Libby Saves The Day

At Sea
25 06.22 N 081 11.53 W

We got up at 0600 this morning to depart. I opened the package we got recently. It was supposed to hold a Richardsons Chartbook Tampa to Key West. As it turned out, it had Richardsons Chartbook Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan! What the heck?

I immediately got depressed. We couldn't go without charts. The GPS chart plotter is not enough. There was no time to go to West Marine to buy new charts; that would delay us to 11:00 or noon; too late to get to Little Shark. Tomorrow and the next two days, the wind would turn against us. We were thoroughly screwed. I mentally gave up on the idea of leaving and began investigating the amazon.com foul up. Libby wasn't so easily discouraged. She kept thinking of ways to save the day.

Fortunately, Libby was thinking clearer than I. She said, "Can't we print charts from the computer?" Wow. I had forgotten about that. Nearly four years ago we acquired charts on DVD. Theoretically they allowed us to print out the parts we needed, although we never really did that. Libby was right in theory.

I started up the computer. Darn, the Maptech charts were not installed. I logged in to the Internet and tried to install them from DVD. The Maptech webside said, "No. We won't allow you to do that. You already installed it on a different computer." How irritating. I got out the backup computer. I haven't used it for much for more than two years. However, the backup computer did allow me to install the region 8 charts. I did that, and I printed out a packet of pages that covered us from
the Seven Mile Bridge to Little Shark river. Perfect, the trip was back on. Thank you Libby for saving the day. We departed the mooring only one hour later than our plan.

So what happened with the Lake Michigan mix up? I think I figured it out. It is amazon.com's fault. Last month I searched amazon.com for "Richardsons Chartbook Tampa to Key West." It showed me the listing, and a link said, "4 new and used available." I clicked on that, and the 4 choices were shown, I selected one and bought it. Today, while investigating the mix up I see that the seller's listings have been truncated to "Richardsons Chartbook", the part of the title that said "Tampa to Key
West" or "Lake Michigan" was chopped off. I blame amazon.com for that. When they say "4 new or used" it should mean 4 exact matches on the title, not partial matches.

Anyhow, we're making slow progress, and we'll arrive at Little Shark about 90 minutes after sunset. We were supposed to have 15-20 knots of wind, but it is actually only 5. Also, Tarwathie's bottom is foul and needs cleaning. She travels almost two knots slower than normal when under power. I'll have to do some diving to clean it. Should I do that in the Everglades amongst the crocodiles and alligators? I think not.