It was surreal watching Dosia motor off the fuel docks in Brisbane without us.  After 8 years of ownership, my time with her is over.  It wasn’t nearly as sad a moment as we had expected.  Margie cried for about 5 minutes as she ironically counted out the big stack of cash for our “delivery fee.”  It was more of an acknowledgement that this stage of life; the sailing, the travel, and 11AM beers in tropical bars, is coming to a quick close.

We arrived at the entrance to Moreton Bay just before dark on Friday and after a quick look at one of the shoaling, short cut bar entrances, we moved onto the main shipping channel for the LONG 43 mile trip up the Bay and the Brisbane River to the customs check-in point at Rivergate Marina.  It was 2:30 AM when we finally tied up the lines.  Marge headed off to bed and I got to work cleaning up the engine room and starboard cockpit locker from the coolant explosion a day earlier.  At 6:15 AM two absolutely hilarious guys from Australian customs showed up.  I thought they were gonna give me a hug when I showed them I had already completed our arrival forms which cut 30+ minutes off the check-in process.  After hearing all the horror stories on checking in, it was the easiest process ever.  Of course, I’d have been thoroughly disappointed if I showed up to this country and was charged over $600 AUS for quarantine ($300 + overtime weekend arrival) but luckily I wasn’t responsible for those charges in this case.  It’s pitiful Australia chooses to have such a high charge for something so ridiculous.  That one fee is enough to keep thousands of sailors away every year.

After watching my floating home disappear on the horizon we jumped into “Dosia II,” a brand new Volkswagon Jetta TDI, and headed south towards the beaches of the Gold Coast.  We decided to skip Brisbane not because we didn’t like it, but everything seemed to be closed and we were looking for something a little beachier.  And that’s exactly what we found in the tourist mecca of Surfer’s Paradise.  We arrived just before the rain started.  That’s the same rain that has now followed us for a week down the entire coast of Australia.  Seriously, after hearing all about the droughts in Australia we’ve had not one day without rain and only two days with any sunshine at all!

Our stops along the way from Brisbane included Surfer’s Paradise, Byron Bay, Coff’s Harbour, and now Sydney.  I can’t say the drive along the coast is the most scenic in the world.  Some of the towns don’t have a lot to offer.  We enjoy touristy areas with lots of bars and restaurants and shopping just as much as we enjoy the out islands of Tonga.  But we don’t really seem to care for the “in between.”  I wish we would have spent one more night in the Gold Coast/Surfer’s Paradise area and a third night in Byron Bay and skipped everything else on the way to Sydney!  Ouch.  That’s seems harsh.  Of course, we may have enjoyed some of those areas more if we could have gotten out of the car and gone to the beach or something but it seems the rain was destined to stop us.  More about Sydney in the next post!

The passport prizes have been rewarded, the free internet available during the regatta is long gone, and the harbor here in Vava’u is slowly beginning to empty. This morning we said farewell and wished safe seas to our dear friends, Geoff & Julie, on s/v Flashback. I knew it was going to be hard to say adios to them but it was especially hard to hug Julie goodbye. For me, having Julie around was like having one of my greatest friends, Courtney, right here by my side. Their advice, their ability to listen, and this incredible sarcasm that they both possess is like one in the same and I have told Julie so many, many times. I will greatly miss talking, laughing, sharing glasses of wine, and just being girly for a bit with her. They’re both just amazing, amazing people and whether it be New Zealand to ring in the New Year or another year further down the road, I know we will see them again and I am already looking forward to that reunion…

For those of you who have not heard the news yet, by the grace of the sea gods watching over us, our dinghy has been found! A local fisherman found our beloved water craft off the coast of Niue, an island we had sailed away from just a few days before. The dinghy was upside down and we assume it flipped over the reef leaving Beveridge, making the entire journey to Niue’s coast with the outboard underwater. For roughly 15 days it traveled approximately 140 miles and luckily for us, right into the hands of a very honest, local fisherman. (added by Drew…here he is! The hero! His name is Ape (pronounced Ah Pay) and he is from the village of Vaiea on Niue.)

