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| Things That Work (Some That Don't) |
Island Packet - Our IP 440 has surpassed all our expectations. It is solid and seaworthy. And it's fast, contrary to an undeserved
reputation. At, say 75 or 80 degrees true, in 10 knots of wind, we can sail at six knots. Somewhere between 12 and 16, we can get up to 7
or 8 knots. For a heavy cruising boat, that's fast enough for us. The workmanship is excellent; it's not only that the boat is solid, all the
installations are solid as well. Underneath, the boat is also rock solid which keeps the boat on track and protected. We've had fin keels and
spade rudders before where, at the blink of an eye if you're not careful, you round up. Not that the IP won't round up, but it's not a surprise.
After the sale, IP doesn't disappear. As new customers of IP, our main contact has been Will Dittmer. If something breaks, within a couple
of days, we have the part in hand, no questions asked. We purchased the boat from Island Yachting Centre in Palmetto, Florida (Tampa).
All the dealer installs were at the same standard as the IP factory (rock solid). We can't say enough good things about Ted Parson (the
owner), Colin and Tim. We've had similar experiences with the IP dealer in Rock Hall, Maryland, Gratitude Yachting Center. Even though
we didn't buy the boat from them, John Hellwege and his staff have been helpful and great to work with. Bottom line. We couldn't be
happier as Island Packet owners.
Sailmail - Sailmail is great. I don't know what we would do without it. Learn everything you ever wanted to know about SSB's, Pactor
modems and Sailmail at "sailmail.com". The Sailmail software is a free download from the website, along with a propagation tool, a Grib
file viewer and a weather fax program. The use of Sailmail is $250 bucks a year for virtually unlimited use (there are limitations, but you'll
never get there). The only thing you might miss is that you can't send or receive attachments, including pictures (just too slow). If you want
to do that stuff, take your laptop to an internet cafe along the way. Everything else you can do from your boat from anywhere.
We have a Pactor III modem connected to an Icom M802 SSB. We have a serial cable converted to a USB cable that plugs directly into
our laptop. Just read the Sailmail Primer for all that stuff. It's easy to do.
Now for the really easy part. First thing in the morning, we turn on the laptop. We turn on the SSB. Then we open Sailmail. We click on
the propagation tool. We select one of the many worldwide stations and the propagation tool let's you know which frequency to use for that
time of day and your location. We click on the frequency suggested and the SSB dials that frequency. We click on a green go button and
the SSB connects to the station and any email in our mail box is automatically downloaded to our laptop and any emails we have in our out
box on the laptop automatically gets sent to the station and on to the recipient. Sailmail automatically disconnects. We then click on a text
weather button and you click on the particular NOAA forecast you want. We then click on a Grib file button and click and drag for the
lat/long box that we want. Click the green button again and connect to the station. Your weather requests get sent. After Sailmail
automatically disconnects, give it about 15 to 20 seconds, then connect again. Your text weather and Grib file gets downloaded. You can
get this updated info anywhere in the world.
We do this two or three times a day and the whole thing takes a couple of minutes each time. If propagation is not good or your have long
emails, it may take five minutes. I don't know how you would do without Sailmail in remote areas.
Chris Parker - We literally live and potentially die by the weather. We have the ability to get weather forecasts, including weather faxes,
throughout the world (see Sailmail above). I like to think we can interpret the forecasts reasonably well. Having said that, forecasts are
predicated on various weather models and do not add color or interpretation of the models and generally do not include the effects of land
masses, shallow banks and islands. That's where Chris Parker fits in.
Chris Parker's website is Marine Weather & Communications at "mwxc.com". He offers several products, but the one we use costs $295
per year. Chris broadcasts on several frequencies each morning for different areas of the Atlantic and Caribbean. Anyone can listen, but if
you buy his service, you can ask him specific questions based on where you are and what you plan to do. At additional cost (which is
included in the $295 we spend), we get a daily email, via sailmail, with the forecasts he discusses during his broadcasts. If our radio fails, we
can also pick up the satellite phone and talk to him directly. You can also hire him to customize a forecast during long passages if you so
chose.
Simply stated, he's good, very good. We would not consider cruising without using Chris Parker.
ICW - The Intracoastal Waterway. Some love it, some hate it. During the last couple of years we have travelled both the Gulf Coast ICW
and the East Coast ICW (twice for each). The ICW works very well for a lot of different things, but works very poorly for some.
