.  Man, I am so lucky. That stupid tree would have killed me, had I been going 1/2 a mile an hour slower!

Man, it's cold outside!

I'm stuck in Anchorage, because the weather is just absolutely crappy in Kodiak.  No planes have been allowed in today.  Not even one.  It's not too bad here in Anchorage.  I'm trying to use my phone for this blog update, but so far I can't get it to work.  I have taken a few pictures, but of course I didn't bring my usb to phone connector with me, so I can't upload them to the blog.  I should be in Kodiak in the morning 3/9/2010 @ about 7:30 am if I'm lucky.  My good friend Thor Olsen is going to pick me up, so I'd better take him out for breakfast and catch up.  Here we go with another season and I'm not sure I'm up for this.

The little skiff that could and the brain dead bum who owns it.

Many years ago (1988), when I bought the Alchemist, I also bought a, new to me, power skiff. The size of the new skiff was about right for a 49 ft Delta, 16 ft long x 8 ft wide. The horsepower, alas, was woefully lacking. I limped along with the lack of towing power for a long time, well, until the engine blew up because of water in the fuel. It turns out I bought water for fuel one night at the tender. The young tender Captain turned the wrong valve. It seems he was more interested in boinking his girlfriend than he was in taking care of his fishing boats. Anyway, I got a new engine out of the deal, with a lot more horsepower. I then learned I needed to change the reduction gearing and the size of the propeller so that I could utilize the new horsepower. To do that I had to take the new engine out, cut the propeller shaft housing out, realign the shaft to allow for the bigger prop, glass a new shaft housing in, and rebuild the undercarriage to provide clearance for the bigger prop. When I finished all the upgrades, I was appalled at the amount of money I used to "fix" the skiff after the engine upgrade.
Wow! I couldn't believe how much towing power I now had. It was impressive to say the least. Screw how much money I had to spend, this was awesome! But I now had to be careful. If I towed too hard the stern sat down so far it didn't leave a lot of free-board. Rats, it's always something. Well, that's not as safe as I would have it, so this winter I raised the bulwarks of the skiff about a foot. Just like before, I now have a whole slew of modifications, expensive ones I might add, needed to bring the skiff up to speed with the new bulwarks. Sometimes I wish I could just leave things alone!