VHF Net Control Script

Okay--this is a bit dull. But as far as useful-stuff-cruisers-sometimes-need-to-put-their-hands-on a Net Control Script is one.

In almost any place cruisers congregate the morning net is an essential part of the day. It's a combination coffee klatch / radio show, which includes pertinent details including where to find stuff, what’s going on around town, and what day it is. Seriously, there have been many days where the “is it Monday or Wednesday?” argument has been settled by the morning net…

The radio nets are run by whoever is willing to volunteer—in places where there’s a long term community the role typically rotates through a regular group. But when you hit the more transient communities (such as Barra) it helps if everyone takes a swing at the job now and again. The problem is in knowing what to say. Evan winged it on his first go-round, but then I hunted down the ‘official’ script:

Net Controllers Cheat Sheet

    *  Good morning and welcome to the Gold Coast Cruisers’ Net covering Barra de Navidad, Melaque, and Tenacatita. Everyone please switch to high power as we listen for any emergency, medical or priority traffic …

    *  This is [your name] aboard the sailing vessel/motor vessel [boats name] along with [name of others aboard].  Today is [day of week, date].

    *  This net meets Monday through Saturday at 9 AM local time. This is a controlled net.  When you come to the net, please give your boat name only and wait to be recognized by net control.

    *  Do we have any new arrivals? Please tell us about yourself, give us the story: who’s on board, where are you from and a little bit about your plans.

    *  Do we have departures? Anyone leaving the area today or underway?

    *  All right let’s go ahead with check-ins, come with your boat name and I will repeat it you know you’ve been heard. Let’s start with [area].  [Tenacatita], [Barra lagoon], [Isla Navidad & Cabo Blanco Marinas], [Melaque].

    *  Any land based check-ins? Come now.

    *  Any other check-ins within the sound of my voice, come now    [Give a rough count of the total number of check-ins].

    *   Does anyone have the tides and weather this morning

    *   Mail Call. Are there any vessels holding mail for another vessel, or is there anyone who can carry flat stamped mail to Canada or the U.S.?

    *   Crew Positions. Anyone needing crew or is there anyone wanting find a crew position?

    *   Lost and Found. Anyone lose or find anything?

    *   Let’s move on the General announcements. 

    *   Local assistance wanted or offered.

    *   Treasures of the bilge. Anyone have anything to swap of trade?

    *    Is there anything I forgot or you would like to back up to?  Anything else for the net? That’s the end of the Cruisers net for today.  Please remember to switch back to low power. Thanks everyone and the will be [Boat’s Name] clear.

Chubasco—the anatomy of a storm

This is what a storm looks like when it's breaking down. When it's pumping you don't turn on the computer and take a screen shot...

Last night we got the weather we’ve been hoping to avoid. When we pulled down the satellite images of the Sea of Cortez there were massive areas of convection on the mainland side, which were moving our way. After making our own forecast of, ‘we’re going to get smacked’ we checked Stan’s Chubasco forecast by SSB: 

“Tonight on the Mainland there is almost continuous convection on the beach from Mazatlan north to Kino. All of this convection is expanding and moving to the west. I don't think the convection will survive the trip across the Sea, but it might. So I would say there is a chance of a Chubasco all along the Baja peninsula. If it were me, I would go to bed early and get up at 1am local time and see what it looks like.”

Stan seemed a bit more optimistic than we felt, but we prepared the boat for a blow and I headed to bed. Just before Evan joined me we got a call by VHF from a boat anchored across the Sea in Guaymas—he let us know they had just been nailed by a Chubasco and that it was coming our way.

Around 11pm we were woken by chilly rain drops that felt as big as robin’s eggs. When a storm is strong enough, it blows out big rain drops, not the little ones associated with a typical approaching rain. Evan popped his head out the forward hatch and discovered that not only was the sky bright with lightning but a wall of rain was headed our way.

We both jumped up and went through the motions of preparing for a storm—I turned on the motor to relieve stress on the anchor in the gusts. And Evan closed hatches, got our instruments on, and lowered our lightening grounding system. Then he took over the wheel and I put as many of our electronics as would fit into the oven and then put the overflow into the pressure cooker—basically creating a low-tech Faraday Cage. (Check out this great article on lightning protection for tips and ideas.)

By now we had a steady 25-30 knots of wind. By Chubasco standards this was a small blow. What we had though was a lot of nearby lightning and cracking thunder. I took solace in the fact there are some tall mining structures near us (and a very tall mast on S/V Third Day), making it unlikely we’d take a direct hit. As the wind let up, the heavy rain continued—it looked like all that would happen in this blow is we’d get a good boat clean.

post-chubasco lightning--not as dramatic as mid-chubasco lightning, but we were busy then

 

After an hour, conditions eased and the storm seemed to have passed. But we were still seeing lots of lightning out to sea. When we fired up the computer, we discovered all we experienced was a very small cell that had broken off the main one—and that the huge area of convection that stretched from the mainland and ¾ of the way across the sea was still to come. Our guess was if that cell didn’t break down, we would be hit much harder within the hour.

I called the other boats in the anchorage to let them know the bad news (so they wouldn’t be caught off guard by a second storm). Then we waited, and waited. I dozed off and Evan later fell asleep while reading. The storm dissipated and as much as, ‘and nothing happened next’ doesn’t make for good story telling, it does make for good cruising…

In Control

If you read anything about cruising, one of the terms that tends to come up over and over is “radio net” or just “the net”. The term refers to the short and long-range radio programs that happen on VHF, SSB or Ham radio. The nets are designed to help cruisers share relevant and interesting information. In the case of the VHF nets, the focus is on orienting cruisers to a new town, while the long range SSB and Ham nets keep us up to date on weather and let us keep track of our friends.

The cool thing about all of the nets is they are run by volunteers. This is a pretty impressive feat when you consider that a cruising region may have as much as an 80% turnover in boaters from one year to the next. The only way this can work is if everyone who can, takes an active role.

Last night Evan jumped into the net control position on the Southbound Net. We’ve been planning to participate in one of the SSB nets for a while—but it wasn’t until Meri, from Hotspur told us that the Net Control party was well-worth attending (and only people who have done net control get to go) that Evan made the leap.

Basically the role of net controller is a host position. The net control facilitates the agenda and makes sure only one boat is talking at a time. I might be biased but I think Evan did an awesome job for his first effort (and based on her Dad’s good showing Maia is eager to give it a try at some point.)

While we don’t tune in to the net every evening we have found they can be a a great social outlet if we've been on our own for a bit—we’ve first ‘met’ several boats over the radio and began building friendships before even meeting each other IRL--in real life (as they say online).

Nets change times and frequencies every so often but fairly current information on which nets are going on in Mexico can be found here: http://www.docksideradio.com/west_coast.htm

The Southbound SSB net is currently:

Time: 0055  UTC

Frequency: 8122 kHz Upper Side band; then switch to 4054 kHz at 0115  UTC

Weather Briefing: at 0100  at 8122 kHz with Don Anderson,  except for Sunday night

See Life

We woke feeling it was like a holiday. I finished my last emails, and then we pulled up the anchor and left the Internet and our final connection to land-life behind for a couple of weeks. I felt a bit jittery at the thought of no Interweb. It's funny-how something that was barely invented the last time we went cruising has grown into such a tether.
But un-tethered we sailed, until we reached a little anchorage near Isla Islotes.
Islotes is a Sea Lion breeding rookery where some of the Sea's 30,000 California Sea Lions breed and give birth. Birthing season starts in May and ends in July-so right now the isla's rocks are covered in new pups. They are also filled with protective males, who snort, and burp, and bark, and chase away any threat to their families. Because of this aggression, June isn't the optimum month for a visit to the rookery. But we were told if we were respectful and let the Sea Lions come to us, it would be safe to swim with them. Yup, swim with them…

If you've ever seen a Sea Lion up close, you'll know they are big. And when you're in the water with them and one wants to look you in the eye, they appear even bigger.
Our behaviour seemed to mirror the Sea Lions when we jumped in the water. Our big male (Evan) got in first a made sure things were safe, then me (the mama) got in with her pup. My pup was a bit nervous as we got our bearings and she held my hand tightly. But Islotes is a park-and the life is big and varied, and pretty soon Maia was fascinated by all the fish that were new to her and was free diving down to have a closer look.
Then the first Sea Lion came to see us. It was a playful juvenile and Maia grabbed my hand tightly and squealed as the little Sea Lion swam up to us and did a backward flip away and then reappeared from behind us. Maia continued to cling as more and more Sea Lions came to see us-at first it was just the curious juveniles, sleek and agile they swam circles around and below us--making us giggle at their antics. Then a mama brought her pup to see us. It clung closely to her on their first few circuits-riding on her back but eyeing us closely as she circled around us.

My pup held on tightly too-her eyes big as saucers, her breath coming in excited gasps while she watched the pup watching her. Then I watched as the mama pulled away from her pup and let him come see us on his own-I was a bit awed by her bravery, even though it felt familiar.
"I want to dive down, on my own, like the pup," Maia told me as she let go of my hand. And I watched her dive-sleek and curious-without me.
*we have neat videos of both Maia freediving and the mama and pup circling that we'll add to this post when we next have Internet.
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Day Two

This is a bit of an experiment. We're posting from sea, emailing the posting to blogger using our pactor modem and single side band radio. We probably should have tried this out in advance, just to see what would end up on the blog...
We had a bit of variety over the past 20 hours--the sky started clear but ended up overcast this morning, we've had wind from every direction, ranging from calm to about 10 knots. We've sailed down wind, close hauled and assisted by the motor. It's nicest when the motor's off but we both tend to turn it on when our speed drops below about 3 knots. We're not purists these days.
Last night the moon was near full. I had forgotten how nice it is to sail by moonlight. I like being able to see the horizon and the shape of the waves. I find it comforting. Early in the evening I sighted another sailboat, it was heading north. We called on the VHF to exchange names, route plans, weather experiences. At about 2am we were joined by a pod of dolphins, I watched them as they played in our bow wave by moonlight. The sails were full and we were moving at close to  six knots. It may have been the finest sailing yet.
We'll pass Cabo in a few hours, then it's about three more days to Puerto Vallarta. I'm thinking about things like what to make for meals, how to quiet down our dagger boards when we're close hauled and when we should all sit down and practice Spanish.

Sushi making underway--not bad for our first ever effort.

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Getting Gone

I’ve had a few people send notes asking us to detail the exact steps we’re taking and list the stuff we’re buying while we prepare to leave San Diego. The thing is everyone has different things on their list at this stage. Ours included getting our Pactor modem running (which it now is – so this means I’ll be able to send and receive work emails over single sideband radio networks), getting our water maker running (check), setting up a downwind reaching pole, sorting out our weather forecasting systems (we’ll be listening to Don from Summer Passage) as well as downloading weather faxes, organizing our paper work (still need to order boat cards… sigh) and stocking up on things that we found were either hard to get or too expensive to buy in Mexico:

favourite crackers and cookies, maple syrup, hard sausages and hard cheeses, batteries and software, favourite treats from Trader Joes, movies and school books, jams and chocolate, wheat free flour and pasta, vitamins and guide books, favourite herbs and spices, dry bunk material, boat parts and fishing gear… 

Personally, I also needed to clear my schedule of deadlines for a few weeks--so I was filing stories and sorting pictures.

The thing is the final to-do list can be a never ending trap--and for lots of people it is. I’m always reluctant to tell people what it is that we are trying to get done because when I do it usually elicits one of three responses: they either think we aren’t doing enough (aka less than what they would do), doing too much (aka more than what they would do) or it sends them into a panic as they realize they totally missed a step that may or may not be important.

Last time we headed south, we spent over a month in San Diego working from dawn to dusk trying to plan for every eventuality and making sure we didn’t forget a single item that we might someday possibly need (I even pre-bought birthday and Christmas gifts). We got caught in the trap of second guessing our list and checking with every cruiser and every book for tips on what we may have forgotten (thank goodness we didn’t have blogs to read to increase our anxiety…)

What we discovered is Mexico (and beyond) had people living there, that we didn’t need to carry enough food to make it for months. There were mechanics and hardware stores so we didn’t need to stock every spare part, or to imagine and prepare for every eventuality. All we really needed to do was know our boat and prepare to be self-sufficient for a few weeks – but not for months or years.

I think cruising is foreign enough that we feel safer and more prepared if we can just make enough lists and buy enough stuff. Because it’s all pretty hard to imagine what it’s really like to untie and let go, we grab on tighter, trying to manage an unknowable future.

But it is unknowable, in a good way. So, I’m sorry to the people who wrote and asked for my list—I don’t really have one that’s universal enough to share. There are books and articles filled with suggestions and ideas, but I think my main message is simply to decide what you need to be comfortable and safe, then pare down the list to the things that are unique to you, your boat and your lifestyle. Then randomly cross off half the things on your list with your eyes closed—you’ll never miss the stuff.

But do make sure you stash away a few treats so that at one of those cruiser potlucks, the ones that happen way far from specialty stores, you can be the boat that brings out the cool appetizer…

Communication

Part of untying the docklines and heading out to sea is the idea of disconnecting from society and living more simply.
It's a great concept.
And one that I'm ignoring.
90% of my stress while we've been outfitting has come from the question: How will I stay in touch? It's not simply that I would miss reading the Sunday New York Times online (although I would - I love the Modern Love essay...) my job as a freelance writer requires that editors are able to contact me easily (usually so they can ask me questions that were already answered in the 3rd paragraph of the story...)
I'm also really social and the idea of not being able to call a friend and share my latest angst leaves me cold. Our old system from the last boat, where we had all our mail sent to Ev's parents then mailed out enmass when we were approaching a reliable address, isn't going to cut it this time.
While modern technology does offer us a bunch of options - most of the easy ones (satelite phones and iphones) come with a price that we can't afford.

So this is what we are doing. Obviously we won't know how well everything works until we test it out for a while, but I am currently online - several km from the nearest wifi source:

Ham/SSB radio - We have a Pactor modem, which means when we are out of wifi or cell range we can get email over radio waves. It's slow (think early dial-up) but it will do the trick for basic communication. ("I think the answer to that is in the 3rd graf.")


Netbook and cheap cell phone- I really wanted an excuse to buy an iphone. But when I emailed with someone who used his in the South Pacific, and who incurred a massive bill, and then followed up with the NYT tech editor we came to the conclusion a less elegent (and less fun) solution was best. So we have a cheap, unlocked cellphone that we buy SIM cards for in each country. And we have a Skype number with a NYC area code that is forwarded to the cell. Friends call NYC and the call reaches us in Bora Bora. With the netbook we just roam around until we find free or cheap wifi, which we find by using a hotspot detector or we buy wifi aboard.
Super duper antenna- Look up, look way up. The antenna and high-power USB adapter that is clipped on to the lazyjacks is currently picking up a good signal from a harbour about 3 km away.

Which means I am sitting at my desk reading the New York Times and drinking my morning coffee (organic/fairtrade) and pretending I'm still my normal urban self, while fishing boats plow past, seabirds screech and the wind sings in our rigging.

Maia's other bunk. For the overflow toys. She calls it her other bedroom. It's actually the second guest bunk.

Storage comes in all shapes and sizes. This is under our bunk.


Can you fit a mattress through a hatch? You can!!

Quick update
We've been aboard since Friday and have begun (nearly finished) the huge task of unpacking and stowing. Our waterline is further down than we'd like - which means all that essential stuff we brought aboard isn't as essential as we thought. Our goal is to offload a few hundred pounds today and tomorrow...

We're still sorting out systems - and onboard wifi isn't quite a reality. So I'm sitting in a cafe trying to get a story out and some research finished. I'm looking forward to leaving the dock - sort of. The boat's size and unknown qualities intimidate me, but obviously the only way to get over that is to sail her...