April 19, 2007 - Skype and WiFi for Cruisers
by Scott & Ryan Bannerot

We asked all the SetSail correspondents about using WiFi and Skype to stay in touch while cruising.

Let's be honest here - take a look at this photo of poor old Elan, and realize that we've been struggling to hang on to the dream of late as the good old ship waits patiently at the dock for the next adventure. This is not dissimilar, however, to the beginning of our association, when it took eight years to recover from the purchase and get completely organized for an early departure on "the big cruise", when I left home on Plantation Key, Florida in early 1995 at age 36. During that eight years before the pre-cruise refit, from 1986 to 1994, it was painful also to see the boat mostly tied up day after day, but with enough work it all came together, and I have faith that it will all come together again. I think for those of us experiencing a hiatus in our cruising lives, we just need to be realistic and keep believing. Particularly for those of us lucky enough to have had a good run and to have already realized most of our sailing dreams, we know it's out there waiting - it's just time, money, and family affairs all coming right at the same time to allow it to happen again.

Elan waiting patiently at the dock in Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia for the next adventure.

Now, while we've been sidelined, many interesting technological developments are coming along that vastly assist cruisers with what previously was one of the most difficult problems for many - isolation, from family and friends, and also from the world and from business. More and more, it is becoming feasible to remain connected while afloat. Here's an Australian-based perspective on two such developments.

Although Elan has been resting, Ryan and I have been able to get offshore in the course of working for Nomad Sportfishing, a Brisbane-based company that operates seaplane fly-in charters to the Coral Sea and other charters up and down the length of the Great Barrier Reef. We've traveled the length of this incredible reef now together aboard the mothership Odyssey, and during this time we used WiFi to communicate via email wherever we had coverage. Nomad's contract was with Telstra, and we ended up running the wire out the window and duct taping the little antenna to the wheelhouse roof for best reception. Even so, the coverage was only along sections of this immense, windswept coast. I did send one story to SetSail last year via WiFi as we were rumbling through the Whitsunday Islands late one starry night. Clearly, this capability would be immensely useful to us aboard Elan cruising up and down the northeastern Australia coast and would keep us in touch. The cost, according to Nomad owner Damon Olsen, was at the time very reasonable, something a cruiser could easily afford.

As an extension of this capability, one has to consider the possibility of Skype. We did not use Skype offshore aboard Odyssey, but when our French chef broke his leg and convalesced at our house in Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia he used it daily to connect with his parents and sister in France. This was my first exposure to it. My second exposure to it was getting a bill for all of the massive amount of megabytes downloaded to support it, sensitizing me to the necessity of having unlimited downloads in one's account if one wished to use this technology. I believe Nomad's arrangement with Telstra for WiFi reception did have download limits and charges, so that Skype would not have been a cost-effective alternative. However, what about having Skype capability (a $60 web cam and the software can be downloaded for free), and simply toting one's laptop into the Internet cafes in port? You wouldn't see the folks at home every day, but sometimes is probably more than enough to keep everyone happy and in touch.