 Check out the bookstore at IRBS.com |
|
|
|
|||||
|
||||||
From: kpromance (no email)
Date: Fri Jul 15 2005 - 14:12:18 EDT
Here's our experience with email and internet use during the last
several years down in the Caribbean. First of all, let me say that
we are not quite "normal" cruisers – we both do a lot more work and
business through the internet while we are out cruising than most
cruisers.
We use a combination of sailmail (via SSB) and web-based email. Our
sailmail email address is the one that we check every day via our
SSB radio. Our families and friends know that sailmail is the
address that will always reach us every day no matter where we are.
It allows us to feel comfortable in remote anchorages where there
are no phones – in an emergency, we know our families can reach us
through sailmail. I used winlink (ham email) for many years and it
is also great (winlink is free whereas Sailmail costs $250 a year)
but we both need to do some business via onboard email (illegal over
ham radio) so we have moved to sailmail. When we are traveling, we
subscribe to several weather bulletins which arrive by email (GRIB
weather forecasts and Buoyweather.com) These are delivered to our
sailmail email inbox at the time we request. Winlink users have even
more weather resources available to them and we still log onto
winlink from time to time to get certain weather faxes and
bulletins. We can also use Sailmail (or winlink) when we are
underway which is a plus.
In addition, we both keep web-based email accounts (like Yahoo) that
we can only access when we are connected to the internet. We each
keep one email address for important mail and another for "junk" so
that if we don't have much time, we can just check the important
email and save the "junk", advertisements, etc until we find cheap
internet. We also have a free fax service through efax.com which
allows us to receive faxes via email wherever we are. Efax gives us
a US fax number. Any faxes sent to that fax number are forwarded to
our email address where we can download and print or view them. Efax
frequently encourages us to upgrade to their premium service which
is not free but I think the free email fax service is still
available.
Depending on where we are, we have used lots of different methods to
access the web. Here are some notes on what we used in the various
ports we've visited:
Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela: Wi-fi is available at Bahia Redonda
Marina in the marina for $10/month. It's fast, pretty reliable and
we have had no problem getting a good connection from our boat with
a standard wi-fi card. We are spoiled! Everyone uses Skype and Skype-
out to make phone calls from the boat over the internet. With skype,
you can call other computers running skype for free. It costs about
2 cents a minute to call regular phone lines around the world. The
connection is usually quite good.
St. Thomas, USVI: When we had a lot of internet work to do, we would
take our computer into a bar that lets you surf (via wi-fi or
ethernet) as long as you ordered something to drink. We have found
other cafes offering the same deal in Antigua and France.
St. Lucia: Supposedly, wi-fi was available through Cable and
Wireless in Rodney Bay Marina. We didn't use it. We would take our
computer into an internet cafe and connect by either wi-fi or
ethernet. Sometimes, you get a better deal if you can connect wi-fi
since you don't tie up their computers. And sometimes, when the
cafes are busy and all the computers are in use, there is still room
for you to connect up your own computer. In addition, the French
keyboards that you find in most French Antilles internet cafes make
typing tedious. It is often cheaper for us to bring in our own
computer in the French islands because we are so much more efficient
on English keyboards. We have brought our computers into internet
cafes in almost every island in the Caribbean.
Guadeloupe, Trinidad: Both had vendors offering wi-fi on the boat
but it was too expensive so we would bring our computers into the
internet cafe or just use the cafe's computers. There are plans to
develop more wi-fi services on the islands – I don't know how fast
they are progressing.
If we just want to quickly check our email, we use the computers at
an internet cafe and copy our email to a jump drive. Carry several
jump drives – in case you lose or damage one. I do like connecting
my computer directly to the internet on a regular basis to keep up
with the Microsoft Security updates and the virus definitions. You
can, however, download Norton Antivirus updates at an internet cafe
to your jump drive and take them back to the boat to update your
virus definitions. I suppose we are vulnerable using internet cafes
so much – but we do and have for a number of years.
Kathy Parsons
www.forcruisers.com
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/world-cruising/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
|