I awoke in Caleta San Juanico at 7:00 AM to sunny skies and winds of over 20 knots. The Norther has begun and it is forecast to continue through Sunday and into Monday.
I have been using Sailmail to send and receive email over the SSB (single sideband) radio. It is proving to be very useful and I am glad that Marty Kirk at Roger’s Electronics in Portland persuaded me to install a SSB radio. I originally thought that having a satellite phone would suffice. Sailmail is how I send out these updates.
Sailmail proved quite easy to use, once I read the tutorial that comes with the Airmail PC program that controls Sailmail. To use Sailmail, I plug in the USB cable that connects the SSB radio to the PC, power up the SSB radio, and launch the Airmail program. The Airmail program is a very simple email client that allows me to create, send, and receive email. It contains a simple address book function that allows me to store the names and email addresses of friends. To send mail, I simple create an empty email message using Airmail, fill in the subject and text of the message, and fill in the “To” and “CC” fields from the address book. I then click the “Post” button to post the message. Unlike a normal email program, posting the message does not actual send it. Instead, it puts the outgoing message in the “Outbox” and marks it as ready to send. I can create and post as many messages as I like. They all end up in the “Outbox”.
Once I am done creating email messages, I switch to the portion of the Sailmail program that actually sends and receives email over the SSB radio. That is the part that is unique to Sailmail and it took me a while to get comfortable with it. There are 20 Sailmail SSB radio stations spread around the world capable of sending and receiving email. Nine are in various locations around the US and Canada. The remaining 11 are scattered around the world in Panama, Trinidad, Manihi, Niue, Chile, Belgium, Australia, the Red Sea, Brunei, and Africa. Each of the stations is capable of transmitting on multiple frequencies. This is important because the ability to communicate depends upon both the distance from my boat to the Sailmail station and the time of day. One of the reasons SSB radios can communicate at great distances is that the radio waves can leave my boat and bounce off the ionosphere before reaching the receiving Sailmail station. The bounce allows the radio waves to travel great distances around the world. If the radio waves only travelled in straight lines, communication would only be possible over short distances. The nature of the bounce is controlled by the conditions in the ionosphere. These conditions change radically from day to night, and they even vary during daylight hours.
I must first choose which Sailmail station I wish to use, and I must then select the frequency I wish to use. Once I select a station, the Airmail program has a tool that helps me select the frequency. When I click the “Propagation” button, the Airmail program displays a chart showing the quality of communication that is likely at a given time for each frequency the station supports. That normally narrows the choice to two or three good frequencies per station.
Once I have selected a station and frequency, I must ensure the station is not already in use. If the station is busy, I must either wait, select another frequency at that station, or select another station altogether. At first I had difficulty knowing whether a station was already in use. Once I select a station and frequency, the Airmail program automatically tunes the SSB radio to the proper frequency. That allows me to listen to the frequency over the SSB radio’s speaker. The hard part was telling if the frequency was already in use. It was hard for me to distinguish between the normal background static that is almost always present and a frequency that was in use. I talked with another cruiser about this. I learned that a frequency which is being used sounds much like a FAX machine over the telephone. With practice I am getting better at finding an available frequency.
Bob and Doreen from“Scottish Mist” a Westsail 42 from San Francisco stopped by in their dinghy to introduce themselves this morning. I learned that Bob was a private pilot for the family that owns Foster Farms of chicken fame. He has been retired for a few years now. Like many of the other cruisers I have meet here, they have been coming to the sea for almost 20 years. Like many others, they keep their boat on the hard in San Carlos. They just launched the boat for this season and are now making their way toward La Paz and from there to the mainland of Mexico. They said that this might be their last year in the Sea of Cortez. They may take their boat back to Alameda next year so that they and their children can use the boat like a vacation home in the San Francisco area. As I learned when working and living on my boat at Svensen’s Boat Yard in Alameda, the Alameda area is a wonderful place to stay. The climate in Alameda is very agreeable. The homes and businesses on Alameda are very inviting. Alameda is very close to San Francisco with everything the city has to offer. Boat services are plentiful. There are many nice marinas.
The wind has been blowing strongly all day. I have experienced gust of up to 40 knots here in the anchorage. I am glad I am not travelling in the Sea of Cortez today. I can see from here in the anchorage that the waves in the Sea are quite large. By contrast, it is well protected here in the anchorage.
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