Lucky 13!
07 May 2016
Wendy
Here we are at day 13. We got some unexpected wind today and are sailing along at just over 6 knots when we thought we were going to be motoring today. We are about 3.5 days away from the Austral Islands and later tonight we will need to decide which one to head towards, Tubuai or Raivavae, for our stopover. It's also Mother's Day, so we all called home from our Satellite phone. Its quite a treat being able to say hi and hear a familiar voice on a special day like this. And Happy Mothers day to all the other special women in our lives that are also mothers. We miss you all!
Sat phone versus Single Side Band Radio....one of those big debates cruisers have. We are on the sat phone side of that debate. Its days like this when we just want to make a quick call home, or need to talk to a service person, or order a part to meet up with us at the next port that help reinforce that we made the right decision for us. Its a very personal decision, but we are glad we chose the way we did. Its reliable-we have always been able to get weather when we want. Its portable - it can go with us on a hike or in the life raft. There was NO installation cost or expense (all I can remember about the SSB is the swearing I heard from Colin down below as he ripped out the grounding and copper bonding from the previous set-up) And we feel its given us more flexibility on how we can communicate with those that we need/want to. The only negative I have been able to identify is that we can't listen in on the radio nets that we happen across from time to time, but the reality is (for us) that we hardly listen in on the Morning nets in harbor so its unlikely we would be regulars on the ocean nets either. Some think its expensive, but if you calculate the cost of setting up a SSB correctly, we haven't even come close to the break even point now and we have been out cruising for 4 years. OK enough of the commercial. We just really love having a sat phone on days like this (and there is a couple of Birthdays coming up) that I am VERY happy we went this route.