Date/time: December 16, 2005 12:00 local 14:00 z Position at noon: 27°31' S & 008°22' E noon to noon 184.1 nm Avg. speed: 7.7 kts Course bearing: 129°T Sea state & wx: 4' seas mainly cloudy, 5 kt wind from SE, apparent headwind 27° to starboard, water temp. 21.0° C Crew: Ben, Brad, & Kevin Days: 6 days out of St. Helena Goal: fetch Cape Town before Christmas To go: 645 nm Remarks: We had a request to list our communications equipment and how they work. The single biggest issue we have found is getting adequate weather information. We have an Icom 802 SSB with a 23' Morad antenna which is a great radio and would pick up as good or better than others in our group in the Arctic. But, Weather fax reception has not been useful to date. We get text wx and grib wx on Sailmail and have a friend in the Arctic watching for bad stuff, but we are very disappointed with fax. Major English speaking centers supply good weather on VHF, but in our travels we haven't been close yet. We also have an Iridium Satellite phone which is reliable, although the email through them was not good. We were fortunate in being able to contact Ed Wildgoose ed@mailasail.com and use his simplified system as a backup when Sailmail is too far away. Mailasail is both reliable and uses little time (cost) for text. Sat phone is too pricey for us for graphics. We still call home occasionally with the sat phone to get that voice connection with family which is nice. Sending pictures and extended email can be stored on computer, but even in Canada taking your computer to town for a hookup usually meets with perplexity. The world is still a backward and interesting place. Ben, Brad & Kevin -- Idlewild Custom Buehler 55 Home port: Dunvegan, Alberta http://www.idlewildexpedition.ca/ http://dieselducks.com/Idelwild.html http://www.trawlersandtrawlering.com/