I think, therefore I ham

You'd think that an entire month without a new blog post could only mean one thing: That Sparrow is out sailing the high seas, off the grid, over the horizon, under the spell of turquoise waters and pink sands.




If only, if only, if only, if only.

Pathetic wretches that we are, we have barely budged from the transient dock at Ft. Pierce's Harbortown Marina. We have been experiencing a series of technical difficulties that can best be described as a total buzz kill. Our brand-new boat's brand new dual-unit Furuno GPS chart-plotter with radar overlay (ooh-la-la!) refuses to function for more than 30 minutes at a time. We have sent it back to Furuno several times in exchange for replacement units, only to experience the same problem, over and over. The experts are baffled, we're baffled, but still we persevere and hope that it will all work out in the end.

Luckily, the setback has allowed us time to pursue other ventures: Bert has installed four big solar panels above the bimini, which means that when we're out at anchor we'll be able to have ice cubes in our cocktails. Nora has honed her talent for hanging out with the other teens at the marina. And Rosie has learned how to flip a cardboard coaster up off the edge of a table with the top of her hand and then catch it with the same hand in one deft motion (it's an excellent bar trick, and when she's 21 it should come in very handy, so thank you Mr. Jeff Van Peski for teaching her).

But the rest of the family's goings-on pale in comparison to MY remarkable accomplishments of the past two weeks: On April 20, I passed the exam for a ham license, technician class. Then, only five days later, I passed the exam for a ham license, general class. I am... a HAM.

So what, you say? Well, two weeks ago, if you had asked me what Ohm's Law was, I would have said that it probably has something to do with yoga. Now, I know better. It has something to do with voltage and amps and...there's definitely a third thing, but I can't remember it now, but that doesn't matter because I've already passed the test so I don't need to know it any more, so hah! I also now know scads of random words and phrases that have little or no meaning to me, but they sound kind of dirty so it's fun to say them out loud. Try these and see for yourself (it helps if you say them in a breathy whisper, while naked): dipole, spurious emissions, suppressed carrier, kilobaud, RF choke, coronal mass ejections, azimuthal projection, F-layer absorption, MUF, self-oscillations and mutual inductance.

But enough tech talk. For those of you who are wondering if we’ve ever actually sailed our boat, the answer is yes, a little: once during a brief sea trial to make sure the sails and rigging were all functioning, and once more when we were en route to West Palm Beach. The latter outing was a bit heartbreaking: We thought we were finally on our way to Fort Lauderdale, and we had hardly been out for two hours when we got to a bridge just north of Stuart, Florida, and the bridge tender hailed us on our VHF radio:


Bridge Tender: Sailboat heading south on the ICW north of the Indian River Bridge, come in.
Me: Indian River Bridge Tender, this is Sparrow, the sailboat heading south.
Bridge Tender: Sparrow, what is your mast clearance?
Me: We need about 64 feet.
Bridge Tender: Sparrow, I’m sorry but I don’t have clearance to open the bridge for you. See the scaffolding on the bridge right in front of you? There’s construction going on and I can’t open the bridge for anyone over 50 feet.
Me: But….Uh…Hmm….Okay. I guess we’ll figure something else out. This is Sparrow, standing by.

Below: Our too-high mast

So, we had to turn around. Just our luck.  Then, this past Friday, just when we thought we were ready to go, a big front came through, bringing with it winds between 20-25 knots and waves eight to eleven feet. No go.

So now we’re sitting here waiting for the weather to settle down so we can go down the coast and get to Fort Lauderdale in time to make the big trip to Spain on the MV Spiegelgracht. The ship leaves Port Everglades May 9, with or with out us. Will we make it? Will we have enough time to get the Furuno fixed? Stay tuned….

This is Sparrow, standing by.
Above and below: Our first party aboard Sparrow: Grey Wicker's birthday