I love my friends and family so much . . . that we live on a boat at least 1,500 miles away from each of them.
Just kidding! While that’s 100% factually true, the implication is 100% false, duh! En serio, we love and miss them dearly. It’s hands-down the worst thing about cruising.
So, like to keep in touch and here’s how:
- Phone – If we know we’re going to be in a country for a while (more than a month), we usually spring for a SIM card and pre-paid phone card to charge up our Blackberrys (you can take the girl out of politics . . .). Most SIM cards are super cheap, like $3-10 and tons of pre-paid services here in Latin America offer great deals for calling to the States (like $2 for 100 minutes cheap).
- Skype – I love Skype. I wouldn’t have been able to get through last summer without Skype. I love that a) it’s free, b) it’s user-friendly enough for my genius Dad to use c) it’s video, d) I can turn the video off when I’m not wearing pants.
- Internet – but how, you say? Well, here’s our little secret to internet access: The Wirie
It’s a wifi booster and it sits in a cute little water/sun/MotherJonesCrew-proof box which sits on our davits. I don’t really understand what’s in it or care to know how it works and therein lies the genius: I don’t have to, because it does, work, that is.
Of course, I do know that a “wifi booster” simply boosts existing signals (it doesn’t create them). And, you need the network to be unsecured or have the password for an unsecured network (go have a beer, get the password and you’re all set).
Not only is the Wirie good quality, it’s made by cruisers, for cruisers – we even anchored next to Irie in the Guna Yala!
We’ve also used internet dongles, too, in areas where we can’t get a wifi signal (Guna Yala is a good example).
In Panama, digicel works fairly well (from Bocas to Portobelo to San Blas), with higher speeds in the early mornings and late nights when others aren’t on it. The digicel stick in Panama was $40 and a $10 card easily lasted us a month (if we didn’t download movies, upload a TON of high res photos, etc) – you buy a credit of bandwidth and when it’s gone, it’s gone!
I can’t remember what dongle service we used in Providencia, Colombia, but they didn’t have wifi.
In the Bay Islands, we were always able to get online with our Wirie from the boat so we didn’t need a dongle.
And, here in the Rio, we are in a marina, so we don’t use either. Although, some other marinas offer Tigo dongles to their guests.
I love that the Wirie allows all of us aboard (and our fellow anchorage-mates) to get on if we have a signal – it acts as a new network/umbrella of sorts (and makes us very popular in anchorages with no other internet).
Rather, the dongle you plug into one computer at a time (the Captain wants to look at weather, while the Admiral wants to check her facebook = tension on the high seas!).
If you’re a cruiser out there looking into what solution might suit you, I would definitely recommend looking into the countries you’re planning on cruising and seeing if you can get an “unlocked” dongle. That way, all you would need to do is get a new SIM card ($5-10) in each country/region. And, perhaps you could do without the Wirie, although I like the complementing coverage both provide.
We’ve cruised from Florida-Bahamas-Jamaica-Providencia-Panama-Bay Islands-Guatemala and have loved the convenience and connectivity of our Wirie. Aside from a safe, comfortable anchorage, the ability to get online is key for us (hey, we’re young cruisers and have to check Facebook obsessively work while cruising).
While the Wirie is an investment at $350, I consider all the savings of patronizing local wifi hotspots to have more than covered the cost. Plus, when I want to go eat or drink at a local joint now I can just enjoy the venue and company, rather than be sucked into my laptop.