Offshore Communications: Satellite or SSB?
Cruisers anchored off a small beach in the Exumas dinghy in for cocktails and chat while the sun sinks behind a distant cay. Most evenings in this idyllic spot new cruisers and old salts alike meet over plans to go fishing in the sound, the best time to avoid day-trippers in the Thunderball grotto, when […]
Weather and communications on the passage
If you’re following along, you know we left Ascension Island a few day ago. Now, most of passages over time seem to top out around five days. We’ve had a few longer ones (especially in the Indian Ocean), but that’s pretty typical at the high end, and mostly they range closer to about three days. This passage, from […]
Getting online while cruising
How do you get online as an active cruiser? On one hand, the prospect of cruising means freedom from the always-on, always-connected world. Liberating, right? It can be. But if you’re like me, you might get kind of twitchy. I admit: the first year was hard. It was used to instant gratification for simple tasks. Before long, […]
On-board communication: satellite phone or SSB?
Debating satellite vs SSB? Times change: this post has been superseded by an update in May 2017. Spoiler: a few years and a couple of oceans later, I can’t imagine not having our Iridium GO on board…and most cruisers now are skewing the same way, diminishing the 1:many value of radio. What’s better on board: […]