New Marine Sound System & a plum and blackberry drink recipe

Jensen Stereo, circa 1995

When we took delivery of our boat, she had a Jensen stereo system with a CD player at the Nav desk. Since we don't use CD's, and we wanted to upgrade the sound system, we researched marine-grade alternatives, and found great reviews on the Fusion product line.

Fusion MS IP700

Last Fall, we took advantage of the steep discounts at the Annapolis Boat Show and brought home the Fusion MS IP700. The unit is built specifically for the marine environment; it's encased in an aluminum chassis, and it's water resistant. It's NMEA 2000 certified, and sourced for AM / FM / VHF / USB / AUX / iPod / iPhone  and SiriusXM.

Fusion interior adjustable chassis for ipod, iphone, mp3 players....

We really like that you can insert your iphone or ipod in this adjustable interior chassis (above) to listen to playlists from home, or play music or audio books via iTunes. Volume is adjustable from three separate zones; the salon/galley, and cockpit have separate volume controls, so if one of us wants quiet down below deck, and the other wants to rock out in the cockpit, we got that. It's also ethernet ready. Oh, and it sounds really good too. You can read more about Fusion here.

Getting behind the instruments

Connector Goblins

Antenna connection; this was upgraded for a marine environment too

The screws that come with the Fusion: painted black,
but they stripped immediately going into a pre-drilled hole

Do yourself a favor if you buy a Fusion for installation in a marine environment; purchase stainless screws before you install your stereo, because the screws they provide, while painted black (props for that), are terribly soft, and ours stripped going into pre-drilled holes. Everything else about this product was high quality, so this small but crucial tidbit was a disappointment.

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Beverage Recipe! :)

Fall has officially arrived, so it's time to indulge
in a dark and tasty plum & blackberry smash

10 blackberries
1 ripe, juicy dark plum
6 mint leaves
2 teaspoons sugar
2 shots of your favorite whiskey
1 shot of Cointreau

Chop the plum, remove the pit and put pieces in a cocktail shaker or a tall glass tumbler with the sugar, mint leaves and blackberries. Muddle everything together. Add 2 shots of yr most flavorful whiskey and 1 shot of cointreau, and a generous pile of ice. Cap and shake everything hard - 10 shakes. Pour the frothy, purple goodness into two glasses, top with a little soda water or ginger ale if you prefer a "lighter" drink, garnish with extra mint if you have it, and enjoy.
(recipe adapted from http://picturesandpancakes.blogspot.com/)