Like ships in the night

We were preparing to quietly move off the mooring this morning when Geoff (nb Seyella) popped his head out of the cratch to say good morning and then helped us bow haul Waiouru the short distance to the water point mooring.

After the tank filled we winded (turned) and then headed back passing Seyella with Geoff trying to take our photo whilst Jan simultaneously attempted to take his.

Their plans will take them in a different direction to us so we’re not sure when our paths will next cross.  We headed back towards Rugby.  I have a dental and doctor appointment in a couple of weeks so we have decided to spend the intervening time cruising the Ashby Canal.

There is a very overgrown and narrow section of canal near Wise’s Bridge and (as you do) we met a boat coming in the opposite direction.  I recognised the boat and suggested Jan take a photo.

Yes, it was Molly and that guy who’s name escapes me! Another of those brief passing conversations before continuing on to moor above Hillmorton Locks.  I walked to Aldi for a few supplies before starting on some further boat painting.  One task I wanted to complete was rubbing down the short length of pipe which is the mounting base for the TV mast.  Sanding complete, I attempted to rub all the dust off with a rag only for the rag to catch in the end of the pipe and gracefully slide down the boat and into the canal.  I could have recovered it with the ‘SeaSearch’ magnet but I haven’t bothered to buy one.  Oh well……. Plan B  Strip to the birthday suit and climb into the cut.  I probably didn’t need to strip but it was one way of ensuring the fish and swans stayed away.  I managed to find the pipe by groping around in the mud with my foot and then raising it by lifting it with my foot until I could reach it with my hand.  This was followed by a hot shower and then it was back to the painting.

This next part is for those readers who asked for more information regarding the iPad external storage dongle.

Jan’s iPad has 16GB total storage capacity and she has now used almost all of it.  We needed a cheap solution.  One of the characteristics of Apple is the lengths they go to protect their devices and operating system from ”non approved” applications and peripheral devices.  The more recent iPads and iPhones don’t have a micro SD Card slot (I love my Android tablet and phone, both of which have an SD card slot) It is possible to ”Jailbreak” the iPad (or iPhone) but that voids the warranty. 

I did some research and discovered it was possible to purchase storage dongles that plug into the iPad (or iPhone) lightning port (power cable port).  In the end we bought a 32GB dongle from eBay for £18.99.  We don’t have an address so I chose this particular supplier because you can collect it from Argos.

If you look at the photos of the dongle in the above link you may have noticed there is NO NAME.  You need to be careful when buying these Chinese copy devices because some of them won’t work with an Apple device.  This is because the Chinese manufacturer has designed the dongle firmware to work with the official manufacturers software thus avoiding all the costs associated with developing software to work with an Apple device.  The original manufacturer has now altered their software in the Apple Store thus ensuring some of these cheap copies don’t work.  The dongle we bought will work, but you need to download the “right” application from the Apple Store and that information was supplied with the dongle.

The dongle comes formatted with FAT32 which is recognized by Windows and Apple.  However using FAT32 means the maximum individual file size is 4GB.  That’s not a problem for Jan as none of her audio or video files are that large.

The dongle has an Apple Lightning male plug at one end and a standard male USB plug at the other.  When you receive the dongle it is important that you first plug it into the Apple device using the Apple Lightning plug.  Don’t use the standard USB plug! (I didn’t do this and subsequently had problems)  Once the dongle is plugged into the iPad/iPhone a pop-up window appears asking you if you want to go to the Apple Store and download the App for the dongle.  Make sure you do this!  Once the App has been installed run it and you should have access to the 32GB of storage.  You can transfer data from the iPad/iPhone to the dongle or from the dongle in the reverse direction using the App.

If you didn’t get the pop-up window asking whether you wanted to install the software then you can go to the Apple Store and download the App named iUSBKEY. There are many iDevice Apps in the store so make sure you download and install the right one.

The dongle is a cheap Chinese copy of the “real thing” but it works.

If like me; you managed to get that wrong, it is possible to re-flash the dongle firmware and download a different App.  I won’t explain how to do that because it’s slightly more complex and if you follow the above instructions it shouldn’t be necessary.