Things That Go Bump

Unsettled weather has determined our near future cruising plans for us. 15/20 knot winds from the NW? Wind over waves in the northern direction of the Gulf Stream can be worrisome. We'll enjoy our time at Old Port Cove Marina for now.

During the night SeaTow towed in a big boat. Looks like he may have been disabled by lightning. If you watch the clip, you'll notice he has no running lights or cabin lights. Bad sign and the sky's been putting on quite a light show out east over the ocean.

Hmm...

Maybe a wait — then 2 runs and a wake up.
Prudent?

Thinkin' ZoomaZz

2 runs and a wake up.

An unexpected trip, but exciting nonetheless. Next post from de i-lans, mon.



Cheers,

Istaboa

nu-Déjà vu

NIce Clip

If you're not in to Rock 'n' Roll... mute the sound.
Really good visuals.

A few thoughts and observations

Radar and I are up early this mornin', watching the sun rise over the top of a big yacht named Sea Bear, it's a gonna be a nice day.
Looking out over the stern of Istaboa, it occurs to me that life seems to be getting better for many folks and not just the 1%. marinas are filling up with big yachts where just a year ago they had more empty slips than full. The size and number of vessels has increased dramatically.
On the docks are marina worker bees swarming around the boats like in years distant past. Older boats are being fixed up or traded in for newer and bigger ones. Lots of upgrading and polishing, lots of captains and owners specing out projects. With a more upbeat cadence as they walk the docks, there are smiles on the faces of the boat fixers like I haven't seen in a long time.
The marina operators are all reporting the best year they've seen in more than a decade. Some are getting cocky again, like they were around the turn of the century. (Yep, we've been doing this for a while.) Maybe they'll remember what happened last time and not let this new found prosperity cloud their humility. Probably not.

And such articles are starting to appear —

Now Do You Believe We're In A New Tech Bubble?

Yeah, times do appear to be a run-up to a redux of the late nineties. Remember $100.00 Limited edition bottles of water harvested from melting polar icebergs and $1000.00 Cohiba cigars? (The good old days of my generation.)

I recollect something an old fishing boat captain from Panama City told me years ago; we were leaving Carrabelle, FL about to take our SeaRay across the Gulf of Mexico for the first time and his advice was, "Just don't get excited."

Hopefully this older age I'm stepping into will bear some wisdom and we, "don't get excited".

We haven't yet, though we are enjoying the sun while it shines.

It feels good.

Adios,

Istaboa

Home - Homeport ~~~

Leaving Legacy

Now back at our home-port, comfortably tied up at The Bluffs Marina in Jupiter, I've finally found a few minutes to write a post.

The West Coast Of Florida Tour was a great success; from Marina Jack's at Sarasota to Legacy Harbour in downtown Ft. Myers, and over to Longboat Key Moorings, we've managed to make everybody's life online a lot better.
The onSpot wifi guys did a great job.

All of our installs are challenging, but Legacy Harbour Marina was an especially difficult undertaking.
It took more than just mounting the smart gear and turning 'em on, we had to break some rules, technically going where others won't go and doing what others don't.
Though they tried, most of the support the Ruckus techs kindly offered up didn't work, we were on our own.
We say we build Better Marina WiFi Hotspots and we didn't stop till that was true.

 

 Eric, Legacy's Harbourmaster, giving Will a few pointers on operating the manlift.

Just putting the Access Point high atop the marina office was an obstacle. We had to utilize a lift to get it up there.

But the real problems were to come from these Hi-Rise Condo Towers adjacent to the marina.

The radio frequency interference blasting from these towers can render most WiFi hotspots useless.

After the installation was complete, we ran our first tests and were amazed at how quick the network was. Immediately we were seeing blazing speeds. We were cautiously pleased to find our worries about the towers were unfounded and our smart gear was truly outsmarting the RF noise.
The boaters at the marina were ecstatic.
So we tested till late that night then tested again early the next morning and found the same thing. Fast, real fast.

As usual, I stay around after the install to provide the boaters technical support and do onsite, real life, monitoring. It proved to be a good thing, two days later the network came to a creeping crawl. Something had broken.
The boaters weren't happy anymore.

So we went to work on figuring out the problem and soon we found it.

Not only are the huge condo towers an RF nightmare, over on the other side of the marina is a large cell tower that's using the same 2.4Ghz frequency that we use. What we were experiencing was the radio frequency equivalent to the perfect storm.
Our very strong hotspot was causing disruption on the cell provider's network so they turned up their signal, effectively blasting us out of the park with their more powerful equipment.

So back to the drawing board.

We can make most changes remotely via the net, but this was an extraordinary situation. So onSpot loaded up the test gear and a few spare parts and headed back to Legacy Harbour.

To make this tediously long story short, we fixed it. Not only did we have to step out of the proverbial box, we had to throw the box in the trash. Almost everything the Ruckus smart guys had us try didn't work and almost all our past experience didn't apply.
But, after a couple of days of, "what ifs and let's see", we fixed it.

Like all things worth doing, Legacy's still a work in progress, but their network's running fast and reliably — at the speeds we guarantee.

Constant Improvement.

As Mel and I left the marina, heading back to Jupiter, I left my web-cam on to record our departure and to see how far our network reached... all the way out to the entrance of the marina.
Perfect.

The proof's in the pudding

Adios,

Istaboa

P.S. I know most of you tune in for stuff about cruising and boats and we'll be headed to the islands pretty soon. Mixing business with pleasure, we're building a new network at Staniel Cay, Exumas. They've been needing it for a long time.

Should be fun in many ways.

Quick Trip To Sarasota

Longboat Key