Here’s a great gift idea for the ostentatious mega-yacht owner in your life. This would be especially appropriate if the boat has a dinghy "garage" in the transom. What better vehicle for a "garage" than a "car", eh?

Plus, it’s a zero-emission electric vehicle, which should appeal to all those nutty eco-friendly tree-hugging mega-yacht owners.

But I joke. This is a genuine, operational vehicle, after all. Rinspeed’s "sQuba" (see the big "Q"?) made its debut at the Geneva Motor Show, as reported on AutoBlogGreen.

I grew up on James Bond books and movies, so there’s no use denying it: I love this thing. It’s hard to describe the sheer elation young gentlemen of a certain age experienced during this scene from 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me…

Just imagine little 12-year-old Tim: "THE CAR’S A SUBMARINE! OhMyGod, THAT IS SO COOL!!"

Alls I’m sayin’ is that it would make a great Navagear.com "company car", if anybody wanted to donate one to us.

I figured that since 2007 is over, I should probably apply to get my Washington state fuel tax refund.

It turns out there’s a form to fill out to apply for a "Fuel Tax Refund Permit". This isn’t the same as a CLAIM for the refund. It’s just the permit you need so that you can file a claim. Got that?

OK, the form is here. Once it’s complete, you mail or fax it to Olympia, and…um…THEN you file a claim. I guess. I’ve never done it before, see.

But there’s a nice summary over at the Pacific Yachting PNW site. Take a look, and apply for your refund. Er…I mean…apply for your permit so you can apply for a refund.

The Seattle Boat Show is, according to the Seattle Boat Show, "the largest on the west coast." Wow, that sounds pretty impressive.

So it should come as no surprise that the major manufacturers all choose to unveil their newest products…two weeks later at the Miami Boat Show!?!

Curious, I decided to compare the two shows "by the numbers".

OK, I think I understand now why the manufacturers launch new products in Miami.

Props to Rose Point Navigation for launching Coastal Explorer 2.0 at their "home" show!

OK, I’ve finally done it. I’ve installed the cheapest AIS receive-only unit aboard my boat. This is the Milltech Marine single-channel SR161, which I purchased from my friends at The Offshore Store.

I plugged it into the NMEA port on the back of my Raymarine C-80, which was free because I rewired my VHF radio as described here several days ago. Although since my radio is strictly an NMEA listener, I only had to connect my autopilot’s NMEA out to my radio’s NMEA in. Folks who know what they’re looking will recognize that my NMEA connection (second from the left) doesn’t use NMEA cable. I’m using leftover Raymarine rudder-reference cable (same as the cable on the far left). Hey, it’s shielded cable, OK? Remember, this is all "on the cheap", so I say reduce, reuse, and recycle, children. I connected all four cables, but I only need the red and blue ones connected to NMEA out + and -.

Enough technical mumbo-jumbo. The point is that everything works, although I haven’t plugged an antenna into the AIS receiver, so its range is incredibly short. In fact, it senses AIS targets for the first time right about the instant they become "Dangerous Targets"! In all seriousness, we encountered Western Towboat’s Pacific Titan just as we were emerging from the south end of Shilshole Bay Marina’s breakwater, which opens right into the channel to the Ballard Locks. This is a major commercial waterway.

I came out from behind the breakwater, saw this enormous tug bearing down on me, and immediately

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When I started my Suzuki-built Johnson 90 outboard engine yesterday, after several weeks without running, no water came out of the tell-tale. This is known as the "water pump indicator" in the manual. It’s right on the back of the engine, in the middle of the mid-section.

When the tell-tale doesn’t emit a steady stream of water, it usually means one of two things. Either…

1. the little hole has become jammed with some crud having to do with bugs or spiders, or
2. the water pump isn’t pumping water.

If it’s the first, it’s no big deal. If it’s the second, you need to shut down the engine or risk serious damage.

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Between bad weather, illness, and various demands on my time, I haven’t been able to get out on my boat since Thanksgiving. Today, Arwen and I rectified this situation. The forecast was great, as you can see. Despite the sunny weather, we were obliged to run the heater the entire time. We saw Western Towboat’s Pacific Titan on her way in toward the locks, and a bit later, we saw something that made me think of Captain Richard Rodriguez’s current favorite blog topic: This confidence-inspiring scene occurred just outside Eagle Harbor, on Bainbridge Island. The Washington State Ferry system operates a large facility here, so there are lots and lots of ferries.

