Redundant, but useful

If you have an extra chartplotter, why not use it? Ms. Bettencourt has a perfectly good Garmin 546s plotter that has provided excellent service. It replaced a Garmin 192c  a few years ago only because the newer instrument offered a depth sounder function and a bunch of other desirable features.

The dashboard instrumentation was functional, but that big Humminbird fishfinder in the middle was old and sometime flakey.




It also bugged me a little that the 546s has a depth sounder feature that duplicated data from the fishfinder.

So I pulled the old fishfinder out yesterday and installed the Garmin 192c in its place.

This closeup (right) of the 546s shows that instrument's depth and subsurface structure display, with the boat parked at our dock.








And here, surprise, is the reason I think having two chartplotters in front of me is a good idea: It's not redundancy for backup safety.

It's because I can zoom one in for near and zoom the other out for far. One plotter can show me where I am in larger scale and the other can show me what's to come.

By the way, there's another layer of  GPS redundancy on the dashboard. The Standard Horizon VHF GX 1700 radio's channel selector display also shows course over ground, speed over ground and geographic coordinates.
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Full Beaver Moon...

... on the Savannah River at Augusta

7:09 p.m. EST

Slow and steady...

The Beaufort to Charleston and return cruise was concluded last week, with Ms. Bettencourt splashed off the trailer and back into her home river without incident. The weather was perfect, though a bit lumpy going through the wide and shallow Coosaw River on the outbound leg. For the most part, it was sunny and not too warm.;

Charleston is a great destination. My friend Major and I took a water taxi across Charleston Harbor to the Patriots Point maritime museum. We toured the retired aircraft carrier Yorktown (left) and a World-War II submarine, among other exhibits.


Beaufort to Charleston is about 60 nautical miles by Intracoastal Waterway. Tides and currents can be rip-roaring. Our run from Beaufort to Charleston took Ms. Bettencourt about 11.5 hours. At one time, speed over the ground was reduced to less than 3 knots by a frothy opposing current in Elliott Cut, just south of Charleston Harbor. The return trip was a little faster -- 9.5 hours. The whole excursion required only a little more than 10 gallons of diesel fuel.

Charleston City Marina, on the Ashley River, was our base. Ms. Bettencourt was dwarfed and surrounded by high-dollar yachts.





Our end of this finger pier was in a sinking condition, but stable enough. At least they parked us close to the showers.

We felt pretty good about Ms. Bettercourt's teak brightwork, until we got a closer look at the sailboat parked behind us.







Overall, it was a nice trip. We got a lot of compliments on the boat, the machinery performed without fault and we had plenty of time to flesh out ideas for a couple of more cruises.

Ms. Bettencourt's next voyage will probably be up the St. Johns River from a point near Jacksonville, FL.