Galapagos - Marquesas - Day 2 - 02 12.41S 095 30.49W
Aurora_b
Mike and Liz Downing
Sat 1 May 2010 23:54
Including ourselves there are 10 boats joining in on the SSB net and I'm the net controller for the day. So at 8am and 8pm I call all the boats in turn and get their position and weather conditions. The boats are now well scattered and mostly well out of VHF range, so the SSB radio is needed. We followed our friends via the SSB when they left 4 weeks ago and we were able to talk to them 3,000 miles away. We are also able to get a rough weather report from the US over the SSB. So while SSB radios are very expensive, they are very useful things to have.
We are still getting the occasional swallow tailed gull flying round the boat at night. It's all a bit eerie when you can only just make out a shape flying close by in the dark. I suspect we will lose them the further we get away from the Galapagos. When the clouds clear we have a fantastic full moon most of the night and it's like sailing under flood lights.
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