Eagle Harbor was our destination, in fact. We cooked up lunch and hot cocoa on the new grill, which worked well. I really love having all the steam and mess OUTSIDE the cabin.

Then we walked into Winslow, Bainbridge Island’s metropolis, for necessities such as pastry and valentine’s day cards at the Town & Country Market.

Yeah, it’s kind of a "hundred-dollar hamburger" scenario, but it was worth it just to get the boat running and spend the day with my younger daughter. Plus, we got the AIS working.

This is good news if, like me, you aren’t quite willing to shell out for a dedicated wireless broadband service plan to use aboard your boat, but you still want to bring your laptop along to keep in touch, periodically.

Gizmodo is reporting that "AT&T is popping Wi-Fi hotspots at over 7,000 Starbucks stores, exploding their own network and razing T-Mobile’s biggest Wi-Fi front in one fell swoop. And they’re offering the true killer app: Two hours of free Wi-Fi a day to Starbucks Card holders (like the gift cards, so just pre-pay for your fix) and unlimited internets to AT&T’s broadband customers and Starbucks slaves. Update: Even though T-Mobile has actually gotten the boot from Starbucks, AT&T is letting T-Mo customers keep using the hotspots for no extra fee."

That’s a pretty good deal. Of course I’m from Seattle, so naturally I live in a fantasy world where everybody loves Starbucks and there are convenient Starbucks locations near every significant cruising destination. I’m kidding, of course.

Oh, NOW I get it. I admit I’ve been a bit inconsistent on this, if you re-read earlier writing about my radio. To set the record straight, I submitted the following question to Ask Raymarine:

"Is the Ray54 VHF DSC radio an NMEA ‘talker’, sending position info from received distress calls to a chartplotter, for instance?

Or is it only an NMEA ‘listener’, receiving GPS coordinates via NMEA in order to include them in DSC distress calls, for instance?"

Less than a day later, I got a response from Senior Support Engineer Chris Martin:

"It is just a listener, it will not plot on a chart plotter."

Oh! Well okay then. That’s a bit of a disappointment, actually. I’m not one of those Panbo propeller-heads who always buys the latest and greatest. I’m trying to get as much service as possible from my existing electronics.

But golly, it looks like I’m going to have to upgrade my VHF. Maybe not today, though, because my C-series chartplotter won’t do the basic things with DSC that I think it ought to.

Here’s what I want (are you listening, Raymarine?): I want my C-Series chartplotter to have a feature where I can click on any MMSI-identified target and initiate a DSC call; that’ll require a software upgrade to the chartplotter. It will also require a DSC VHF radio that can initiate the call as directed by the chartplotter, and of course it goes without saying that the radio should forward DSC messages to my C-series chartplotter for display on the map.

Oh, and since I’ve got a pretty small boat, my new full-featured DSC VHF radio shouldn’t be any larger than my Ray54!

SEATTLE - The Coast Guard rescued five people from a sinking 50-foot pleasure boat in Elliott Bay, Washington, Sunday.

The master of the unnamed vessel contacted Coast Guard Sector Seattle on VHF channel 16 at 1:40 p.m. to request assistance after the boat started to take on water. A nearby 25-foot Coast Guard Marine Safety and Security Team (MSST) response boat crew was diverted and removed the five people from the vessel minutes later.

All five aboard the vessel were transferred from the MSST vessel to a 41-foot utility boat from Coast Guard Station Seattle. The 41-foot boat crew then transported the five to shore.

A Seattle Fire Department vessel also assisted by pumping water from the pleasure boat with a dewatering pump and is in the process of towing the boat to Elliott Bay Marina. No injuries were reported.

Diesel fuel from the boat’s bilges was released during the incident creating an unrecoverable sheen. The sheen has not caused any shoreline contamination.

Let’s face it, some videos are fun in a “guilty pleasure” sort of way. This is one of those. I enjoy watching it, but I immediately feel guilty for enjoying it. Thanks to Bitter End for the tip.