Once turned over to the Niue police, our dinghy was impounded and placed in its own jail cell. Literally locked up for misbehavior. The good news reached us via Marc & Jane, s/v Imagine, who heard about the dinghy while they themselves were in Niue. Drew and I have learned in our time here on the water not to ever get your hopes up about anything so until we made contact with the commodore of the Yacht Club in Niue and exchanged serial numbers, we weren’t believing it. Low and behold, turns out it was ours, in good shape, and the local fisherman was even able to get the outboard engine up and running again! A reward was sent via Western Union here in Tonga, obviously to be handed over to the guy who found the dinghy, and a ceremony took place to officially release the dinghy from the Niue Police Department into the care of the Yacht Club. Drew and I have bailed out the dinghy before but we’ve never had to bail it out in this way! Now we sit and wait in hopes that a sailing vessel will come through Niue large enough to throw our dinghy up on board and bring it the 250 miles to us here in Tonga. Jokes were even made that they could throw it off the wharf in Niue and it’d find it’s way back to us here and of course now we can laugh at that. Need be, we’ll return to pick it up but chances are in our favor that someone will be able to bring it with them. Drew and I would like to extend our sincerest thanks and gratitude to the fisherman, the Niue police, the “Imaginary” family, and especially Keith Vial, the commodore of the Yacht Club who spent a lot of time going back and forth with us via email to get this all straightened out. We cannot begin to tell you the relief you have brought us and we are so incredibly appreciative!

So for now Drew and I will sit patiently in Tonga awaiting news that the dinghy is on its way. As I write I sit and watch as Drew slowly picks through cabinets and cubby holes taking pictures of all that will be sold both separately and with the boat. I have to admit his last post about the boat going on the market drew mixed feelings for me. As I read it for the first time, alongside all of you, it brought tears to my eyes. There has never been a single moment in our relationship, even when we weren’t living aboard, that I was unaware of Drew’s love and passion for this particular vessel. I will never be able to comprehend the amount of time and energy that went into making her what she is. I do, however, live in the results of his labor and can physically see the details of the love that went into each inch of Dosia. In even my most frustrated moments aboard, I try so hard to think about the future, when I’m sitting behind a desk or on a couch, and would trade anything for my butt to be on a beach instead, and do all I can to use that as a reminder to live in this moment, relish in it, and take all from it that I possibly can. As the final months of our trip begin to unfold, I am torn on how I feel about the journey coming to an end. I know that Drew and I have an incredible life with great adventures ahead of us and I definitely see another boat, more islands, and more sunsets in our future. Something tells me Drew’s going to make sure of that!

—–Ahhh…Beveridge Reef, what an unkind animal you can be. We sit here on your sandy shelf and wait and wait for good weather to explore your outer reefs, inner lagoon, and your mysterious windward shipwreck. When finally a day comes, we join our neighbors for a day of spear fishing and collect your bounty as though it were our own. Grouper, Jack, Parrotfish…all relinquish themselves to the spear tip. Though we look carefully, you hide your lobsters and leave us with only molted shells. “Tis the Season” I guess, but the fishing is good. Blood gathers in the dinghy and the surrounding waters and you send your sharks to fend us off. Whitetips, no problem, but when your rally your Grey Reef sharks, we retreat and head home, taking with us pounds of fish for untold meals to come. We plan our first feast that evening aboard the good-ship Brick House, a Valiant 40 from Rhode Island. We gather and socialize while the wind outside rises, the anchor lines stretch. A shot of fine Italian Amaretto begins the meal. We sit. And then you knock us down.
——

It was two hours before Patrick climbed up into the cockpit to check on things. Our dinghy was gone. A miscommunication, a mistied cleat, it’s not really important. Patrick took off in their dinghy for the mile and a half trip across the lagoon to search the other side. Even with a full moon, a good light, a night vision scope, and two hours of searching…no luck. My Caribe dinghy and Nissan outboard, together one of the most expensive pieces of equipment on the boat, were gone. Either it hit the reef, flipped, and got smashed to bits or it cruised right out the pass and is halfway to southern Tonga. We thought about leaving immediately, in the darkness, to try and catch up to it, but what if it really was on the reef and this isn’t exactly a friendly place to come and go in the night. What if we passed it in the night? We looked at the situation again the next morning. A small windshift, a twelve hour headstart, a dead downwind sail, an approaching low pressure system…what were the actual chances of finding it? Patrick reexamined the reef taking into account the angle of the wind and current and surmised it most likely hit some breakers and flipped. An APB went out on all the nets for boats in the vicinity to keep an eye out. The government of Niue and the entire anchorage Alofi was notified since it could float in that direction if it did make it out of the lagoon. After a brief period of mourning, Marge and I could do nothing but pick our heads up and start searching for a replacement. Patrick and Rebecca have agreed to alter their plans as needed to help us find another one. They feel awful about it and though it’s frustrating as hell, it was an honest mistake and could happen to anyone. Right now, it sounds as though the Moorings base in Vava’u Tonga may be our best bet. I’m hoping Zen and Flashback who are only a week or two away from there can send out some feelers and make some connections. The last thing we want to do is spend weeks waiting anywhere for a shipment from the states. Thankfully a few boats have offered up loaners as well.

