Doings

We had 2 days of rainy weather, with the wind hitting 30 knots during the night.  I stayed in the boat during the worst day with the fan heater keeping the cabin warm.  Winter is coming to Mar Del Plata.

I spent much of those two days working with the computers.  I've transferred all of the three types of charting data from the Acer netbook to each of my two 2-TB Seagate external drives. This represented thousands of small files and hundreds of megabytes of data.  I've kept the charting data on board the Toshiba laptop at the navigation station, but I can reach the Seagate data from any of the three computers.  At the moment I have the old Toshiba next to me, updating the XP OS, which is taking a long time because the machine has not been on line for months.  I also updated its Firefox and am trying to download the OpenCPN software to it.  This might all sound trivial but it has taken hours of work, particularly in my unsuccessful attempt to get the wireless internet on the Toshiba Windows 7 machine to work again.  (The two XP machines work fine.)

Yesterday I turned my attention to a frozen up knob on the stove.  The big trap with this sort of work is the risk of doing more harm than good, e.g. breaking something.  But I managed to service it and the other 3 knobs successfully and it was very satisfying to be able to use the no. 3 burner again for the first time in months.

I discussed my travel to Buenos Aires with Jorge today, and he advised against taking the train because it is uncomfortable and prone to breakdowns.  Besides, the train would drop me off well away from the city center.  He advises taking a bus, which I will do.  I'll visit the Tourist Information office soon to learn about the bus schedules.  Jorge told me that there are no hotels near the international  airport, and I hope to get more information on this too.

The funds transfer to a USA bank of the 50% deposit for the new failed.  The bank informed me through its internal secure mail service that I supplied either incorrect or insufficient information, which was pretty vague so I have asked them for clarification.

I got a partial (does not include running backstays, new wire rails, or travel time) on the new rigging, which I will publish later.  The wire will be imported 316 S/S and the fittings will be Navtec.  I've been assured that it is all top quality material, and a visit to the Navtec site supported the claim.