Gordon Lightfoot sang to us of the doomed Edmund Fitzgerald and George Clooney
helped share the saga of the ill fated Andrea Gail. There are countless stories of
tragedies at sea; sailors lost forever.
While we are on the ocean, we take every precaution to assure our safety
in case things go south. We have a life
raft below. We have Personal Locator Beacons attached to life vests and an EPIRB ..an Emergency Position Indicator
and Recovery Beacon…on board, all designed to
signal our position in case of distress. What we do not have is the
ability to communicate. For all intents and purposes, every time we shove off in the deep Caribbean, we are lost at sea.
One of the fascinating things about sailing the Caribbean is that you are
experiencing civilization as it was
years ago, particularly as to the world of communication. Cell phone service is
sporadic at best and virtually unavailable at sea and the places we stop. One’s
phone, that marvel of modern technology, is relegated to the status of a brick. Internet?
Faggetaboutit. If you get it at all, it is in a marina or pay-per-minute internet shop, where the service is uber expensive and uber slow.
I am able to post these entries only when I have the money, time and immense patience. There is no time for internet browsing or email perusal when you one is sailing. We are on the move constantly. We have to pull anchor when the tide is right and before the front moves in or so that we will get to the next anchorage while the light is still right so that we can avoid the reefs. So forgive me, all you followers, if you can't reach us and if these posts are infrequent. Know that we are thinking of you all and that while we may seem lost at sea, we are safe. It turns out that the world without cell and internet ain't such a bad thing. Perhaps made easier for us by the context in which we don't have it.
I am able to post these entries only when I have the money, time and immense patience. There is no time for internet browsing or email perusal when you one is sailing. We are on the move constantly. We have to pull anchor when the tide is right and before the front moves in or so that we will get to the next anchorage while the light is still right so that we can avoid the reefs. So forgive me, all you followers, if you can't reach us and if these posts are infrequent. Know that we are thinking of you all and that while we may seem lost at sea, we are safe. It turns out that the world without cell and internet ain't such a bad thing. Perhaps made easier for us by the context in which we don't have it.
