One thing that has made researching boat equipment a little easier is that our wireless phone gets a great signal here at Petrini's. We've been burning up the airwaves calling manufacturers, distributors, and representatives from here to the west coast. (Mostly the west coast, it seems! And none of them have toll-free numbers.)
We signed up with AT&T because they seem to have the best coverage on the east coast in coastal areas. Unfortunately, only certain phones are available with AT&T here, and none of them, as it turns out, have cables available to hook up to modems. So our phone is only for voice these days. This may be a good thing, because we've already exceeded our "free minute" allotment and are deep into "expensive minute" territory. We hope that once we get all the information on the gear we want, we'll be able to throttle back our phone habit.
And we're practically finished, at least with the information-gathering on this phase of outfitting. We finished our "big list" and took it to West Marine and Fawcett Boat Supplies on Friday; they promise to have quotes early this week for us. We are waiting for the last bit of information from windlass manufacturers and refrigeration companies.
But even after we've stopped calling outboard dealers, alternator makers, machine shops, and welders, we'll still use the phone to keep in touch with our families. Or vice versa: yesterday, as we were waiting for the Eastport Drawbridge to open so we could return to our dock after an afternoon of sailing with friends, the phone rang. It was my mother, who had heard a weather report warn of squalls on the bay. She'd better warn us, she thought. Just in case we were out sailing. Thanks, Mom.
We signed up with a mail forwarding service based in Florida; they weed out the junk mail (yay!) and send the rest to us. Right now we have things set up so that we get a mail packet every two weeks. When it arrives, it's like Christmas.
We give the marina address for any one-time mail or shipment, like information on windlasses, or a replacement battery for the GPS. The mail service is for things like magazines, bills, and bank statements, so we don't have to send change-of-address forms constantly. For the most part, it works well, but things get a little confusing sometimes when we have to explain over the phone that our mailing address is in Florida but we're actually in Maryland. And if they want a "permanent address" -- if a PO box won't do -- we give them the address of Britt's parents' ranch, in Colorado.
As far as our computer connection goes, things are still fairly chancy. Libraries and cybercafes are great for looking up web pages and for looking at email, but we really want to be able to download our email directly to our laptops, and compose offline replies here which we can send off when we connect. And of course, we need a real connection in order to update these web pages. I have been "borrowing" phone lines from our neighbors and my parents, which is great as long as we're around friends with phones, but eventually we'll have to come up with some other way to connect. We haven't tried the acoustic coupler again -- there aren't any payphones here as convenient to use as the one in the soda fountain in Rock Hall -- but we're hoping we'll be able to make it work.
But even with a sporadic connect, it's great to get email. We like to keep in touch with our friends back in Boulder and around the country. We also really appreciate the notes from people we hadn't known before, who have stumbled upon our pages somehow.
While we were in the planning stages, we read every website we could find that had anything to do with cruising: solo circumnavigations, trips from the Pacific Northwest to Hawaii, sailing in the Great Lakes. (A whole lot of links to such trips are at http://cruisenews.net ) We loved the exciting tales of long passages and of exploring exotic places, but just as important to us wannabes (if not as entertaining) were the accounts of the mundane realities of day-to-day liveaboard life.
At this point, our web pages certainly contain a lot more of the latter than the former. Our longest "passage" was a half-day trip, and Maryland's not exotic by any stretch of the imagination, but we're learning plenty about sawing through fiberglass, cooking on a two-burner stove, keeping the heads from clogging, and who goes first when the drawbridge opens. (Want to know about any of these things, or anything else? Just ask! Suggestions for log topics are welcome.) We hope these minor adventures keep you entertained until we make long passages to exotic places.
Two views of Mistress, a 61-foot schooner berthed three slips away from us at Petrini's; another schooner sailing on the Bay; Britt at the wheel; our sails.