Atmospheric Vibes

May 2010—San Blas Panama

We have a new gig. Once a week I am the Net controller on the SW Caribbean radio net. The Caribbean and most of the worlds cruising grounds all have Single Side band or Ham nets. In off the grid locations like here it is sometimes the only way to get any news and the all important weather updates. The Caribbean supports numerous nets with the lesser Antilles being full of them mostly early morning and late afternoon time slots helping cruisers focus on weather reports and vessel traffic. The net we are doing covers the south west portion of the Caribbean from Honduras down to Colombia and is a net primarily providing communication for vessels under way. There is a larger net coming out of the San Blas called the Panama Connection net that while facilating communications mainly acts as a much bigger social network for boats from San Blas to Colombia area. In the winter transit months there are usually a couple of hundred vessels plying those waters including a lot of expats from Europe and the US who spend their winters here. In the summer, hurricane season there are rarely more than twenty five to thirty boats hanging around.This time of year is also rainy season here with a lot of thunderstorm activity.Basically for the hardcores.
For years all down the eastern seaboard and through the eastern Caribbean we only received a signal through our little 150 dollar Grundig YachtBoy a legendary radio that you can now only find on EBay selling at more than its original purchase price. We only used it for weather reports from the major weather routers in Florida. These outfits route vessels throughout the region to avoid heavy weather and storms. We also could pull the NOAA Tropical Atlantic reports. Our faithful little YachtBoy used to get us the weather even when larger yachts with expensive setups were having trouble. I would just go to a mast shroud, clip my antenna on and presto. Not great reception but readable and more so if I taped it with my little radio shack recorder deciphering it later on playback. Anyways the unit gave up the ghost thanks to years of use and salt air corrosion and since we were wandering further afield Deb insisted we go for a more permanent set up. We settled on the Icom 802 complete with an auto tuner. We built a ground plane in the bottom of the boat using copper foil and attached it to a sinistered bronze dynaplate attached to the outside under the waterline although these were four more holes I didn’t want in the hull. For an antenna I did a variation off of the Alberg page from Shearwater tweaked by Dennis on Tiger Lily running a straight copper wire as a triadic stay between the masts and then down a mizzen shroud insulated with plastic pieces of cut pipe converting to the GTO cable just out of arms reach for safety from transmitting voltage and on to the tuner. I finished the hook up in Aruba and put my first call out getting a response from George of Silver Sea in Panama and then Sojourn later on their way to Panama from Cartenga. It was pricey but at least now we can talk back which if you know me is important. Anyways every Tuesday I am now the Peter Mansbridge of their air waves taking down vessels coordinates running relays and helping with the weather reports. I do a morning broadcast and another shout out to pick up the moving vessels at 5pm.
We only have three more weeks to cruise and then we are due to haul out at the Shelter Bay marina located at the mouth of the canal. This will be the longest time Sea Cycle has been laid up as we have several inescapable issues to deal with at home. But hopefully it will be warm by the time we arrive.
To be continued