A connection can be from many types - for boats usually mobile or satellite - or "hot spot" if you are in range.
Lets not lose sight of the forest. When I take my kids camping (scouts) some of the tents have everything but the kitchen sink - makes you wonder why they went camping.
BOAT wrote:I don't know much about internet either - I guess internet requires a phone line at least, right? And even with that your not gonna get a 'high' 'speed' internet from a phone line so even if you had a phone 2000 miles out at sea you would never get 'high' 'speed' internet to render pictures of the sky with radar colors for rain and storms and stuff.
I did see 'high' 'speed' internet on top of a motorhome once - it use satellites and a big dome on top of the motorhome - but I don't know if his 'high' 'speed' internet worked when he was traveling or not -
I guess that would be the next big thing for boating: 'high' 'speed' internet available out in the ocean (maybe they can put underwater cell towers in all over the ocean floor)
The thing about logs and containers is that when I am way out at sea I am never going to be on a motor anyways. I am sailing at a maximum of 6 knots so I can run into all the stuff I want and it's not gonna put a hole in the boat. Sailing is a very kick back relaxing way to travel - you see land and it slowly gets smaller but it's so slow you can hardly tell. After a few days without sight of land you sort of get used to it - you tend to start fixating on birds and stars and stuff - the water just becomes background to the point you don't even notice it.
And then all of a sudden you see something floating in the water and it seems so alien your like shocked: "what is this doing out here?" - and it wakes you up - it reminds you that there are lots of other people out there too. You forget. At those times I get obsessive thoughts like "what if there is a whole junkyard out here?" It's stupid, but after a while you calm down and forget about it. If I had RADAR at that point I probably would be glued to it looking for every bit of 'space junk' I could find. Silly.
Then when you see land it's like, "WOW! What the hull is that!?" It's SO noticeable like a big monster on the horizon. Your whole brain thinking changes if your headed towards the land- you start thinking about moorings and docks and people and internet and cell phones and all the other crap you were trying to get away from in the first place and sometimes seeing land can actually be a little depressing. If you are just passing land or an island it can make you feel a lot of strange emotions too - like fear, or sometimes you wonder what the people are doing on that land - and you start to miss home - the sea really messes with your head.
Times like that remind me that I have spent hours, or even days on the water and have not even bothered to look at the water! I could have run over all kinds of stuff and not even have known.
I suppose RADAR might be nice, but I'm not sure what good it would do me except to make that 'fence' that mastreb talked about - that would help my sleep at night when crossing the San Pedro Channel.
BOAT wrote:I dunno, that's what I am asking - how do you get internet out at sea?
You put the net on the deck and step in?
I'm wondering why someone hasn't simply modulated whale transmissions to get long range internet access on VLF bands...that would be a killer Orca le app. One could try the MLF bands but googling that would be degrading.
Gazmn wrote:So I guess Redford's "All Is Lost", is more real in premise than I gave credit for?
Including:
-Shaving before abandoning ship
-Saying SOS into a VHF Radio
& just where the hull was he sailing to anyway?
Don't forget trying to rig a storm jib after the storm has already started - that was the best one.
He looked just like a lot of the typical guys I see sailing out of Oceanside - most the boats here are around 35 to 45 feet and older. Very few fancy 'polo shirt' yachts over here. Mostly older boats that have coax cables hanging out of the top of the mast and faded wood cabinets and oxidized old hulls just like in that movie. You know - stuff is breaking all the time. That's why I don't like old boats - stuff is breaking all the time. And the guys here put to sea all the time; they have to, because the harbor is too small for them to sail in here. They go: - 53 miles to Avalon or 65 miles across the open ocean to San Clemente Island or another popular place they go is San Nicholas Island - that's 118 miles out at sea. Isla Guadalupe is about 300 miles straight southwest from Oceanside out to sea - that's one I have not done yet. Here is Isla Guadalupe: I think the MAC could handle the trip.
And then of course the most popular one is Hawaii at 2500 miles. The guys here have more guts than money. That's what that guy in the movie reminded me of.
Every time I cross the San Pedro, I have at least one very close encounter with another boat. I wouldn't trust a night crossing under radar in that busy channel. I won't be setting a radar watch within 400nm of shore.
I have and use a handheld FLIR for night sailing in San Diego bay. It works fantastically well for detecting boats and especially paddle-boarders and Kayakers at night. Great for pulling into slips and understanding what you're seeing as an aid to visual navigation. It's also much better at showing shore features such as buildings than a visible watch. But it won't show you anything in the water that's at sea temperature, as any kind of flotsom or container would be.
In fog the FLIR is better than visual, but not by much. It's probably enough additional warning to avoid a collision, but you certainly can't see shore features, etc. in the fog with it. Frankly I've not been close enough to another boat in the fog with the FLIR to know how far it can see. I can tell you for sure that it doesn't see the pillars of the Bay Bridge from very far away in the fog (although still better than visual). Only radar really works in fog.
We use the FLIR mostly during busy holidays at night when there are a lot of boats in the water: Memorial day, 4th of July, and the Christmas boat parade. We also take it with us camping where it's fantastic for night hiking.
If you get a FLIR, I recommend getting a handheld unit rather than installed. It won't increase the value of your boat, and a handheld unit you can just take with you to the next one as well as use it for other purposes.
They have a flir for a phone and I use my old iPhone as a dedicated display. So far I've used it to take spooky pictures of my dogs. It makes them look like aliens.
Can't imagine paddle boarding at night without bright lights on your paddle board
Ix
