Gotta Get a Day in Somehow with this Weather. (Also... Intuvoing on the Water)

Saying the weather has been "unsettled" lately is an understatement.

Yesterday, I didn't even try to get to Keyport... in Delaware we had a cycle every few hours - drenching thunderstorms followed by beautiful sunshine followed by drenching thunderstorms.  It was supposed to be better today, but my three different weather sources (Accuweather, Sailflow and Wind) didn't seem to agree.

Still, I needed to refuel (getting ready for Vicky to get back home), and was getting sick of sitting at home.  I've made more than one trip up the turnpike only to turn around... what's another one?

I did the Wawa thing to get some lunch and stopped at Pedersens for diesel and headed out the KYC dock.  I noticed that for a Sunday in the summer, the place was deserted.  The launch captains said the weather was keeping folks away.  The captains were debating whether we would get thunderstorms at 1:00PM (I arrived around 10:00AM - I know that as a sailor I'm expected to use 24hr times, but I never picked that up.) There was an ominous bank of clouds hanging out over Staten Island, but I decided to take the launch anyway.  I needed to at least get the fuel in the  tank.

Sailboats don't use a lot of fuel, so you always have to put in fuel treatment to keep it from going bad.  These days, that's the most spill-prone part of the operation.  The jerry cans have all sorts of safety features that prevent spills (and make the refueling extremely slow).  Nevertheless, I keep a small absorbent pad handy for the inevitable few drops.

Keyport had gorgeous weather... but all around there were clouds maybe a few dozen miles away.  Despite the clouds, I threw off the mooring lines and motored out for a bit.  Mostly to mix the fuel and treatment from the sloshing of being underway.

It was a nice little outing while staying close to KYC, just in case.

The next few photos need a bit of context.  In my real life, I do inbound marketing for the software aspects of the GC instruments my company builds.  That means that I work with the customers to understand what they want, and then write requirements that go onto the software guys who in turn write the code.

Yes... before everyone posts this clip, allow me.  I literally have THIS GUY'S position in my company.  

(Hopefully I have better people skills.)

So one interesting thing about the instrument (called Intuvo) we launched recently is that in it's guts is the ability to serve up a web page with all sorts of status and diagnostics.  The original intent is that a chemist could check in on their instrument from their office across the hall, or a conference room, or perhaps the cafeteria in their building.

But I like to push things, and regularly fool around on the instrument to what can be accomplished from where.  I've accessed my GC in Wilmington from my home in Newark, my Doc's office in NYC, a great brew pub in Germany and even from our condo in Guangzhou.  I have "worked from boat" before but that is usually from the KYC mooring field which has great on-the-water WiFi.

In a presentation, a friend recently gave me credit for accessing my Intuvo from "the middle of the ocean" which is giving me a lot of sailing cred that I don't deserve.  But my curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to see what I could do with cellular technology (I have a Verizon MiFi and a Verizon cellular iPad).

Of course I could get it at the KYC mooring field...

(Checking Intuvo status)

But I also could get it while under sail in the middle of the bay...

(Running Intuvo diagnostics)

(About 2.5 miles out from Keyport... maybe a mile from Conaskonk Point.)

Interestingly, my Verizon iPad gets a signal pretty much anywhere out in the bay (much farther than my ATT iPhone), but in any case, you could Intuvo pretty much anywhere I sail.  (And yes, you could do it from the middle of the ocean, but I think that would be cost prohibited - some sort of satellite thing would be required.)

Anyway, you could see in all those photos that the clouds all around were basically boiling up.  They started looking a bit threatening and I decided a beer at the KYC bar was in order, rather than chancing getting caught out in a storm.