Other than that, we’re still here in Beveridge. There a small system passing over us today and tomorrow and we’re heading to Niue on Monday. We went spearfishing on the outside of the reef again yesterday. My feet are so blistered and raw from hours in my fins I duct-taped the balls of my feet and put on some socks. The sharks got a lot more curious. They’d swim right up to me near the surface, even if I was hanging on the side of the dinghy. A quick glancing blow with the spear gun sent them running. We finally gave in and let them have the reef. We weren’t doing so well anyways with only two groupers (one large and one small) for the day. Not that we didn’t try. Patrick and I spent hours in the water chasing groupers and parrots through the ravines and caverns of the reef. We dropped the carcass of a huge grouper to the bottom. The Grey Reef Sharks and huge snapper fought it out for the remains while we hid off to the side and watched. I wish one of those snapper would let me get close enough to shoot it. Another boat, Peter and Nikki on Bagheera arrived this morning and we all moved to the northwestern side of the lagoon in anticipation of a windshift. So far it’s the prettiest day we’ve had since arriving. In a half hour or so I’m putting my wetsuit on Margie and we’re heading out to snorkel the inside of the reef. It’s nice to be outside enjoying this place finally. Even though there’s a black cloud hanging over us from the loss of the dinghy, we’re doing our best to soak up the rays and go to sleep happy. I’m hopeful it’ll all work out in the end.

I finally managed to clean up my pile of tissues that had accumulated from the two hours of torture I inflicted on Drew that was “the Notebook”. Not really, he took it like a champ. Wish I could say that we’ve been diving in the wreck or snorkeling amongst massive schools of fish but some higher power is set on keeping us inside Dosia for days on end. At night, once the sun has set and hopefully the moon is providing an illuminated view of the reef we hear forcefully pounding out our windows, I find myself quickly donning a pair of long pajama pants, a long sleeve shirt, and wrapping myself from head to toe in a blanket. It’s cold. Okay, okay…my “idea” of cold has changed somewhat since having lived in French Poly for three months. For here, it’s cold. So to be honest, should a day finally produce some sunshine around here I’m not so sure the water temps are going to be anything I’m prepared to handle. I’ve actually been perfectly content holed up with Drew for a few days. Days which we have filled with movies, eating, books, drinking wine, more movies, and yesterday we taught ourselves to play rummy. While he says it’s about “expanding our horizons and learning something,” I really think Drew was just tired of having his keester handed to him time and time again by yours truly in Uno! He successfully kicked my ass yesterday in rummy and today’s attempts to get even will no doubt be intense.

So in living on Dosia my “idea” of things changes on an almost daily basis. I’ve learned to live without some things and some things I’ve just had to learn to live with in a different way of that which I’ve always been accustomed, all the while realizing that I’m lucky to have any of this AT ALL. For instance, the head, a.k.a. the toilet. On Dosia, you do your business, close the lid, and to your left is a handle. You proceed to pump the handle up and down, up and down, up and down about fifteen to twenty times. In doing so, the vacuum formed in pumping is sucking water into the bowl, cleaning, and taking your business out as it goes. Too much? Nah. You can handle it. The other day Drew pulls out a spare toilet bowl lid. He says to me that while many might laugh at him for carrying a spare, should our existing one crack or anything happen to it, we wouldn’t be able to flush the toilet and we’d be up shit creek. Literally!

Second example, the water. Dosia has two tanks that hold 90 gallons of water. That water gets into those tanks in one of three ways. It either 1)comes through the hose when we are docked, 2)we jerry jug it, or 3)we make it. Once the tanks are full our mission is to make that water last as long as possible. We never know if there will be a hose at the next dock we pull into or if the water on that particular island is even considered drinkable because sometimes it is unsanitary. Back home, I was not one of those people who was conscious of how much water I used in the shower, shaving, washing dishes, cooking…how quickly that has changed! When showering in our 2ft x2 1/2ft shower, you get in and turn on the water just long enough to get wet. In running the engine we can flip on the water heater and have a hot shower so from time to time we indulge as a treat to ourselves. After drenching myself I shampoo, shave, clean, and rinse before I turn the water on again and then it’s left on just long enough to wash away the suds. Showers over. It’s a quick process and depending on temps outside it can either be really refreshing or really chilly!

