April 28th A trip to Vona Vona Lagoon

To photograph bats flying overhead in the sunset, a trip through the Vona Vona lagoon took us to Lola island. KUNA was left behind at anchor: it was best to conduct a reckie by fast motor canoe (a banana boat with a 40 horse power that is) rather than motor for 7+ hours zig zaging through the lagoon. During the trip I obtained a well marked GPS track for the deeper waters to follow next time with the KUNA. This lagoon is definitely catamaran country, with a max depth of 5 meters and reefs everywhere. Most small islands are free of people, and impossible to land on, as bordered by mangrove. As such it is also the country for crocodiles.



An enthusiastic scientist tells us all about the bats flying overhead in this spot, but are they really filmable ?!!


Small islets are scattered in the lagoon which is about 5 m deep on average. Crocs live here.

Vona Vona lagoon viewed from the sky (Google Earth!)


At the resort on lola island (a very low key establishment) we met a Venezuaelian fanily a father and his three sons, who have been cruising on their well travelled yacht since 1995! The sons are surfers, the yacht was loaded with 30 surfboards!!!. They were waiting for a wave 2 miles of the resort, though it’s quite late in the season (normally Dec to April) they were still hoping for a low to generate swell from the Solomons Sea. They had the refreshing mentality of going where the wind pushed them…

April 24th: Observing bats

The flying foxes pointed out by scientist Chris Filardi
used to reside right in the middle of the mission
school but the trees were cut and they moved further
out on tree overhanging gardens. With the help of
the local carpenter, a large 2 m scaffold was built
to enable the camera to be level with the colony,
making sure no banana tree or cassava was going to
be damaged. Across the track from the scaffold are
a few house with locals keen to chat or help
whenever. One is even playing the guitar.

The bats are the perfect example of a migratory
exodus: in the search for food, they moved to
the Solomons islands where they ended up staying.
As a result, they evolved independently and now
look very different from those in Queensland for
example. They have become an endemic and have
developed various light blond and red tones of fur.
The males exhibit rather large genitals. Its seems
that they spend most of their time licking their
dick, in fact - not much else to do hanging off a tree
all day! They don't do much at all, hang down, fight
a little bit, sleep when it is cool enough (before
or after rain, before sunset) with their wings wrapped
around their face or vent themselves by flapping their
wings when the sun comes out. It seems that the entire
tree is pulsating with venting bats, then. Comes dark,
exactly at 7:45 (!!!), they leave the tree to forage
for fruit in the gardens. That's the hard part of the
film: trying to shoot a bat eating a fruit with
infrared camera. Rather a needle in a haystack!
Pics to come..

April 22nd - Anchorage

Now travels are suffering from a severe lack of wind.
Lucky the Kuna is chocker full of diesel as it will
find its use before the trade winds come.
The 10 mile crossing from Gizo to Kolombangara was an uneventful motoring
session.
The Kuna delivered crew and 20 pelican cases to the Kukundu
SDA Mission.
Once the reef crossed in a narrow but deep passage,
the Kuna entered a peaceful mangrove cove, equipped
with a wharf and, surprisingly, even a slipway! The 24m
heavy timber mission boat 'Vari Vato' is moored in there,
a reassuring sign that there would be enough water under
the keel for the KUNA too.
In the Solomons, anchoring somewhere is tricky, not only
because of the lack of charts. Prior contact with the
community has to be made to seek permission to use the
anchorage. Around Kukundu, there are two villages. One
was very reluctant to let us anchor due to prior visit
from an American birdwatcher boat who brought 50 people
without asking for permission beforehand. The mission
school principal Jimson helped us follow the good protocol.
Film kit and was unloaded and brought to an old mission
house near the bat colony. Near enough but still far in
the blazing heat, walking the 2 kilometers from the boat
to the bats with loads of camera gear several times a day
(my duty) was a challenge!
Pics to come...

