Last evening I spoke with both Brenda and our son Christopher on WhatsApp at the same time. While we have done these many times at home, it was a first for me aboard Pandora.
Being on the phone with both “in the middle of nowhere” was a big deal and a first for me.
It was so nice to talk to them and while the call did not last all that long, we covered a lot of ground.
The call got me thinking about how things have changed since Brenda and I began cruising together back in the 80s.
And, if you are curious, here I am in my “office.” Sorry, no sunrise photo today. Too cloudy at dawn.
But, before I get to that, a bit of a progress update. And, please indulge me on this as I too am bored to distraction by blogs that give a detailed description of miles made, nights anchored, average speed and other “details” that only an accountant would love. And no, I do not have a thing against accountants, as somebody must make sure that it all adds up.
Anyway, since we departed Bermuda, we have traveled a bit over 500 miles at an average speed of a little over 7kts, a good showing for a cruising boat.
Chris Parker, our weather router has us continuing to the ENE and assumes that we will begin to lose the wind after about another 300 miles or so on this course. After that we will turn more easterly and will likely have very light wind for a few days.
He cautions us not to motor as that will keep us ahead of the wind that should fill in behind us and if we continue to move forward even a little bit, it will be that much longer until the wind catches up with us.
I do not do well with “wallow” when there is very little wind, we wallow so we will have to see how that goes.
The good news is that if we endure the slow speeds for a few days, we may be rewarded by decent wind to sail much of the rest of the way to Horta. Fingers crossed…
Details to come, I guess.
So, back to the topic of staying in touch and my call with Brenda and Christopher last night.
When Brenda and I began weekend and vacation cruising aboard our 20’ Cape Cod catboat in the 80s, communication aboard was very crude.
To be aboard a boat meant that the only way to talk to anyone was to talk on the VHF radio so if we wanted to talk to a “land person,” we had to go ashore and use a pay phone.
We were generally isolated when we were on the boat.
By the time we headed down the ICW to Florida and the Bahamas we had cell phones but even then, there were many areas along the coast that had no coverage so keeping in touch was hit or miss.
And, if we wanted to do a blog post, we had to contend with limited data on our phones or to head ashore and find wi-fi.
While cellular coverage in the Bahamas was pretty good, calls back to the US were expensive and phone data was scarce. As a result, we were constantly trying to find a Wi-Fi network. I had a Wi-Fi booster aboard but it was a cat and mouse effort to find an unsecured Wi-Fi or to find a way to get a password.
After a few seasons in the Bahamas, we headed to Cuba where our cellular service was totally cut off and if we tried to log into the local carrier, all we got was a message “forbidden.”
During those years in the Bahamas and the months in Cuba in 2016, one of the only ways to get messages in more remote areas or when I was offshore was with the Single Sideband Radio, a sort of HAM radio on boats.
This expensive and complicated device, which I still have aboard, was difficult to use and to get good reception was more of a “black art” than anything else. For email I relied on an obscure device, a pactor modem, that interfaced between my radio and laptop.
Getting “online” was a slow process that relied on a few widely spaced base stations, Panama, Trinidad, and Rocky Hill, NC. I used propagation tables on my laptop that would guide me as to which station would work at any given time of day based on the height of the sun and current sun spots that effect radio transmission.
And, to make matters even more complex, only one user could log onto a base station at any given time so it was a constant game of “cat and mouse” to slip in when the station was free. I hated it but there was not really any other option.
Until just a few years ago, the SSB was really the only way that I could stay in touch when I was offshore and even the simplest email could sometimes take 10-15 minutes to send or receive.
Then Starlink was born and it changed everything.
I think that it was three seasons ago that I first heard of Starlink. I was participating in a rally from Hampton VA to Antigua and the fleet was terribly delayed and ended up leaving 11 days late.
Knowing that there was likely going to be a long delay, I rented a car and headed back to CT from Hampton. Most all boats lost crew, who were unwilling to risk missing Thanksgiving with their family and it was a mad scramble to find replacements.
So, with that nearly two weeks delay we scheduled several additional zoom weather briefings with Chris Parker. As we dialed in from home or with local Wi-Fi you could see in the background home offices, kitchens, and the interior of boats.
However, suddenly, there was one boat that showed the skipper aboard his boat with a view of his wake streaming off to the horizon. He was aboard one of the Bahamas boats that had not been delayed.
I was stunned. How could someone have video offshore? It was Starlink. Amazing.
When I arrived in Antigua and tied up in Nelson’s Dockyard a boat next to me had this crazy looking rectangular Starlink “dish” sitting on his cabin top. He offered for me to log in and try it.
I could not believe how fast it was and after chasing Wi-Fi for years, I HAD TO HAVE ONE.
The bad news is that I was in Antigua and the only way to get one was to have it brought down from the US. As luck would have it, one of the Salty Dawgs had family flying to Antigua and they offered to bring it down to me.
Anyway, I got one about two weeks later and set it up. The setup process was so easy and within 15 minutes we had broadband. I was hooked.
A few years earlier I had crewed on a 140’ motor yacht from the Hamptons to Ft Lauderdale and had a taste of broadband on passage and it worked well enough to do blog posts but was not nearly as fast as Starlink. And, the service cost $5,000 a month, clearly beyond the reach of “mere mortals”.
As great as that service was, I never imagined that I would ever be able to do a simple phone call or a video call aboard Pandora.
But, now I can.
We live in a connected world and while I do my best to avoid “doom scrolling” I do spend a lot of time checking email to be sure that I do not miss anything but until Starlink, all that stopped when I was “off the grid.”
Some cruisers look forward to being “away from it all” when they are at sea but I need to be in touch. As Brenda is not with me for the “long stuff,” I miss her terribly and need a “Brenda fix” often.
I need to be connected!
So, last night’s call with Brenda and Chris was a milestone of sorts where we had a nearly seamless call that sounded as though they were nearby. Sure, there can be dropouts but that is because I only boot up the system briefly, make calls and turn it off and it takes a while for the service to stabilize.
Starlink, well at least the antenna that I have, is power hungry and to use the service offshore can be pricey. In addition to the $165 a month for basic service, I pay $2 a gigabyte for data offshore.
That does not sound like much but it can add up to several GB per day, even if the calls are brief and it would be quite easy to run up a $300 bill after a few weeks at sea.
And, speaking of power, having lithium batteries that take a charge much faster than the old lead acid batteries, plus 1,050 watts of solar and the wind generator, mean that I can mostly keep up with the power requirements of refrigeration, instruments, computers, water maker and an assortment of devices that need to be charged along with Starlink.
So far, and on other passages since upgrading to more solar, wind and lithium, I can generally handle all of this without mechanical charging. Before all of this I had to run the engine twice daily. And, each year the power requirements continue to grow so we will see what the future holds.
Sure, in the grand scheme of things, Starlink is not very expensive but the offshore “by the Gig” charges and heavy power requirements, combine to keep usage in check.
Over the last decade things have changed so much it is hard to imagine what the future will hold.
However, for me, staying in touch is key.
And that goes double for June 4th, Brenda’s and my 48th wedding anniversary and on the 8th, my 70th birthday.
Unlike some, I do not want to be off the grid, ever… Well, perhaps for a few hours…
I think that I will try to ring up Brenda, just to say Hi!
Editor: You can see where Pandora and the others in the Salty Dawg Azores rally fleet are in real time, at the Salty Dawg Azores Rally Map.
If you want to see where Pandora is alone, check out “where in the world is Pandora” at the top of the page or click on this link.
And, as always, you can register to receive a notice when I post, Which I do regularly, at the top of this page.
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