KELPIE TO THE CARIBBEAN 2018 - COMMUNICATIONS PLAN
Kelpie is equipped with the following communications equipment:
Kelpie’s MMSI is 235086707 and her callsign is 2ENV7 WhatsApp We expect Whatsapp to be the most reliable way of communicating with us. We have multiple ways of connecting to the Internet when we are inshore (close to land) and intend to use it for most voice and video communications and Whatsapp chat. In addition to our own individual WhatsApp addresses, we have a group WhatsApp called “Kelpie’s Blog”. We can only access WhatsApp when we are inshore (in range of terrestrial mobile signal). Satellite Phone When we are offshore, the satellite phone will be used for emergency voice communications and to connect briefly to the Internet to download weather information and Mailasail emails. On the whole it will be switched off. Like a mobile phone, it has voicemail and we will check voicemails once every 12 hours. It costs us £7.85 per minute both to receive and make calls so we will not usually respond to voicemails until we are back in range of the terrestrial mobile networks The satellite phone’s number is 00 8816 327 19215 Email We will be able to access our personal emails only when inshore (close to land). Whilst offshore, Kelpie has her own mailbox: kelpie @mailasail.com which we can access via satellite when offshore. The satellite service ruthlessly strips everything out of the email except basic text so does not support any graphics or attachments of any sort. We expect to download Mailasail emails once every 12 hours Blog We also have a Mailasail blog-site called blog.mailasail.com/Kel;pie. We will update this every 24 hours or so when offshore. When inshore (close to land) we will be able to add graphics and attach photographs but offshore it will be simple text only EPIRB This is the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. The name of the device says it all really. It sits, switched off, by the companionway to be triggered as we enter the life raft should Kelpie sink. EPIRBs are monitored via satellite worldwide by the International Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre at Falmouth – if ours goes off, IMRCC Falmouth will notify our nominated shore contact and will coordinate rescue Our nominated shore contact is: Gina Holtby Tel: 0044 7477 554326 Email: gina.holtby @hotmail.com If you are worried about us, call Gina. She will know our schedule in detail and we will check in with her at least once every 24 hours. If she becomes concerned, she will contact the IMRCC at Falmouth. NOTE -to confuse robot hackers, there is an extra space in the email addresses in this blog. To use the email address, first remove the space! Devious eh! |