Log Entry: May 3rd, 1999

Vancouver

The next morning, we saw that the bird problem was quite bad, but it was too late. As we would already have to wash the boat from top to bottom, there was no point in moving.  We sorted ourselves out with the yacht club, and then went to the dive store, where we spoke to Minouch.  He would have the suit ready by 5.  We wandered around, then we decided to take the autopilot to ComNav.   The technical support man (Sateesh) took the unit, said he would put it through his testing procedures, and to call around 2:30.  We took the sky train back to Granville station downtown, then took a bus back to the island (the man beside me on the bus became talkative, told us we could take the bus across the bridge, said he lived near the island, showed us how to get down there, told us about the tunnel being moved 35 feet, he obviously thought this was an outrage ...)  We took an Aquabus back across the creek, and had a great lunch, relaxed, then called Sateesh.  He said there was nothing wrong with the unit, and that perhaps there was something wrong with the compass.  We dinghied across, took the bus, took the Skytrain back out and collected the autopilot.  Sateesh was very generous, and didn't charge us anything. We reversed the process back to the island, where we picked up the dry suit (I had to walk it back to the dinghy very carefully, to avoid disturbing the still-setting silicone.  I'm sure people thought I was quite strange, carrying the dry suit across Granville Island as though I was dancing with a dummy ...).