Hi, Dan, and group,
How nice to hear from you again, and even better, how you've been doing...
"Dan Best" redacted to prevent spammers wrote in message
...
Hi Skip,
Let me echo the sentiment that it's good to hear you are still going after
it all.
I'v actually got WiFi internet access for the next 2 days here on the boat
(for the first time in over a year) while we are hauled out at the Balboa
Yacht Club in Panama repainting the bottom, etc..
Cool beans. Are you reading this directly, or over googlegroups or some
such? I'm still wrestling with how to get usenet when I'm surfing
somebody's wifi.
On that subject, I'm hoping to nail down my modus for that this weekend.
You probably haven't seen the threads on the subject, but I'm going to
either cave and use a cat5 from the nav to the NEMA box with one of them,
or, if I can work out the technical bugs as several correspondents have
suggested I should be able to do, just power up the two of them in the box.
I'm going with a Senao 2611DB3 deluxe as a bridge, connected with a pigtail
to an 8.5dBi omni stick. If I'm successful, I'll also have a second one as
an AP, pigtailed with a 4" cat5 XO cable to the bridge, and another pigtail,
this time to a 5.5 dBi omni duck, so that I (and likely any others in the
harbor) can see it seamlessly with my laptop, whether below or on deck.
Reports from all over suggest there's lots of access all over the caribbean,
where we expect to be for the foreseeable future.
That will not only be my internet access, but either through softphone, the
software that makes my laptop into a phone, or backfed, if I can figure it
out, through my Vonage "modem", my telephone service...
Just to bring you up to date,
We had a great time in the Sea of Cortez and the gold coast of Mexico,
then headed down the coast and holed up at Bahia del Sol, El Salvadore for
a few months while we did some inland traveling in Central America. After
that, we continued south to enjoy Costa Rica and the islands on the
Pacific side of Panama (absolutely fantastic snorkeling!).
Next week, we'll be off to enjoy the Perlas Islands for a few weeks, then
we'll make tracks for Ecuador where we will again park the boat for a
month or so to do some more inland traveling. From there, the plan is to
turn right to the Galapagos and continue on to the S. Pacific. After that
who knows?
Fair winds & all that,
Dan Best,
S/V Tricia Jean (Tayana 37 #192)
p.s.
On Cristmas day this year, we arrived here at the canal. - db
We *may* (very small likelihood, I'd say) get to the Pacific side. More
likely is a circumnav of the Caribbean, once we've tired of the
Wind/Lee-wards and Antilles chains.
FWIW, do you have a traveling - either sailmail, winlink, or some
internet-access-type permanent address? I recommend gmail, to which I've
switched, as it allows not only web based but POP/SMTP email, my rabidly
preferred (to webmail) email and news mode. Of course, it's not much use
when you're in the middle of the sea, but anywhere, whether wifi or internet
café, you have internet access, it's great.
More FWIW, any who'd like an invitation for gmail to beta it, as I did for
many months before converting, drop me a line at gmail and I'll send you
one.
Nice to hear from you again...
L8R
Skip
--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
http://tinyurl.com/384p2 The vessel as Tehamana, as we bought her
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain