Events During Departure

Cruising

Position: 29 42' 36N, 094 59' 50W

Progress towards destination: 0.0 nm

How to start a journey to nowhere.

Thursday morning we arose early after having some difficulty sleeping thru the night.  Tamera headed up to the marina store to take a shower and I readied the boat.  I switched on the electronics. I started untying the dock lines and was headed forward to unplug the shore power cord when I heard an alarm going off in the cockpit.  I looked at the instruments expecting it to be the AIS indicating a CPA (closest point of approach) being below the limits.  However it was not the AIS, it was the Nexus MultiController that displayed the depth.  Not having a depth and heading to the east thru the ICW, the Florida Keys and the Bahamas without depth indication.  I began troubleshooting the problem.  We had planned to meet up at the marina store at 7AM for a last cup of coffee with Ms. Cindy.  By a little before 8AM Tamera came back to the boat to find out what the delay was.  I was frantically trying to figure out what the problem was, checking voltages, pouring over the manual and effectively having an anxiety attack.
 
We discussed what was going on and what I had tried and what could be done.  The 1st mate got on the phone to find technicians in the area that might be able to help and the Captain got on the phone to Nexus for technical support.  There was a crowd on the dock that had showed up to see us off and wanted to help in some way.  It was frustrating to be on the phone with tech support, and the local tech and respond to the myriad of question coming from our concerned friends. I had to hold my temper to keep from saying something I would regret.

After lengthy troubleshooting and discussions with Nexus tech support we determined it was likely a problem with the Nexus Server.  This is the device that all the transducers (wind, speed, compass and depth) come into and go out to all the displays and other equipment over the Nexus network or NMEA 183 serial data connections.
 
The local tech showed up around 11AM and we repeated the same troubleshooting exercise.  The entire time my friends were calling me outside to discuss additional possibilities while the tech was calling me below to find the location of parts and to see me demonstrate the troubleshooting result I had already ran.  The tech wanted to pull the transducer out of the hull to inspect it for growth.  It seemed like a long shot but I was going to humor him.  When we inspected the location of the transducer it was obvious that water would gush out of the hole for the period of time until the plug is placed in the hole.  We taped plastic over the sump pump motor and terminal strips and the tech removed the transducer.  An amazing amount of water gushed into the boat.  The kind of gushing that will give you nightmares (trust me on that one).  There was minimal growth on the transducers and the tech agreed with the previous conclusion that the likely culprit was the Nexus server.
 
Nexus had agreed to send an exchanged server for a little over $200 on next day air freight.  I would need to send the bad one back to guarantee the refund.  There was some confusion about the frequency of the transducer so they also sent a replacement transducer at no charge. 
The 1st mate and I discussed this outcome and took into account an approaching cold front Monday and decided to wait and leave Tuesday morning. 
The parts showed up Friday and were installed.  It turned out the transducer that was original to the boat was the correct transducer and once everything was installed it worked like it was supposed to.

In the mean time,

The 1st mate and I are taking care of any last minute items and resting up.  Prior to Thursday morning our mutual pace of work was very intense and we were a little exhausted.

What this actually means.

We are actually cruising.  How many stories have we read about cruiser being delay in areas waiting on parts to ship in.  Our ordeal is not too difficult but it rings of the same problems.  I am happy I was able to troubleshoot the problem and that my conclusion were correct, we are not happy about being delayed but accept that it was the right decision.  We both agreed we did not want to head off without depth instruments.  As a final benefit we scored a spare depth transducer.