8th September 2025
The navigation systems onboard were pretty much kaput; dead radar, dead VHF, dead foghorn and sounder and dead chartplotter – and a dodgy starboard navigation light. The autopilot worked though so that was a win.
I had completed the Short Range VHF course earlier which meant we could buy a fancy AIS radio and navigation system – and it was time to install it!
But first up….
Unfortunately not the fun kind of shopping – shopping for parts and groceries haha.
So for boat stuff from the Chandlery (Island Water World) or just a small grocery top up – we take our dinghy from the Yacht Club 🙂 We can also easily walk there its just really hot and more fun this way!
But, the chandlery is very expensive for stuff you can get from a hardware store, and the local grocery store is very limited and often not carrying any meat or fresh produce. So, we have to venture further afield.
To get around Grenada you have a few options…
Walking – this is a rookie manoeuvre. I have an upper limit of 20 mins walk during the day here because its too damn hot!
Taxis – this is the bougie land option – or your only option when its late at night! Many personal vehicles also operate as informal taxis. These are usually a bit cheaper and the driver usually gives you his card with options for tours and day trips as well. The stereos are usually impressively loud – one we got in had speakers in the headrest of the seat :/
But, the reality is we mostly get around in the local busses!
Local Busses – the local busses are great – with a bus stop right outside the marina (on the red path) or just hail one down on the street. $2.50EC wherever you go and always a LOUD stereo thumping. The driver usually has a conductor onboard also who collects fares.
Unfortunately, these busses usually stop running fairly early around 6-7pm.
These busses have seats for 18 and we have been on a few where they are ALL full! It’s hectic, hot and sweaty!
We usually take the main number 1 bus down to the “big” grocery store (1), an IGA, and Ace Hardware (2). We take a big backpack each and fill them all the way up. If you have to carry a lot of stuff back, like big containers or parts or anything that will not fit on your lap, then we will get a taxi back; otherwise we pile back on the bus.
There are a few other shops and things around but pretty much all in the same areas.
Install Time!
Once we have all the supplies (new wires, crimps, terminal strips, cable terminals, etc) we can get started on the install.
Opening the cabinet is a bit of a shock. Unfortunately whoever installed the autopilot apparently felt that just splicing cables into the middle of other cables and creating a massive rats nest was a great idea. (It wasn’t).
We pulled out all the broken crap, rewired and neatened existing cables, installed a NMEA 2000 backbone and connected up a heap of new equipment.
So just a few hills I’m prepared to die on now:
- Inline fuses suck
- “Hat” Connectors are the scum of the earth.
- Nailed in cable tidies should be banned from use across the entire world.
- Terminal strips are superior.
Of course we had to rewire the bilge pumps in the middle of all this too…
Obviously, we didn’t remember all the parts we needed right off the bat so Ryan quickly walked down to Island Water World to grab a couple more things (including some new terminal strips 😆).
Do you think you should take an umbrella? Nah it’ll be fine.
Refreshing!
Although the rain is great, it means we have to bail out the dinghy a bunch…
The water is fresh and cool and sometimes I think we should just leave it as a floating swimming pool (check out the one next to us haha).
Back to it! All the internals are looking good; time to check out the gear on the roof… see if we can get any of it to work. So far we have a broken horn, a dodgy searchlight and a broken starboard navigation light. The radar is no good but its easier just to leave the dish there.
So Ryan found that all the inline connectors in the wiring on the roof had been done in the cable drip loop. *Facepalm* so they had rotted out and the cable all the way down into the cabin was rotted through also.
We replaced all the cables with full length cable to the lights themselves and put a terminal strip inside where its protected from the water.
Wiring all the new stuff in involved some interesting moments… I came back from the bathroom.. .where is Ryan? Look all around…
Ryan also pulled apart the searchlight and got it working again (woohoo!) but unfortunately revealed this underneath it…
Ah well… problem for another day. In good news, all our lights are working, we have a search light, we have a LED Bright Light strip AND we have a new loudspeaker & horn installed!
Our nav station is now way simpler – the handset on the wall does pretty much everything – radio, fog horn, loudspeaker, anchor drift monitoring. It has a new depth sounder, GPS, and wifi installation. No need for old school chart plotters any tablet can connect to the wifi and run the maps on it now. We were able to wire in a conversion from the NMEA 2000 network into the Simnet network to also pull in the autopilot for compass headings and sending waypoints to it. The only thing left to install in here is the tablet mount (and obviously I gotta put away the green bags).
It feels way more like we could actually navigate this boat through bays and reefs now and we are both way happier that all the peripherals and components work. We are both feeling really happy with the outcomes and have been able to test everything thoroughly to our satisfaction!
As a bonus from this job we also figured out what this switch in the roof of the saloon does!
Life in the marina carries on and we continue to meet people and grow friendships. One of the local guys caught a heap of barracuda and we got our first taste of barracuda steaks; and I also got my first attempt at filleting (part of) a fish! Delicious!
And for those who are worried – Don’t worry, barracuda in Grenada doesn’t carry ciguatera so it’s safe to eat.
We also finally setup our monitor and PC – obviously we immediately enjoyed catching up on space news 🤓.
Many movie nights ahead ❤️
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