April 22nd: Next Kolombangara

April 22nd
Funnily enough, after changing an engine the KUNA managed to be only 6 days late form the original charter schedule (14 Apr), but now everything else is slowing her down!!! Next is stop is the village of Kukundu, on the Island of Kolombangara, a huge volcano most often covered in rainy clouds. That's where the bat colony is located, behind the Adventists mission. Talking to the local carvers (who paddled their canoes from there to Gizo) there seem to be an anchorage, but it's not very well charted. Today, a nice South Easterly is blowing and it would be a lovely 2 hours sail! Fingers crossed scientist and cameras do arrive! Still wondering how we are going to get the producer too!!

April 21st :preparations in Gizo

April 21st - Island time
After a day spent at anchor in Gizo harbour doing minor sail repairs, tidy up after the passage, put together the kayak tender (see http://www.komodokayak.blogspot.com/), Getting customs clearance was rather straight forward: given the sad state of government services, the officers don't have a boat to come onboard the Kuna so one had to wander down to town around to their offices: immigration, customs and quarantine, the game was to find the buggers, all spread around town! All surprised to see a female skipper doing the paperwork, as this is not custom here but also very laid back. 260SDB later (1 solomon is dollar is about 16c OZ), the Kuna was all cleared and yellow flag taken down.
A French man with his 3 years old son arrived onboard their catamaran in the night and wanted to clear in and clear out to continue towards New Caledonia. Though they had to cross the entire country to do so, they were given the double clearance and still allowed to go to Honiara for fuel! (good luck to them for heading in the SE trades in a cat that can't point, but they came all the way from Mayotte, near Africa, in the last year, so have seen everything)
After gathering supplies of fresh foods and fuel, the KUNA was ready to start on the job, ie receive the first bat scientist and 25 pelican cases of film kit for the shoot.Slight hitch, even planned as clockwork, things never run on schedule in the Solomon islands and after 4 hours of running around expecting the plane to come from Honiara any minute, and trying to be ready to pick up 300kg of camera gear at the right wharf (the runway is on another island opposite Gizo and passengers come by boat), the plane simply didn't come. Relief in a way as good opportunity to get another good night rest and do a few extra minor tasks.

Townsville to Gizo - Passage

The High Pressure system that blew the KUNA half way through the Solomon Sea (April16th GRIB)
Gilbertes live on this island opposite Gizo,view from the KUNA at anchor
Gizo harbour, finally in another country
First sight of land after a squall
Tuna fishing boat: encoutered a couple, no more
Becalmed in the middle of the solomons sea, Half way through PNG and Gizo
Fully reefed main and staysail to for beating in 25 knots SE winds
Windvane and sunset in the coral sea
Trackt to Solomons

Townsville to Gizo: a sailing passage through the Coral Sea and the Solomon Sea
If the pics haven't made it, they will come soon!

It didn't look that easy but after a close look at the charts the course turned out to be achievable for the KUNA in moderate South East trades winds: a course of 42¼T to Rossel Island (Eastern most trip of PNG) and then a turn to 35¼T to Gizo, avoiding famous Pocklington Reef (famous for its wreckages)

Day 1 April 12th 2008
The Kuna exited Townsville on motor, just another couple hours running it to double check that it was OK. It was an opportunity to get upwind of the course through the Magnetic passage. Threading the Magnetic passage is a good way out of the Great Barrier Reef as few ships use it and the reefs are sparse and current is not as an issue as in the Hydrograpers. Kuna was out in the open water that night, great feeling!

Day 2 April 13th 2008
Beating in light winds, Dart Reef, small reef west of Flinders Reefs was rounded at about 1300 the next day. With the SE winds becoming stronger, maintaining a bearing of 65¼T (higher than course) to round Willis Island from the South became impossible and, after passing to the NW of Herald Kays, Kuna had to bear off to 42¼T.