If it sounds at all like I’m feeling sorry for myself or trying to gain sympathy points this is not the case at all. Believe me, we have it G-O-O-D out here and I am by no means roughing it. Some people we’ve come across don’t have a shower. Some people’s shower is over their toilet. Some people don’t have a toilet but a bucket instead. A BUCKET!!! Some people don’t have a fridge. A lot of people don’t have freezers which for them means that 95% of the time their meals consists of something from a can. Some people don’t have technological communications. Some people don’t have water makers so if they leave land with 90 gallons then they have to make that last until whenever they pull up to a water supply again. Our water maker, god bless it, makes one and a half gallons an hour. But you know what, that’s one and a half gallons more than we’d have if it wasn’t a luxury of ours.

I think sometimes I write about these things not only for you but almost more for myself. As a reminder to me that anytime I get down or wish that something was “better” that there is always someone out there with less. Always. And who am I kidding, look at my tradeoff. There’s no 20 minute, hot shower in the world I’d swap for another chance to witness a whale putting on a show 50 yards from the boat. Nah, I’d definitely have to say I’m getting the better end of the deal…

This afternoon we dinghied over to say hello/farewell to our buddies, the rays and the black tips. Like clockwork we pulled up and they surrounded us ready to feast but their interest in us lasted all of five minutes when they realized we weren’t equipped with rotting oyster meat like the last time we’d visited. We splashed around with them for a while, made a stop by the Moorea Intercontinental because they had French Mother’s Day festivities going on, and headed back to Dosia to prep.

Another short lived weekend in Moorea and we’re to set sail at dusk to head for Huahine. My first overnighter of the trip. I’ve whipped up a tuna casserole for an early supper to eliminate any need of cooking once underway. The whole concept of cooking on a stove that moves with the motion of the waves and makes a pot of boiling water look like it’s flying at my head is not one I’ve made friends with just yet. Being one that is prone to accidents on the boat, I eradicate all possibilities of a potentially harmful situation when given the opportunity. I’ve taken some pretty bad spills in the past week or so (hence the pic below). The swelling in my leg has just now subsided from a not too graceful fall I took in the cockpit trying to give Dosia her last fresh water bath back in Papeete. Oh my gosh did that crap hurt…

BUT I’m taking my bumps and bruises and an optimistic attitude and heading west. It shouldn’t take us more than ten hours or so to get there so we’ll probably pull into anchor late tomorrow morning. Since it’s a short trip, Drew and I will both sleep in the cockpit and he usually assumes most of the watch duties. On longer trips we do rotations, starting at 8 p.m., three hour shifts, you both get two shifts in a night, and it all ends at eight in the morning. It’s a system that works out well for us although each cruising vessel has their own way to get them through the nights. So with full bellies we’re ready to get underway. See you in Huahine!

We two day hopped it over to Teahupoo from Papeete hoping to snag a good spot for the surf competition starting next week. It’s only 40 to 45 miles and easily could be managed in one day. We decided to “bebop” (as my dad may say) our way over. There is a reef that runs pretty solid from the time you leave up until you get here so for the most part it is green light/red light the entire way here. For those who might not spend much time on the water, green and red lights mark the channels and are a guide for where to go and where not to go.

Advice for those who may be headed this way next week or anytime in the future, approaching Teahupoo (right now you can’t miss it because there’s a massive Billabong tower built on the reef in front of the wave for the judges), the channel markings fade out. It’s a curvy little channel right in front of the Teahupoo marina. At the end of the markings headed easterly we suggest you cut a hard left (but not too hard) and head towards the point of land that juts out. Dead ahead….coral reef. We found this out the hard way and spent an hour stuck right on the edge of it. Not so bad with the usual calm lagoon waters. A little more difficult when a storm bringing winds and rain up to 25 knots hits a few minutes after you do though! Drew fended us off by standing on the reef pushing the boat back against the storm. That kept us from going any farther into the coral while the wind broad-sided us. Me…well I did what any first timer would do in this situation…I panicked.

When the wind and rain died down some nice fellas came and gave us a little tug and we were off in two seconds and moving again. A couple of small scratches on the bottom paint but other than that she pulled through just fine. Drew’s a little worried that I’m going to start to think that things like this happen all the time on the boat. Ahhh…I’m not too uneasy about it. A little scare every now and then as a reminder to always stay on your toes and keep a good lookout. There goes Dosia with her damn upperhand again….

