November 12, 2006: Surfing Oldies
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

What persuaded us to get on the fast track after trailing far behind all these many years?

We have always been behind hand in trying out the latest and the fastest and the most up-to-date technological doodads, partly because they are usually not only extremely expensive, but they also tend to break down. More importantly, they might complicate our gentle cruising life. So it was that when we began to email friends and family, we chose not to use our radio with SailMail or Airmail, as so many do with various degrees of success. We chose instead to plug into shore phone lines. When ferrying our Dell Inspiron 3700 and its predecessors back and forth in the dinghy we were always worried that we might inadvertently deep-six it. We had to be ultra-careful to keep it protected from jolts, splashes and rain. But it was good exercise, we reckoned, to carry it up hill and down. Usually we just popped in on friends, which wasn’t too bad when we were content to collect email every week or so. We loved the excuse to visit people we knew here and there in various anchorages, to chew the fat and catch up on news and views, but we really could not take the time to use their lines to browse on the Internet or download anything much. Also it was a bit cheeky to presume upon the good nature of others when it became a regular visitation, even though it was a free connection.

Online aboard!

Then the other day in Opua, we popped in to see acquaintances on their new catamaran. Seems they have become attached to what they call an Air Card, which they’d discovered while in China. We thought it the height of luxury that they were able to access the Internet, send and receive emails, and even use Skype phone service right from the comfort of their floating home without having to use their cell phone (a costly, more complicated way to go), or hook onto WiFi (which necessitates having to anchor or moor within Coee distance of a marina, hotel or other shore facility), or spend hours and dollars in Cybercafes or on satellite coverage.

We looked into it, asking around, pricing, and comparing. We discovered that there is, as of the first of October, something new on the NZ market, a Vodem dongle. The Vodem dongle is a USB plug-in add-on that resembles a mini-mouse with anorexia. It comes with a local Sim Card. It is not a PC card to insert, as is Telecom’s Air Card, but it is less expensive, faster and we hoped, just as versatile.

Vodem dongle.

We decided to give it a try. We signed up for a monthly 200mb of Internet access for $30 a month, which should be ample, we reckoned. With that plan, the dongle itself cost us $200 kiwi, including Sim card for this area. (It would have been $99 with the $65-a-month 1GB plan.) Suddenly we could send and receive from the safety and comfort of our boat, for this device permits us to get on the Internet from wherever we happen to be anchored (Vodafone cell phone propagation permitting, that is). An indicated potential 236 Kbps is far faster than the actual performance. Nevertheless, in some locations the actual performance is so much faster than the landlines we habitually plug into, we could scarcely believe our screen.

We have not as yet been able to successfully use Skype. We can hear and see Michel’s brother in Brussels on our screen looking confused and saying, "I can’t hear you!" probably because Vodafone has not to date got broadband north of Whangarei, though that is coming, we are assured. Tune in for the next exciting episode. Meanwhile we feel up-to-the minute, delighted to be able to send and receive emails without leaving the comfort of our salon, to browse the Internet, download satellite weather maps, and Google at our ease. The battery needs more feeding of course…it wouldn’t do on passages out of cell phone coverage…and it’s not free. But it’s such fun!