Day 3 April 14th 2008
In the morning, Kuna threaded her way in the deep water between the back of the Willis Island rise and the rise further West. At 9AM, whilst 16Miles from Willis Island, a weather forecast was requested by VHF (they listen on Ch 16) from the Meteorological Observation station. The guys were courtous enough to check the forecast with Brisbane (they are only an observing station) and invited us for a cuppa. No time to stop though. They were expecting an ex ANARE observer, wondered if we knew him!!!
A couple of hours later, Kuna is out in the open (yaaaay, no more reefs to dodge!) and set on a course of 42¼T, or anything possibly higher to try and make as much easting as possible in case the strengthening winds did turn Easterly with the High Pressure system coming across. From the forecast, the winds were predicted to strengthened to 25-30 the next day and a 1.5 was already roaming on top of a 2m swell. Fully reefed main and 1/3 jib.

Another birthday at sea, though not on the Aurora Australis, this time (bugger, I'm sober!!)

Day 4 April 15th
Beating with a fully reefed main and staysail, Kuna climbed comfortably the 4m waves in 35 knots of wind maintaining a good 6knots. 20-30 degrees higher than course, preventing an uncomfortable roll. I downloaded a weather grib files and know why we are getting such strong winds now: the GFS model indicates that HIGH has gone huge, spreading over most of North Queensland. Hopefully it will last and is push the Kuna in the right direction at high speed (well, 10 T of boat travelling at 6 knots with fully reefed main and staysail feels fast enough). Speed record surfing down a wave was 12.1 today.

Day 5 April 16th
More of the same, strong winds, climbing huge waves, starting getting into the swing of watches well, though 3 four hours watches is a busy schedule. Lucky the wind vane is working well most of the time. Only when KUNA rounds up heavily it needs to be helped by locking the rudder slightly to leeward (to get her back downwind). When the winds get really overpowering, time to stir by manually but it only occurred twice so far, luckily because she is heavy.


Day 6 April 17th
That morning, approaching Adele Island and Rossel Island, the Eastern Most tip of PNG. Passing it 20 miles away to avoid overfalls. Large swells (5m ish) have travelled from further South and there is still up to 20 knots of wind to help the Kuna run (35T). The question is how far will those winds push her until she hits the Doldrums. Turning the corner and entering a new sea, the Solomon Sea, is not without noticeable effect: in between surfing down the huge southerly swells (speed record 14.3 today!), the Kuna rolls under the influence of North Westerly swells, from a system a long way away, north the of the equator even maybe. With 20 knots of wind on the top it makes the sea pretty irregularly rough. The pressure keeps dropping regularly: we are about to cross a trough of low pressure in a few hours. Squalls are building up on the horizon. Electric storms are also brewing, it is a threatening feeling to be the only tall steel structure for 100s of miles!

Day 7 April 18th
Later that night (midnight watch), bucketing rain which barely could let me see the wind arrow on the top of the mast hits the KUNA and she screameds down the swells at 10 knots under full main. Needless to say a bit of rudder is needed to help the windvane and prevent her from rounding up. Then an hour of so later, the wind dies completely, leaving the KUNA bobbing around on an incredibly shockingly rough sea. As learned the hard way, it is very damaging for the sails to bash again the rigging hoping to get some wind: the fully battened main developed chafe along the batten pocket at every point of impact and the preexisting reinforcing patches have to be beefed up. On the chafe front, I discovered pulling the full main that the lazy jacks also had some damage to the reefed belly in the last 5 days of beating. One more patch to plan on. Yellow fin Tuna for dinner, the one and only fish caught on the trip!


Day 8 April 19th
Stopping the motor after a long night to have a swim around the boat and breaky in silence. 50 miles covered in the last 24 hours, mostly motoring. A few attempts of catching the wind today, one with the MPS which seems to reach very well but that course would have taken the Kuna to Bougainville so back to motoring, which makes the hours slow... The tachometer is still not calibrated properly (how many pulses does a BOSCH 24V alternator send per revolution?) so the rpms of the new motor are estimated according to speed performance. About 4.5 knots, 28¼T Slow. At the end of the day comes a squall, lots of rain (= a great shower!!) and some winds, which bring us 5 mils further! Second tuna fishing boat sighted, quite flash boat. Later that evening the double hill shape of Simbo island clears out of the clouds.


