January 17, 2004--GETTING CONNECTED

	Still plugging away!

Our plan was to sail to Thailand and celebrate Christmas and New Year's with our close cruising friends. We gathered a few provisions--mostly of the liquid type, as Langkawi is a Duty Free port; spirits, and wines in particular, are much cheaper than in Phuket. While sharing a final dinner aboard DEUSA, Rosemary said, "Here, why don't you take this Thai telephone with you. I don't even know if it works anymore, but we won't be needing it here in Langkawi." Good idea.

We have had our own cell phone on the boat for about 4 years now. In fact, we were one of the first "kids on the block" to have a phone aboard out here. This was mainly because our nephew, who was working for Nokia at the time, gave us the software and the all-important cable that would connect our computer to a cell phone. We could then do E-mail right from the boat. All we had to do was buy the Nokia cell phone.

It wasn't quite that easy. We had to sign up for a regular phone service as the prepaid systems would not do data at that time; foreigners pay a hefty deposit for this. Also had to sign up for an ISP server. Then get the phone software and an E-mail program installed into my "old" (3 years) computer--NOT easy, but our local computer shop guru persevered and did it. Voila! We were online. Cyber space had invaded SUNFLOWER!

What we didn't realize at the time, was how useful having the cell phone itself would turn out to be. Call the dentist to make an appointment; call the hardware store to see what time they open; call Lin's grocery to see if the shipment of turkeys had arrived; call Rebak Marina and make a booking; call Carolyn and ask her to turn on the VHF so we can talk! The possibilities...So we were hooked; we knew how nice it would be to have a cell phone in Thailand.

Why not just use our own phone in Thailand? Why not indeed. Until recently the Thai government had a tight control on cell phones. Their system would only work with phones purchased in Thailand. We had no idea if this "loaner-phone" even worked. First step: charge up the battery. And therein lies a whole different facet of the connectivity game.

The charger unit for the phone had a plug on it that would not fit into our inverter. This is not the first time such a thing has happened, and SUNFLOWER carries a whole range of plugs, adapters, cords with different plugs and connectors on the ends. Al finally plugged the charger unit into an adapter plug that takes just about any configuration of prongs, and plugged that into a flat based, multi-socket which is on the end of an extension cord that would fit into the inverter.

For various reasons, SUNFLOWER has spent more time in marinas this year than is usual. Why is it that marinas always seem to have a power point requiring a different kind of plug than the 451 kinds you already carry? I exaggerate. But case in point--3 marinas in Langkawi, 3 different plugs needed to hook up to the electricity. We carry two lengths of heavy duty extension cord which can be fitted with whatever plug is in vogue at the time of need. Also, a very long extension cord that can go from the inverter or from our portable generator to whatever tool Al is working with outside.

Back to the phone. With the battery fully charged we turned it on and got a "Permanently Disabled" message. OK. Next step--confer with our two friends named Jim who both had Thai phones and Malaysian phones and would know what the score was. You should have seen those 3 guys, their 6 cell phones, a bunch of SIM cards, direction booklets (some in Thai--no help) along with the assortment of accessories all spread out on the table below trying to make each other's phone work! In the end, Al took the SIM card from the Thai "loaner" phone, put it into our Malaysian phone, and it worked. The card was still valid and even had some Baht left to spend! Once they figured out the phone number Al called Jim; Jim called Al. It looked pretty silly with them sitting across the table and talking on the phone to each other. But there we had it--we were connected!