I haven't spent the time to research the original ICW project so I won't go into the original vision for it or it's creation. What I can speak to
is what is happening out there today.
First, I'll talk about the Gulf Coast ICW. We originally travelled the ICW from Pensacola to Galveston in May and June 2006 and returned
to Pensacola from Galveston in November and December 2006. From Pensacola to Port St. Joe the ICW has several fifty foot tall bridges
that precludes us from that area. We have travelled the short trip from Port St. Joe to Apalachicola (very pretty through cypress swamps
along the Apalachicola River). There is no ICW from roughly Apalachicola to Tarpon Springs and then it disappears again from Fort
Meyers Beach to the Florida Keys. We have been through the stretch between Tampa and Fort Meyers Beach, but not between Tampa
and Tarpon Springs.
The ICW between Galveston and Pensacola is very commercial. In any given day of travelling you may encounter a dozen or more tugs
with barges along the way. As a result, the ICW is maintained so that loaded barges with as much as a ten foot draft can easily transit
without regard for tides. Also, as a result, recreational boats with significant drafts can transit easily. There are a few sections in
Louisiana, especially on either side of New Orleans, where finding an anchorage is a challenge. For slow sailboats, transiting these areas is
stressful because there are no real options for the night (there are no marinas). We have even tied up to a barge pulled over for the night
thanks to a generous tug captain. With careful planning and a little inconvenience you can make it work (hey, we made it work twice). The
locks on either side of the Mississippi are interesting, but can be damaging to your boat. We sucked something hard into our bow thruster
while using it to keep from banging the sides of the lock as the water was coming in (it gets very turbulent). On the positive side, there are
some very pretty anchorages and must stops along the way and the waterway is very well marked.
All things considered, we would say the Gulf Coast ICW works well for those who want to make progress towards their destination when
weather would not permit open ocean travel.
We travelled the East Coast ICW from the Lake Worth Inlet in Florida to mile zero at Norfolk, Virginia during the spring of 2007 in transit
to our summer haven in Baltimore and back again in the fall of 2007. We have not travelled the ICW from Lake Worth to the Florida Keys.
The ICW is very shallow from Miami to the Keys and would preclude anything other than a shoal draft boat (say less than five feet) from
using the waterway.
In contrast from the Gulf Coast ICW, the East Coast ICW is not very commercial. Instead of encountering more than a dozen tugs each
day, we have not encountered more than a dozen combined in all the days we have travelled the East Coast ICW. As a result, the ICW is
not maintained very well and, generally, not at all in the Carolinas and Georgia. Maintenance is not much better in Virgina or Florida.
Also, as a result, some areas have deteriorated by shoaling to such an extent that a moderate draft boat can not transit without paying close
attention to tides (some channels are zero at mean low water). The good news is that the tides are as much as nine feet in Georgia, so close
attention can get you through the shallow spots albeit stressful. The bad news is that the large tidal difference exacerbates the shoaling to
the extent that what is passable today may not be tomorrow. We have cleaned the barnacles from our keel on several occasions with a
shoaling bottom where there was supposed to be plenty of water. We prefer to clean the hull by other means. It's a shame to see the
demise of the East Coast ICW. It will only get worse. It will not get better.
There are some places that were a pleasure to visit, most of which were marinas and not anchorages. There are a few great anchorages,
but marginal ones far outweigh the good ones. Marinas are plentiful along the East Coast ICW.
All things considered, we would say the East Coast ICW works well in some areas, but does not work in others. If we ever travel the east
coast again, most of the travel will be ocean miles. We will avoid some of the shallow areas in Georgia and the Carolinas at all cost.
Internet Access - Don't count on frequent internet access. We had mistakenly believed that internet access would be easy to come by
everywhere. Just take your lap top ashore and surely some local establishment would have easy access.
Not so. Even if you stay at a marina for a couple of days you can't count on it. We paid over two bucks a foot in Melbourne, Florida and
the marina did not have an internet connection (not just wireless, but none period). That marina was the exception, but hey, you pay through
the nose to stay in a marina and we avoid them if at all possible.
Some places do have internet access, but with limited bandwidth. For those non techno savy types that means slow and even non usable but
for the most simple tasks.
On the other hand, we have found good internet access in the most unlikely places. In Salinas, Puerto Rico, for instance, we found lots of
bandwidth at a combination childrens clothing store and ink cartridge refill place. Go figure.
