Houston, we have a problem

Hold everything!
We departed Honolulu and were anchored on the west coast of O'ahu, ready to sail away from Hawai'i, when our AIS (Automatic Identification System) failed to get a GPS fix. It was working perfectly when we checked it recently, but now it was unable to transmit our position to other vessels or determine how far those vessels were from us. Especially with just the two of us onboard, lacking that safety feature was a dealbreaker.

So we're not off after all, at least not for a while. Installing a new GPS antenna didn't fix the problem, so we are waiting for a new AIS unit to arrive from the mainland. After it's installed and operational, we'll wait for the next weather window. In the meantime we are hanging out on a mooring buoy in Ke'ehi Lagoon, north of Honolulu.

We were keenly disappointed, but we're glad it happened two days prior to departure rather than two days afterward.