Day 9 Arrived!!! April 20th
Slept until 1AM in completetely still seas, waiting was necessary to make the landfall the nest morning by motor, yes, another 22 miles of motoring in beautiful dead calm seas to Gizo harbour. T took 28 hours of motoring on and off to go through 170 miles in the doldrums. The approaches were amazing, tight passage (well not so tight) through a couple of reefs, only visible due to a little break in flat calm weather and morning light. Anchored in front of the Mobil station in 12 m of mud. Tight anchorage (100 m from town!) with light onshore winds. Sunday morning, church sounds and silhouetted canoes travelling from island to island surround the Kuna.

Post passage maintenance list for today (small):
- Some chafe from lazy jack and rig onto the fully battened main: reinforce protective patches to prevent
- Equip lazy jack with soft transparent plastic pipe to prevent chafe (they are useful to contained the large area reefed sail) and equip spreaders with anti chafe gear (gaffa tape some soft material on them)
- Protective plank under the anchor to avoid head bashing against the deck (and scraping paint)
- Set up boat for deep anchoring: make the 110 m of 10 mm chain readily available (Its not Queensland shallows anymore!) and place swivel on main anchor to enable for frequent wind shifts at anchor without twisting the chain
- Engine 25 hours routine maintenance (oil and oil filter change, need to look after the new BUkh well!
- Fix a small leak in the manual bilge pump: quantities of oil lost by the old motor must have had reason of one valve
- Fix one and only small leak in aft hatch: pleasant surprise in this testing weather with lots of greenies over the bow)

All jobs seemed so easy after a week of trying to do stuff in a rolling boat!

Rest. Clearing and Shoot starting tomorrow

April 18th

Position:
S 9deg 48.4
E 155deg 54.7
After huge squalls running at 10 knots with full main, now definitely becalmed
110 mile SW of Gizo, and have to admit testing the brand new donk...

SMS from 881631641778@msg.iridium.com

SITREP APR17 4PM S11 01.9 E154 58.6 COVRD 700 IN LAST 5 DAYS TO HP SYST SEA LESS ROUGH NOW RUNNING STILL MAKING GOOD PROGRESS.

SMS from 881631641778@msg.iridium.com

SITREP APR15 4PM S14"25.7 E151"49.9 250NM 2 PNG TIP BEATING FULLY FLEDGD 4M WAVES RIDING HP SYSTEM AS FAR N POSSIBLE

SMS from 881631641778@msg.iridium.com

SITREP APRIL14 (BIRTHDAY!) S15"55.9 E150"08.6 BEATING 25KNTSE N WILLIS IS 150NM LAST 24HR PROGRESS GOOD F:)

Off !!! (????)

After a few hours of running the engine in the bay to confirm that 20 horse
power aren¹t going to push 10T into the winds, didn't dagnose anything worse
and finally decided to leave Townsville and start sailing. f:)

FW: Guilty Siphon breaker!

a brand new diesel filter that leaked

Townsville this morning. No wind

Msgnetic island shores (just to change from engine pictures!!!)

Any one knows how many pulses a Bosch 24V alternator produces per engine revolution ? The old tachometer was using oil pump rotations and had to be replaced by a pulse-based tachometer that plugs into the alternator. Calibration was rough! How many revs does this engine sound!!!

Wet exhaust with no siphon. BAD.

wet exhaust now with siphon 65 cm above the waterline, hopefully better once  have replaced the siphon breaker.

brand new Bukh engine. The 40 years old one got killed by the siphon because of age, this one made it through the leak. Regular oil checks throughout running the engine are a must to detect warning signs early

The siphon, or more exactly the siphon breaker, It’s the guilty one in the system and my lack of systemic analysis to put the finger on the problem!. Headed out with a brand new engine this morning, did a routine oil check to only discover that water had come into the oil again. Pure Milk!! I nearly fainted. Could just have been a bad nightmare and I was just going to wake up (7am!) but it wasn’t... Arrgh.