Today I moved over to the west side of the airport to the huge anchoring and mooring area surrounding Marina Taina.  I think it’s called the Maeva Beach anchorage although from where I am, I can’t see any beach and I don’t know technically where that anchorage begins and ends.  There’s A LOT of boats around here ranging from ultra elegant 100′+ yachts to the rusting, hard-chine steel hulls that seem to form a some sort of niche with French sailors.  I’ve seen them along the whole trip, through the Caribbean and Latin America, but the number of these homemade-looking boats around here is staggering.  This anchorage is like the Coral Bay of the west; it’s filled with boats you can barely believe made it this far.  I don’t mind it here all that much.  It does get rolly on a monohull and I find myself staring out the window at the catarmans with a wanton desire.   The bar at the marina has bands on the weekends and you can hear the music out across the water which I love.   It’s especially handy right now since I was unsucessful at cranking the outboard.  With the wind, current, and traffic here, rowing a RIB dinghy single-handed with one working oar lock is more likely to send me in circles than anywhere close to my intended destination.

I decided to grab a mooring since it’s so crowded over here and this area does have a reputation for getting nasty when a big stanky westerly wind blows through.  It’s not that I don’t trust my anchor but I figure the last place I want to be is up on the bow in the middle of the night, butt naked, wrestling with the anchor as Dosia drifts through a crowded anchorage in 50 kt winds.  Some things are just plain easier when your by yourself!  There’s probably fifty moorings out here but all the ones up close to the actual marina are taken by Frenchies who came here and never left.  I tied up to one of those when I first got here but within an hour I had a guy in a “mankini” on a Beneteau hovering over me explaining in French it was his mooring.  So I moved down to another which also has lines on it and certainly belongs to another boat but no one’s come yet so hopefully I can stay the night.  I plan on moving back over to the quay tomorrow where I can begin the official “Margie Cleanup” before she gets here on Thursday morning.

Tomorrow is Sunday.  Perhaps the worst day to be alone in the South Pacific.  As Paul Theroux wrote, “there is nothing more pacific than a Pacific Sunday”  and there is no better description.  Business stops, the radio goes quiet, and the people disappear into their churches and homes.  Tahiti is the one island where you can expect a little more action on Sunday and even here it still feels like a ghost town.  Once I get the watermaker pulled out and ready to ship, I’ll probably spend my Sunday looking into our passage west.  I want to learn more about the islands in our path.  I’ve realized my eyes were a bigger than my wallet in planning our time in French Polyneisa so we won’t end up using the full six months of our extended stay visas.  Everything is too expensive here.   We’ll hang out as long as we can but with similar, cheaper islands on the horizon, it’s hard not to think about following the sunset sooner than later.

Last night I decided we need a logo. Not a crappy logo either. I don’t want it ending up on this site. I’m in the market for someone who can turn the pic you see to the right into a basic logo design. If you know any good graphic designers, send me an email.

I measured the output of the watermaker yesterday. It’s supposed to make around 1.5 gallons an hour. I’m getting six cups an hour. Now I’m no expert but I’d say the thing is broke. The Katadyn Powersurvivor 40 is the purchase I regret most of anything on the boat. I’ve hated that thing since the first time I turned it on and saw it dribbling water like grandpa at the urinal. It doesn’t make sense to have a watermaker that produces that little amount when I could have bought one that makes 30 gallons an hour. Yes, the small Powersurvivor only uses a fraction of the electricity but I would rather run the engine for a couple of hours and almost fill up the tanks with a big power hog. Next time, next time. I took it apart for the fourth time in a year to see if I could fix it and once it was back together I was up to 6.5 cups per hour. That’s with the brand new membrane I brought back to Tahiti with me. I’ve checked and double checked everything so I sent off an email to Katadyn this morning.

I did a few searches and there are barely any cruising boats using Twitter. Others ought to look into it. I set up an account that will allow us to email Tweets (updates) from anywhere, even the satellite phone. It’s a great way to follow a cruising yacht in real time as they move about the globe. Not to mention, I get constant updates from the marine industry on news, products, sales, etc. Yeah, it’s one more thing to monitor and take care of but it’s also one more way to stay in touch with family and friends. And I’ve yet to meet a boat where that wasn’t important.