Bottom line is that you can't count on having internet access regularly. We have gone three or four weeks without access, all the while
looking for access. And we haven't been to the boonies yet.
Jerry Cans - We have lots of tankage. We can carry 260 gallons of water and 160 gallons of fuel. The problem is keeping those tanks full.
Water. Our Spectra watermaker works great. As long as we are in relatively clean water, we make as much as we want. However, there
are some places you can't make water. Well, I guess you can but your filters would clog really fast. Of course, even though you could, you
wouldn't want to make water in very crowded land locked lagoons because of too many boats dumping their heads (there are no pump out
facilities out here). We made water in Salinas but clogged our filters in a couple of weeks. In Saint Martin, Simpson Bay Lagoon was too
dirty. So how do you get water. Most of the time it is not practical or possible to go to a marina so the answer is jerry jugs. We now have
four five gallon jerry jugs for water and Ellis gets in the dinghy every couple of days to find water to keep our tanks topped off. It's a lot of
work, but necessary. Save yourself the hassle of finding jerry jugs later and buy them in the states.
Fuel. Sometimes marinas are tough to find.
In Georgetown, Bahamas the only real option is to take a day to go about six miles north to a resort Marina. However, if the swells are
large you can't get through the entrance channel.
In the Turks and Caicos, marinas are not built for cruisers and are too shallow for most to enter anyway.
In Luperon, a really, old, rusty boat comes around to pump diesel in your tanks if you want.
In Boqueron, marinas don't usually sell diesel.
In Saint Martin, if you go to a marina for fuel, you may loose your anchoring spot.
Jerry jugs come to the rescue. We now have four, and even though it takes a few trips, we can top off our tanks anywhere. Again. Buy
them before you leave the states.
Tidesend.com - We carry charts for ease (you can do some planning without turning on your chartplotter or navigation software), but
primarily for safety. If our electronics go for some reason, we have two hand held GPS units specifically for that purpose. They are great
at giving you your coordinates, but obviously, you need charts to figure our where that puts you. The only problem is charts are expensive,
because you need hundreds. We found Tidesend.com from other cruisers. Go to their website and check them out. You order your charts,
they print them on site and send them to you. The cost is about half of what you would pay elsewhere. The catch. The charts are in black
and white instead of color. For five bucks they will send you some samples. After you look them over, you will readily see that the quality
is excellent and you really don't need color after all. We bought charts for the entire western Caribbean and saved a bundle. Wish we
would have known about them sooner.
Cruisingsolutions.com - Check out their website. They have only a few items made specifically for cruisers. We bought their
headphones used primarily for anchoring. Just try anchoring in the middle of the night, in the midst of a 30 knot squall, in a crowded
anchorage without them. I don't think you can do it. In calmer conditions you can talk to each other instead of screaming like you see so
many do. You still may be cursing, but no one else can hear you.
Freezer - We have a freezer and a refrigerator. They are Frigoboat DC units with a keel cooler. They are very efficient and work great.
Our only problem was that keeping the freezer at say 20 degrees F, used lots and lots of power, especially as we moved further south into
warmer and warmer water. In the beginning we kept the freezer sufficiently cold to keep lots of meats and other things frozen for months.
After our first season we found that most places have what you need. But even if they don't, we decided that keeping the freezer that cold
didn't make sense for our lifestyle. The freezer used so much power that on a windless, cloudy day we found ourselves running the
generator at least a couple of hours a day, maybe longer (diesel is expensive). We modified our eating habits a bit (we just eat what we can
find in the area) and now keep the freezer only cold enough to keep ice and maybe a package or two of something frozen if we keep it
against the cold plate. The rest of the space is filled with cold drinks. That modification in use has reduced our power consumption
dramatically. We now only run our generator for hot water (we must have hot showers and wash dishes) once a day for less than an hour
(unless we are on the move, then the engine will heat water sufficiently). This summer Ellis will add some insulation to make the units even
more efficient, but even if we can run the freezer at 20 degrees with low power consumption we probably won't.
Iridium - We have an Iridium satellite phone. We have it primarily for safety reasons but use it for calling the kids and others if we need
to. We have it snuggly cradled into a docking station with your basic Radio Shack phone plugged into that. Works just like you phone at
home. Iridium has worked for us, first time every time. After all, it's the satellite phone system the US military uses worldwide so you can
bet they will maintain their satellites. We have heard nothing but complaints from those who have Globalstar phones (you're lucky if it
works when you want it to). Iridium is expensive (about a $1.25 a minute), but when you need it you need it.