After 4 oil changes (pump the oil completely, including the sump and run the engine for a few minutes to cycle the new oil through), the engine was confirmed to be OK. Stock up on cleaning rags, plastic bags and engine degreaser!!! Lucky the Bukh is an old really tough construction and could take a few dents for a short time (according to the agent), it did. Another guy at the marina ceased his Volvo engine for the same siphon breaker failure reason. Result: complete replacement. A Kubota engine probably wouldn’t have stood to water going in, so it was lucky. Milky Oil had clogged the oil pressure gauge so it took a clean with kerosene to get it running again but all came up fine after the cleaning and 150$ of oil for flushing, spent in one day! Boats.

What happened on the KUNA: relative height of exhaust siphons

Explanation: The way the siphon breaker was set with the previous engine (just 6 inches above water line, just after the water pump and before the block inlet) seemed to just work OK for 16 years. So what changed ? The waterline. The boat is fully loaded with camera gear and 700 L of water, the siphon was not high enough and the breaker valve failed as it stuck to the top and didn’t let air in when it should have. A better alternative is to have a permanent hole on the top of the siphon and hook it to a small pipe which lets water down wherever convenient. If there is water coming out of that little pipe, it means the breaker hole is working OK. It is also a way to monitor that cooling water is running through the engine It is now placed above my head, but the siphon breaker model shown needs replacement due to valve failure!

Shame 3 knowledgeable diesos had checked the whole system after the installation before we headed out, not pointing that detail out! Bugger!

------ End of Forwarded Message

Some TLC for the old head...

Some phosphoric acid is eating the salts out of the cooling system in the manifold. Most holes were completely clogged: advice get fresh water cooling with a heat exchanger, though the holes in the heat exchanger are smaller than those in the engine  and they can also get clogged! Tough choice!

Hard to see on this picture but the water that made its way through the head gasket had pitted the metal (bottom left). The top of the piston was also pitted and a grove can be felt in the cylinder

Cork gasket material cut for the sump gasket.

Head and manfold reassembled and painted, etc

little Shala next door cooked us some pancakes!

After spending a fair few days rebuilding and cleaning the old engine
(cracktested the head, cut new gaskets, acid cleaned the salts from the
cooling system: never chose RAW cooling!), using the yacht decks as workshop
benches, the parts did not look like they would arrive early enough so a new
Bukh is going to replace the old one, flown out of Sydney tonight
(argh!!!!). That's the price of deadlines!!!

All up, it was a great mechanical course and the new "Bukh" is exactly the
same as the old one, so it's great to know how to pull it apart- just in
case!

April 4th: The Bukh engine may be on its way back in...

From the picture, it does not look like this engine will be coming back in but once the daunting task of pulling the engine apart is overcome, things looked a bit less gloomy.

The piston rings and bore didn't look too bad. The head gasket had ruptured, but on the dry side and the Bukh agent was adamant that the two o-ring at the bottom of the cylinder sleeve did not leak water so water could only have come through the gasket. The head is being pressure tested now.  Not the best coffee table in the cockpit! We will lift it with the boom to have better access.

The change to Diecon option quickly died because it required to change the prop and there was not way to get around on the slip and slim chance to take prop off underwater. With all the minor adaptation required, costs would evened between a new 24 HP Bukh and the lower quality non marine designed Diecon (Bukh uses a left hand prop, old fashioned!!!!) so still trying to save on cost by fixing the old Bukh as long as it can be done quickly. Spares cost is a killer though

 A great thanks to Jock, from boat next door, who's is being fantastic help throughout and generously shared his expertise and time!

