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| Navigator makes life easier with GPSPutting an Inverter to Good Use
A friend of mine lives in a wilderness area of British Columbia. His home is on a float that is anchored to the shore inside Seymour Inlet. His family has had the lease for this mooring since about 1940. My friend is a hand logger who harvests trees from slides that cascade down the steep mountain sides into the protected waters of the inlet. It is a difficult life, to say the least. The nearest civilization is out through Nakwakto Rapids (the fastest moving salt water in the world at full tidal flow), down Schooner Passage, across the Queen Charlotte Straits, to Port Hardy on the North end of Vancouver Island. My friend makes this trip about once a month for mail and groceries, weather permitting. It can be a very hazardous trip.
During the winter of 2004-2005, my friend encountered dense fog on a return trip across the Straits and his boat was lost on a reef. He made it safely to a small island and was eventually spotted and rescued by a passing boat after the weather cleared. He related the story to me over the telephone the next time he was in Port Hardy.
Since I was already planning a trip up to see him in July of 2005, I resolved to do what I could to make his life a little safer. He needed a modern navigation system. I brushed the dust off the laptop I used as a backup for the navigation system on my Puget Trawler, and purchased a small GPS. Since the power supply for the laptop needed AC, I went online and bought an AIMS 400 Watt power inverter from “Inverters R Us.” It was the perfect size for my needs.
My trip North was on time, despite a long period of nasty weather. My friend had found a better boat, a used hull of about 18’ with a small forward cabin and covered pilot station. I mounted the inverter out of the weather, plugged in the charger, mounted the GPS and the computer, and everything worked fine. Imagine the delight of my old friend to see a chart of the area and his exact location on the computer screen! (Five years before, I had given him his only paper charts of Seymour Inlet.)
After a few days of training, I decided my friend was proficient enough with the computer to be able to navigate safely across the Straits and to steer clear of the numerous reefs, small islets and rocks that mark that passage. I bid farewell, safe in the knowledge that he had a good, reliable navigation system to help him.
That inverter was put to good use. Thank you, Inverters R Us.
Vic P.
Brownsville, WA
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