More to Come
reputation. At, say 75 or 80 degrees true, in 10 knots of wind, we can sail at six knots. Somewhere between 12 and 16, we can get up to 7
or 8 knots. For a heavy cruising boat, that's fast enough for us. The workmanship is excellent; it's not only that the boat is solid, all the
installations are solid as well. Underneath, the boat is also rock solid which keeps the boat on track and protected. We've had fin keels and
spade rudders before where, at the blink of an eye if you're not careful, you round up. Not that the IP won't round up, but it's not a surprise.
After the sale, IP doesn't disappear. As new customers of IP, our main contact has been Will Dittmer. If something breaks, within a couple
of days, we have the part in hand, no questions asked. We purchased the boat from Island Yachting Centre in Palmetto, Florida (Tampa).
All the dealer installs were at the same standard as the IP factory (rock solid). We can't say enough good things about Ted Parson (the
owner), Colin and Tim. We've had similar experiences with the IP dealer in Rock Hall, Maryland, Gratitude Yachting Center. Even though
we didn't buy the boat from them, John Hellwege and his staff have been helpful and great to work with. Bottom line. We couldn't be
happier as Island Packet owners.
Sailmail - Sailmail is great. I don't know what we would do without it. Learn everything you ever wanted to know about SSB's, Pactor
modems and Sailmail at "sailmail.com". The Sailmail software is a free download from the website, along with a propagation tool, a Grib
file viewer and a weather fax program. The use of Sailmail is $250 bucks a year for virtually unlimited use (there are limitations, but you'll
never get there). The only thing you might miss is that you can't send or receive attachments, including pictures (just too slow). If you want
to do that stuff, take your laptop to an internet cafe along the way. Everything else you can do from your boat from anywhere.
We have a Pactor III modem connected to an Icom M802 SSB. We have a serial cable converted to a USB cable that plugs directly into
our laptop. Just read the Sailmail Primer for all that stuff. It's easy to do.
Now for the really easy part. First thing in the morning, we turn on the laptop. We turn on the SSB. Then we open Sailmail. We click on
the propagation tool. We select one of the many worldwide stations and the propagation tool let's you know which frequency to use for that
time of day and your location. We click on the frequency suggested and the SSB dials that frequency. We click on a green go button and
the SSB connects to the station and any email in our mail box is automatically downloaded to our laptop and any emails we have in our out
box on the laptop automatically gets sent to the station and on to the recipient. Sailmail automatically disconnects. We then click on a text
weather button and you click on the particular NOAA forecast you want. We then click on a Grib file button and click and drag for the
lat/long box that we want. Click the green button again and connect to the station. Your weather requests get sent. After Sailmail
automatically disconnects, give it about 15 to 20 seconds, then connect again. Your text weather and Grib file gets downloaded. You can
get this updated info anywhere in the world.
We do this two or three times a day and the whole thing takes a couple of minutes each time. If propagation is not good or your have long
emails, it may take five minutes. I don't know how you would do without Sailmail in remote areas.
Chris Parker - We literally live and potentially die by the weather. We have the ability to get weather forecasts, including weather faxes,
throughout the world (see Sailmail above). I like to think we can interpret the forecasts reasonably well. Having said that, forecasts are
predicated on various weather models and do not add color or interpretation of the models and generally do not include the effects of land
masses, shallow banks and islands. That's where Chris Parker fits in.
Chris Parker's website is Marine Weather & Communications at "mwxc.com". He offers several products, but the one we use costs $295
per year. Chris broadcasts on several frequencies each morning for different areas of the Atlantic and Caribbean. Anyone can listen, but if
you buy his service, you can ask him specific questions based on where you are and what you plan to do. At additional cost (which is
included in the $295 we spend), we get a daily email, via sailmail, with the forecasts he discusses during his broadcasts. If our radio fails, we
can also pick up the satellite phone and talk to him directly. You can also hire him to customize a forecast during long passages if you so
chose.
Simply stated, he's good, very good. We would not consider cruising without using Chris Parker.
ICW - The Intracoastal Waterway. Some love it, some hate it. During the last couple of years we have travelled both the Gulf Coast ICW
and the East Coast ICW (twice for each). The ICW works very well for a lot of different things, but works very poorly for some.
I haven't spent the time to research the original ICW project so I won't go into the original vision for it or it's creation. What I can speak to
is what is happening out there today.