Comms on the Kuna

While stuck in the marina, not being able to do much on the engine room at night, thought I'd do something useful:

Here's is a summary of my findings on means of doing email, receiving weather information, service providers (mostly), that I trawled through. It was hard to pick and chose as I was limited by my computer systems: an old windows 98 labtop (which still runs well and is robust) and a brand new Mac Powerbook. HF will probably be the best and cheapest means of long range communications for the Kuna in the long term but a fast and simple solution was to get an Iridium satellite phone for voice and email. It has the advantage of going with you in case of an emergency though does not let you tune in to get the weatherfax and is NOT cheap! All up a compromise.


Software for the Mac
To be over and done with the Mac topic: Marine Software for Mac is currently being developed actively (charting and email compression software) and even Garmin had their own developers working on “Bobcat” to upload and download GPS data, waypoint, routes, etc.. Useful is all you have is a Mac
http://www.globalmarinenet.net provides a good summary and links of what is available for Mac, and provides the only compression software existing for Mac at this stage (Maxgate, the Mac version of Xgate), though Ed Wilgoose from MailASail is currently developing one.

I am only using the Garmin software on the Mac but seriously considered buying a copy of MacENC (electronic charting for Mac, because it also enables to read grib files (please see further for grib). But no chance of finding the charts for free so far except for the US coast (available from NOAA website


Windows and Hardware
So back to Windows: why am I still on using a windows 98 computer ? Though old, it is robust and also has a SERIAL port. Most more recent computer do not have a serial port anymore and although USB to serial adapters are available, one has to get careful advice on which one to purchase to maintain proper communication when connecting either GPS or Iridium phone to the computer. The installation of a standard windows 19200 kbps modem was sufficient for the iridium and it worked both through the COM1 serial port or the COM4 (USB port equipped with a serial to USB adapter containing a “Prolific” chip, as advized by one of the Iridium email providers. Having the USB port working for the phone enables me to run C-Map with the GPS permanently plugged into the serial port. Nowadays, there are GPS which are specially designed to connect to the labtop via USB but some do not seem to talk to C-Map.



About setting up an Iridium phone for email

1/ First, get a phone. Don’t get it on ebay unless you are absolutely sure of the source and ABSOLUTELY don’t get it from Indonesia. A lot of American reliable ebay stores provide phones for a good price (1100 to 1300 US$) but most are reluctant to send the phone over to Oz due to phones disappearing through customs.
If you are in Australia managing a business in remote area, you may be able to get a 900$ government subsidy for the phone but, BEWARE, the subsidy often ties you up to also buy airtime/plan with the retailer providing the phone and the saving made with the subsidy quickly vanishes. Submit subsidy application early too!
If you want to do email, you’ll need to get a Data Kit for the Iridium. Make sure the data kit corresponds to the phone model you bought (9500, 9505, 9505A), as they are different. The phone capabilities differences between the three phones are minute.

1a/Once you’ve got a phone, get a SIM card. This does not have to be from the same provider as the phone provider (although it often makes it easier as they set up the phone for you). Once getting a SIM, you activate it (by paying then pay for airtime!). Watch SIM activation fee and deactivation delays as they can be quite high!


2/ Get some Airtime. Avoid phone plans, they cost a mint, especially Telstra’s!  It is possible to buy some prepaid time, which means 50, 100, 500 minutes to spend over a given period of time (example: 500 minute for 12 months). This proved to be the best approach Kuna’s needs. Iridium airtime is charged in 20 second blocks, but certain Iridium providers charge a minimum of a minute. Currently, with a 500min/12month prepaid airtime , the Iridium minute costs about 1.50$US.  The cheapest airtime I found was from a US company called Global Comm (620$US for 500 minutes) but it looked like they were charging 1$ per iridium sms so sms usage is restricted!


3/ Get an internet provider
Like on land, Internet Providers for sat phone email charge a monthly fee gives you access to one or several email addresses/accounts for sending/receiving messages. Filters and forwarding capabilities do vary. Most prefer that you buy Iridium airtime with them, though it is not compulsory, so you can negociate to get more competitive price on airtime. Most also sell an email compression software to improve the transfer time on the very slow Iridium data link.


