Every morning at 8am there occurs the cruiser’s net on the VHF radio. This is a 30 minute or so time slot when various businesses, community groups or cruisers and make announcements or requests. The net is run by volunteer cruisers and is very organised. First you have to register in what category you wish to talk and then when called up you can make your announcement to all and sundry who are listening in.
Recently, well 2 days ago, I discovered that my chartplotter wasn’t getting a signal from the GPS. This was a major catastrophe as without a functional chartplotter you are essentially boating blind. Imagine driving your car in a foreign city being able to only look at the road every few minutes. That’s what boating without a chartplotter, to tell you exactly where you are, is like. Now I do have redundancy plans with plotting software on my computers but it’s mot ideal.
So, I went on the cruisers net, explained my problem, and within 30 minutes I had been contacted by 2 other cruisers with advice. One was actually anchored right next to us and he dinghied over with a spare GPS to see if I could further diagnose the problem. Turned out later that I was able to splice his unit into mine and, voila, the chartplotter worked. Unfortunately, he didn’t want to part with his only spare! However, I now knew what the problem was and how to fix it.
Since I didn’t had a spare GPS, I simply cleaned some terminals and connections in a junction box between the GPS and chartplotter and voila again, my chart plotter is fully functional. So I didn’t have to buy a new GPS unit 
This is the value of the cruisers net. There is always someone there that can help – be it with advice, spare parts, or needing something you may have.
Happiness is ………