First, I'll talk about the Gulf Coast ICW. We originally travelled the ICW from Pensacola to Galveston in May and June 2006 and returned
to Pensacola from Galveston in November and December 2006. From Pensacola to Port St. Joe the ICW has several fifty foot tall bridges
that precludes us from that area. We have travelled the short trip from Port St. Joe to Apalachicola (very pretty through cypress swamps
along the Apalachicola River). There is no ICW from roughly Apalachicola to Tarpon Springs and then it disappears again from Fort
Meyers Beach to the Florida Keys. We have been through the stretch between Tampa and Fort Meyers Beach, but not between Tampa
and Tarpon Springs.
The ICW between Galveston and Pensacola is very commercial. In any given day of travelling you may encounter a dozen or more tugs
with barges along the way. As a result, the ICW is maintained so that loaded barges with as much as a ten foot draft can easily transit
without regard for tides. Also, as a result, recreational boats with significant drafts can transit easily. There are a few sections in
Louisiana, especially on either side of New Orleans, where finding an anchorage is a challenge. For slow sailboats, transiting these areas is
stressful because there are no real options for the night (there are no marinas). We have even tied up to a barge pulled over for the night
thanks to a generous tug captain. With careful planning and a little inconvenience you can make it work (hey, we made it work twice). The
locks on either side of the Mississippi are interesting, but can be damaging to your boat. We sucked something hard into our bow thruster
while using it to keep from banging the sides of the lock as the water was coming in (it gets very turbulent). On the positive side, there are
some very pretty anchorages and must stops along the way and the waterway is very well marked.
All things considered, we would say the Gulf Coast ICW works well for those who want to make progress towards their destination when
weather would not permit open ocean travel.
We travelled the East Coast ICW from the Lake Worth Inlet in Florida to mile zero at Norfolk, Virginia during the spring of 2007 in transit
to our summer haven in Baltimore and back again in the fall of 2007. We have not travelled the ICW from Lake Worth to the Florida Keys.
The ICW is very shallow from Miami to the Keys and would preclude anything other than a shoal draft boat (say less than five feet) from
using the waterway.
In contrast from the Gulf Coast ICW, the East Coast ICW is not very commercial. Instead of encountering more than a dozen tugs each
day, we have not encountered more than a dozen combined in all the days we have travelled the East Coast ICW. As a result, the ICW is
not maintained very well and, generally, not at all in the Carolinas and Georgia. Maintenance is not much better in Virgina or Florida.
Also, as a result, some areas have deteriorated by shoaling to such an extent that a moderate draft boat can not transit without paying close
attention to tides (some channels are zero at mean low water). The good news is that the tides are as much as nine feet in Georgia, so close
attention can get you through the shallow spots albeit stressful. The bad news is that the large tidal difference exacerbates the shoaling to
the extent that what is passable today may not be tomorrow. We have cleaned the barnacles from our keel on several occasions with a
shoaling bottom where there was supposed to be plenty of water. We prefer to clean the hull by other means. It's a shame to see the
demise of the East Coast ICW. It will only get worse. It will not get better.
There are some places that were a pleasure to visit, most of which were marinas and not anchorages. There are a few great anchorages,
but marginal ones far outweigh the good ones. Marinas are plentiful along the East Coast ICW.
All things considered, we would say the East Coast ICW works well in some areas, but does not work in others. If we ever travel the east
coast again, most of the travel will be ocean miles. We will avoid some of the shallow areas in Georgia and the Carolinas at all cost.
Internet Access - Don't count on frequent internet access. We had mistakenly believed that internet access would be easy to come by
everywhere. Just take your lap top ashore and surely some local establishment would have easy access.
Not so. Even if you stay at a marina for a couple of days you can't count on it. We paid over two bucks a foot in Melbourne, Florida and
the marina did not have an internet connection (not just wireless, but none period). That marina was the exception, but hey, you pay through
the nose to stay in a marina and we avoid them if at all possible.
Some places do have internet access, but with limited bandwidth. For those non techno savy types that means slow and even non usable but
for the most simple tasks.
On the other hand, we have found good internet access in the most unlikely places. In Salinas, Puerto Rico, for instance, we found lots of
bandwidth at a combination childrens clothing store and ink cartridge refill place. Go figure.
Bottom line is that you can't count on having internet access regularly. We have gone three or four weeks without access, all the while
looking for access. And we haven't been to the boonies yet.