Here are the main few providers I looked into, ranked. All had very good technical support and offer very similar services

2/This is the provider I ended up selecting:
AST (Applied Satellite Technology)
Wright Technologies Limited in New Zealand.
www.wrights.co.nz
e-mail: andreww@wrights.co.nz
The Software ASTMail is free and was the only one to install successfully on my OLD win 98, so my choice was done for me! AST mail is just another name for AmosConnect but is not found as freeware on the web. AST also sells their own compression software called ZAP email.


The installation and connection work well, provided one has 5 bars (full signal) on the iridium handset (hard on a moving yacht, and mast antenna, extra 500$ is recommended!) I use the little car Antenna through a hatch but have to be patient. The dial up AST server is located in Holland and works well. Andrew Wilson was excellent support and also showed how to install a connection to the Iridium internet server, to then reach email on the AST server via internet.

The main constraint of the system is that I had to purchase AIRTIME through AST, for the email software to work. It turns out rather costly because the minimum fee is 1 minute but most email connections last no more than 40 seconds. So I have to line up a large pile of emails to make the most of my minute. I did not manage to send and receive a grib weather file within the one connection because AST closes the connection as soon as there is a gap in the receiving. The trick for that is to schedule grib weather reports or use the alternative internet connection which lets you decide when to stop, but that connection proved definitely slower.


1/MailASail: Overall best compromise
http://www.mailasail.com
tel: +44 20 70432832
Based in the UK, Ed Wildgoose ( Ed Wildgoose <ed@mailasail.com>)   was extremely helpful but the “Express mail” compression software (included in the package) did not install on my Win 98 computer and he had not released the Mac version yet when I had to get started.

Express Mail works whether you are on Satellite connection or on land with any form of internet connection. It basically compresses your emails and saves you $. The internet provider fee is reasonable about 25 AUD/ months and includes a blog with position mapping and email updates, which other providers make you pay for the as GMN (GlobalMarineNet). The prepaid airtime fee was also reasonable, specially because connections are charged in 20sec block, mo minimum fee, so if email is quick, it’s cheap!
MailAsail server also sends an sms to your iridium phone (free) to notify you of the arrival of mail so you do not connect  for nothing.

3/GMN more expensive option but good for Mac users
http://www.globalmarinenet.net/
They were quite competitive with the internet provider fee though you have to buy the Xgate compression software for an extra 60$ and any other extra service such as weather and blog also do cost.  They do not support windows 98 anymore and I was not game enough to try connect the Iridium to the Mac because of reported issues.
Saying this, Luis Soltero was an extremely helpful guy (<lsoltero@globalmarinenet.com> or info@globalmarinenet.net>) for dealing with technical issues and they ARE the best for Mac. If you need a package deal (sat phone and airtime and internet), their prices are quite competitive. They were also prepared to negociate competitive prepaid airtime price. server also sends an sms to your iridium phone (free) to notify you of the arrival of mail so you do not connect  for nothing.


4/Uuplus:
UUPlus Support
(p) +1 805 534 1425
(f) +1 805 534 9502
(w) www.uuplus.com
(e) support@uuplus.com

American. Their monthly fee was rather high, 30 or 35$$/month for a individual but the service for a group of people for several separate emails adresses was reasonable. Support was also good.

That’s it for tonight! More on weather gribs tomorrow...
Cheers
fred

The "Bukh" engine was retired

After 40 years of good service, The Bukh is sadly diagnosed with terminal illness, would probably take too much work to rescucitate, let alone out limited time before the charter time and $. After carefully labelling every wire and pipe, disconnected the alternators, drained the oil, it was lifted out of its burrow (well engine room) by the way of block and tackle. Thanks to careful thinking from the boat builder Steffen: The steel frame above the engine room was originally threaded to hook large blocks and the engine lifted straight up!