Leave Second Wind

Epilog .....

Just a few notes about Siren Marine, closing up the boat and driving back to NY.

A few weeks ago when we talked about renting a car and driving back to NY, I was concerned after reading about all the problems in the last year with rentals.  Most of the rental companies had sold most of their cars to take advantage of the huge increase in used car prices and rental costs increased X 5 in a lot of cases - if you could find one.

I used Kayak to reserve a small SUV from Budget in Chesapeake, VA for a 1-way, 1-day trip to Albany, NY for $107.  I was happy with the cost.  Well...  I asked for Chesapeake, VA and there was a Budget only 3 miles from the marina.  But, when I got my email confirmation, it said a different Budget office that was 25 miles away.  Dang!  

On Tuesday morning I used Uber to get to the Budget office on my confirmation.  It cost me $30 to Uber to a $107 rental car.  That's just not right.  Plus, it took me over 1/2 hour at the rental office to actually get a car - and I was the only customer there.  The first car she brought out ended up needing an oil change (wouldn't you know that when the car was brought back from the last rental?).  The second one happened to be sold yesterday - I guess you can buy these cars on-line.  I head the gal talking to someone on the phone and they agreed to pick-up the car in Albany instead of Norfolk.  I could have the car.  Yea!

We were going to keep one freezer running on the boat but I didn't get a good feeling from the marina workers that the boat would have continuous shore-power.  They were going to move the boat out back "somewhere" in the next couple days and said we would have "at least" 110v power.  This seemed to be a disconnect with the office staff who told me the boat would have power and charged me $100 / month.  Unlike most boat owners, I would be able to remotely monitor the shore-power connection with my Siren Marine app but both Laura and I were concerned about getting back to the boat and finding exploded meat leaking from the warm freezer.  Instead, Laura talked me into buying a cooler at Wally after I picked up the rental.  We emptied the freezer into the cooler with lots of ice and loaded it into the rental.  Once again, the piece of mind was worth the price of the cooler and a little work.

Car was packed, boat was put to bed (nap, not sleep) and we drove out of the marina at 1pm.  An hour later we were crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel - the water was calm and beautiful.  We even saw dolphins in the water and missed cruising already!  It was a nice trip and we arrived in Albany around 10pm, unpacked the car and slept well.

I can't say enough about the Siren Marine boat monitoring system.  I installed the entire system in a couple days last winter when we left the boat in Oriental for a few weeks.  It was about $2,000 for the hardware and well worth the piece of mind it gives me.  Here's a good example -

Wednesday morning while I having coffee in NY, my phone dings and I get a notification from the Siren Marine app that the boat lost shore-power.  Hmmm.  Are they moving her now? I opened up the app and watched the boat move on the satellite-view (where the boat is comes from a GPS built into the Siren Marine controller).  A short time later I see the boat stop - I assume they have tied her up there.  But, the shore-power doesn't come back on.  

Here is a screen-shot of the Siren Marine app showing the boat movements over the past few days.  This screen is a satellite view of Atlantic Yacht Basin in Great Bridge.

Check out how detailed this is!  The red line coming in at the upper left is us approaching the marina a few days ago from the Great Bridge Bridge.  The next little dip in the red line is where we stopped at the fuel dock then motored more to the right where we turned around and docked for a couple days.  Then, the marina moved the boat (more to the right, down and to the left) and around to the back of the marina where she not sits.  If you don't think this is really cool, something's wrong....

We had a full day of running around the Albany area (bring back rental, groceries, etc....) and a nice lunch with friends.  All this time I'm watching the Siren Marine screen to see if the shore-power gets hooked back up.  It doesn't...  I finally call the marina office around 3pm and ask why the boat isn't plugged in.  The gal says maybe they have the boat on a temporary slip to reposition some other boats and will move her again.  Well...  It's been like 6 hours.  She transfers me to the dock manager and I have to leave a voicemail.

15 minutes later I get a call back from Marty.  He says that he was planning on hooking up shore-power this afternoon and is heading down to the boat now.  Another 15 minutes and my Siren Marine app dings me again - the power is back on.  I can also see the battery voltage increase.  Nice!

We've had this system for over a year and I don't think I've had one problem once I got the main controller to see all the remote sensors.  I mentioned the hardware was $2,000 but there is also an annual fee of $180.  This is $15 / month for the cellular connection - the controller on the boat sends all the sensor information (via it's own cellular connection) to the main computer at Siren.  My phone app gets our boat information from the Siren computer and sends notifications when things change.  It will also display historical data.  For example, check out this screen-shot below showing our house battery voltage for the past week.  The dip on Saturday night was when we were anchored by the York River and using the batteries.  On the top left, you can also see the current temperature (69.5 degrees in the engine room where the sensor is) and, on the right, what I have the min and max voltages set at for notifications.

If you want more information on Siren Marine, HERE is a link to their website.  I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Now my only question is what I'm going to do the next 5-6 weeks without a boat to work on.  I'll take good care of Laura after her surgery this week but I'm used to having lots of boat projects to keep me busy.  Maybe I'll start designing something new for Second Wind.  Any suggestions?

Blog will start up again in 4-5 weeks when I go back down to move her to warmer waters.  Thanks for following The Travels of Bill and Laura!