Jerry Cans - We have lots of tankage. We can carry 260 gallons of water and 160 gallons of fuel. The problem is keeping those tanks full.
Water. Our Spectra watermaker works great. As long as we are in relatively clean water, we make as much as we want. However, there
are some places you can't make water. Well, I guess you can but your filters would clog really fast. Of course, even though you could, you
wouldn't want to make water in very crowded land locked lagoons because of too many boats dumping their heads (there are no pump out
facilities out here). We made water in Salinas but clogged our filters in a couple of weeks. In Saint Martin, Simpson Bay Lagoon was too
dirty. So how do you get water. Most of the time it is not practical or possible to go to a marina so the answer is jerry jugs. We now have
four five gallon jerry jugs for water and Ellis gets in the dinghy every couple of days to find water to keep our tanks topped off. It's a lot of
work, but necessary. Save yourself the hassle of finding jerry jugs later and buy them in the states.
Fuel. Sometimes marinas are tough to find.
In Georgetown, Bahamas the only real option is to take a day to go about six miles north to a resort Marina. However, if the swells are
large you can't get through the entrance channel.
In the Turks and Caicos, marinas are not built for cruisers and are too shallow for most to enter anyway.
In Luperon, a really, old, rusty boat comes around to pump diesel in your tanks if you want.
In Boqueron, marinas don't usually sell diesel.
In Saint Martin, if you go to a marina for fuel, you may loose your anchoring spot.
Jerry jugs come to the rescue. We now have four, and even though it takes a few trips, we can top off our tanks anywhere. Again. Buy
them before you leave the states.
Tidesend.com - We carry charts for ease (you can do some planning without turning on your chartplotter or navigation software), but
primarily for safety. If our electronics go for some reason, we have two hand held GPS units specifically for that purpose. They are great
at giving you your coordinates, but obviously, you need charts to figure our where that puts you. The only problem is charts are expensive,
because you need hundreds. We found Tidesend.com from other cruisers. Go to their website and check them out. You order your charts,
they print them on site and send them to you. The cost is about half of what you would pay elsewhere. The catch. The charts are in black
and white instead of color. For five bucks they will send you some samples. After you look them over, you will readily see that the quality
is excellent and you really don't need color after all. We bought charts for the entire western Caribbean and saved a bundle. Wish we
would have known about them sooner.
Cruisingsolutions.com - Check out their website. They have only a few items made specifically for cruisers. We bought their
headphones used primarily for anchoring. Just try anchoring in the middle of the night, in the midst of a 30 knot squall, in a crowded
anchorage without them. I don't think you can do it. In calmer conditions you can talk to each other instead of screaming like you see so
many do. You still may be cursing, but no one else can hear you.
Freezer - We have a freezer and a refrigerator. They are Frigoboat DC units with a keel cooler. They are very efficient and work great.
Our only problem was that keeping the freezer at say 20 degrees F, used lots and lots of power, especially as we moved further south into
warmer and warmer water. In the beginning we kept the freezer sufficiently cold to keep lots of meats and other things frozen for months.
After our first season we found that most places have what you need. But even if they don't, we decided that keeping the freezer that cold
didn't make sense for our lifestyle. The freezer used so much power that on a windless, cloudy day we found ourselves running the
generator at least a couple of hours a day, maybe longer (diesel is expensive). We modified our eating habits a bit (we just eat what we can
find in the area) and now keep the freezer only cold enough to keep ice and maybe a package or two of something frozen if we keep it
against the cold plate. The rest of the space is filled with cold drinks. That modification in use has reduced our power consumption
dramatically. We now only run our generator for hot water (we must have hot showers and wash dishes) once a day for less than an hour
(unless we are on the move, then the engine will heat water sufficiently). This summer Ellis will add some insulation to make the units even
more efficient, but even if we can run the freezer at 20 degrees with low power consumption we probably won't.
Iridium - We have an Iridium satellite phone. We have it primarily for safety reasons but use it for calling the kids and others if we need
to. We have it snuggly cradled into a docking station with your basic Radio Shack phone plugged into that. Works just like you phone at
home. Iridium has worked for us, first time every time. After all, it's the satellite phone system the US military uses worldwide so you can
bet they will maintain their satellites. We have heard nothing but complaints from those who have Globalstar phones (you're lucky if it
works when you want it to). Iridium is expensive (about a $1.25 a minute), but when you need it you need it.
More to Come