Almost one week has passed since I moved over to Moorea and the only cash missing from my pocket was spent on a horrible meal at a roulotte. I’m determined to eat all the Ecuadorian food on this boat before I buy anything new and the selection is getting sparse. The one thing from Ecuador I’m truly sad to see dwindling is the peanuts. The crunchy coated peanuts from there have become my favorite snack on board. I wish I would have bought 50 cans. I’m sure I could have found somewhere to store those and about 25 more rolls of paper towels. I need to sit down and write an article. “What to overload your boat with before you cross the Pacific.” Peanuts and paper towels. There. The article is finished. I would like some fresh meat though and I may have to wander over to the store today. That grill is dying to be cranked up. It is Easter so I’m sure the picking will be slim. Hopefully I don’t get over there and find a sign like this on the door.

It was hot yesterday.  No wind, no clouds.  So I hung out on the boat all day working on odd jobs trying to avoid the sun with hopes of saving my recent layer of new skin.   Some water got left in the hose leading to the head and during the four months Dosia was in storage in Raiatea and some nasty stuff grew in there.  Every time I turn on the sink or the shower in the head, it smells funky, you might say “ripe,” for the first 20 seconds.  I began the job of pulling out the hose to see what can be done and made it about 4 feet before I cranked up the computer and started surfing.  This cartoon explains it all.

So I was looking up some sailing stories and found some interesting stuff.  In Australia the other day, they found a dog who fell off a sailboat some 4 months ago and, after a 6 mile swim, survived on an island by herself eating goats.

Then I got onto ghost ships and read about the old time Mary Celeste, which was found abandoned at sea in the 1870′s sailing herself merrily along towards Gilbraltar.  That story led me to the Kaz II.  Stories like these are freaking crazy.  A small catamaran is found drifting off the northern coast of Australia in 2007.   The engine is running, a laptop is sitting out turned on, and the table is set.  There is even a video camera with footage of the crew right up until the time of their disappearance.  No signs of distress or foul play.  Only a sailboat missing its three-man crew floating in the ocean.

There’s 94 boats on the puddle jump list.  And I know of at least one other coming from Ecuador that’s not on the list.  I talked with Mike from Polynesia Yacht Services the other day and he said his emails dropped from 300 last year to 50 this year so it looks like it may be a slow season.   I don’t know whether that surprises me or not.  You wouldn’t think the economy would have such an effect on cruisers who, most likely, have been planning their departure for years but maybe some had to actually cancel their plans.  Who knows…  I guess we’ll find out soon enough.  Much of the fleet has just arrived in the Marquesas and will slowly make their way towards the Societies.  It sure will be nice to have some english speakers around.

As I sat here today checking the progress of the Puddle Jumpers on their way across the pond this year, I realized how nuts it is to high speed internet access here on the boat.  When I graduated high school, wifi was barely a blip on the radar.  Now, twelve years later, I’m sitting at anchor in one of the most beautiful places in the world sending text messages to Margie in Georgia and updating my Twitter page.  Many cruisers will argue I’m not really experiencing “the life” if I’m plugged into what’s going on at home but welcome to the future people.  As we get closer to a “viable” satellite broadband solution for smaller yachts I think cruising will shift to a younger, still career-minded crowd.  I put viable in quotes because they do have systems on the market but the data transfer amounts are still small for how much money they want.  How many jobs these days require nothing more than a desk, a computer, and the internet.  Hell, I was up at 3:30 this morning to monitor the opening of the stock market.  With the right technology, those jobs can be done from any where in the world, even the middle of the ocean.  No reason we shouldn’t have graphic designers, active traders, and other web based business people out here then.  That’s why I check blogs like Panbo’s Marine Electronics continuously waiting for the next big announcement.  It shan’t be long till I check the site one day to hear Ben Ellison raving about a $100/month all-you-can-eat satellite broadband provider.  I’d be happy to shell out several thousand on equipment if someone could come up with that.

Speaking of communications.  I looked over today and realized I haven’t once turned on my SSB radio since I’ve been in the Pacific Ocean.  I spent all that money and time installing it and I only used it a few months in the Caribbean to pick up Chris Parker’s weather net.  I only use the Iridium for email these days.  It’s so easy.  And maybe I’m a little anti-social when it comes to radio nets.  So what.  Doesn’t make me a bad cruiser.  So I made a note and tomorrow I shall be up at 5am to monitor the nets and see how the Puddle Jumpers are doing.  Let’s see if I can get some use out of the thing this year.