I April 2009, we were anchored off Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, 70 miles west of Key West. Since most boats going there seem to have problems receiving any VHF weax reports, the weather forecast is posted a couple of times a day in the shed at the end of the pier. For some reason (atmospherics?) I was having no real problem receiving reports from several mainland stations a hundred miles away. However, while what I was getting indicated thunder storms and tornados approaching the Tampa area (nothing new), there was nothing in the NOAA VHF broadcasts to indicate the BIG picture. That big picture included a nasty cold front racing down the Florida peninsula. A friend and fellow member of the Panama City Coastal Cruisers just happened to be in the anchorage passing through to Mexico. Around noon time he invited me over to see his Sirius weather on his laptop. He had a satellite phone of some sort hooked up through which he received the data. What I got to see on the screen was an animated depiction of the front which I estimated was going to cause high winds across the exposed anchorage that night. The NOAA VHF weather information, being focused on local areas on the mainland did not convey the sense of a dangerous weather front advancing on us. I gathered the admiral from ashore and the two anchors off the bottom and ran east at best speed all afternoon and into the evening to get into shelter. By 2130, we got the last line over to a pier at Boca Chica Naval Air Station Marina as the first crack of thunder sounded overhead. The nineteen boats which stayed behind at Fort Jefferson had a hell of a night with a number of them dragging aground and others with holes punched in hulls by drifting boats. One eye witness told me the next day that it was a harrowing night with engine power required to hold him in place all night long. There are other ways to get weather front information, but I think they tend to be facsimile-based and not of the timely "weather radar" type information like I saw on my friend's boat. For an area with as little connectivity as the Dry Tortugas, satellite-based information presented on a laptop was invaluable. Did I run out and buy a similar system? No, and I probably will not because my cruising generally does not run me beyond computer connectivity I can use to look at weather radar. But if I was regularly cruising to places like my friend does, I would be investing in something akin to his system. Rich Gano Calypso (GB42 Hull # 295) Panama City area, FL