SKYPE AND WIFI DOWN UNDER
April 19, 2007
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

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

We had hoped when we got our plug-in Vodem Dongle that we would automatically be able to use Skype to make telephone calls, at least computer to computer - but our hopes were dashed. Yes, there is landline broadband in Northland NZ. But no, there is not any fast access yet on the Vodaphone mobile telephone network, and will not be for a couple of years perhaps. The furthest north so far is Whangarei, and there, only in the immediate downtown area.

We did, however, manage to use Skype on a camping trip in our camping van when we were perched on a hilltop above the old Whangarei Money Factory. For nearly half an hour Michel chatted with his older brother in Brussels from the front seat of the van with VODEM perched on the roof. From the boat, however, though we are able to receive Skype, we cannot get out. We watch our friends on their webcams as they say, "I can't hear you". We know when they are online, but other than dash off an email, we are incommunicado. But having been able to use Skype in Whangarei, we know that it will work wherever Vodafone extends its 3G mobile coverage.

It would be a great advantage to be able to phone Europe while aboard the boat, as otherwise, due to time discrepancies, we must go ashore to make an inexpensive overseas landline call at awkward hours. Using a phone card (KiaOra is the card we use) from a friend's landline telephone, we can call Belgium or France, where Michel has siblings, for a mere eight cents a minute, and Canada or the US for seven cents a minute, something which I value highly as I can talk to my younger sister who is on Life's Last Lap, having been stricken by pancreatic cancer. She is at home, one of her daughters, an ICU nurse, with her.

As for Northland marinas, many are equipped to handle WiFi. Some suitably with-it cruisers manage to tap into other nearby WiFi installation in various anchorages whenever they find they are able to do so - anchored near Whangaroa's Kingfisher Lodge, for example. Someone told us he managed to do so. More and more opportunities spring up along the coastline all the time. In Vavau',u five years ago, before built-in WiFi in laptops, an American electronics nerd was experimenting with a system to rent out transmitters and antennas to moored and anchored vessels at $25 for a 24-hour period. Its distance was limited and signals variable. But still, a few who could afford the luxury benefited from the service. It has all gone far beyond those humble beginnings now.

Friends of ours who know what they are doing have their home computer tied to their phone, so that they can call it with their cell phone when they are aboard their yacht, in order to make calls on Skype to various parts of the world where family members are spread around. It is a practical and inexpensive way to call anywhere in the world from their boat because they get unlimited calls between their mobile and their home phone.

We have progressed from having no radio transmitter of any kind for the first few years of our cruising life, to AM marine band when chartering in the late 60s in the Virgin Islands, and on to ham radio in the early 70s when we were back in BC. We progressed from a Swan Cygnet, on to an Atlas, then to the one we have now, a Kenwood TS430S, very old technology indeed, but they all served us well in turn in their time. When VHF marine radio took over, we scrapped the AM set.

Computers? Five of them so far over the years, beginning with a Toshiba 1200H, and graduating to our present Dell Inspiron 3700, with which we do battle regularly. Its keyboard is its Achilles heel. At the moment it does triple a's, e's, h's, inserts spaces willynilly, and doesn't always capitalise letters. So we'll put it out in the sun - when we get some - and then when Michel has time, he'll take out the keyboard and clean the contacts, hoping we won't have to look for another keyboard online yet again. Meanwhile the spell check cleverly copes with most of the above. Of course we can always use a cumbersome separate keyboard.

All of the above explains why we got so utterly mind-blown when we watched Canadian yacht TESS transiting the Panama Canal on screen at 6:15 one morning recently! We watched them entering Miraflores Lock and even imagined we could see hands waving as promised. Bless our Vodem dongle and our wonky Dell, and bless Angela, Ken and lads for emailing their transit times.