We stayed for two nights at Breakwater Resort, and it was a genuinely enjoyable trip — a nice mix of relaxation and hands-on work. During our visit, I had the opportunity to help the resort with some essential networking upgrades. My main task was installing a wireless bridge access point to improve connectivity across the property, along with replacing the existing indoor network cable with outdoor-rated Cat 6, making the whole setup more durable and weather-resistant.

On the second day, things took an unexpected turn. The newly installed access point went offline, which kicked off a troubleshooting session. After a closer look, I found that the NanoStation had suffered significant damage — the Ethernet port had overheated and melted, making the unit completely unusable. It had almost certainly been taken out by an electrical surge or incompatible cabling infrastructure.

We swapped in a brand-new NanoStation to get things back online, but that revealed a second problem: the existing Cat 5e cable running outdoors was not compatible with Power over Ethernet (PoE) requirements and could not reliably power the new access point hardware. The fix was straightforward — replace it with a proper outdoor-rated PoE cable built to handle both the electrical load and the elements. With that in place, the new access point came up without issue and the network was stable for the rest of the stay.

Overall, the time at Breakwater Resort was a satisfying combination of vacation and technical work. It was good to leave the property in a noticeably better state than we found it.

I also installed an outdoor WiFi 6 access point to extend coverage across the parking lot. The speeds are now nearly on par with the Starlink connection itself.

Here is how everything looked before the upgrades — original wiring, no labeling.

And here is the finished result after the full rewire, with everything properly labeled and organized.