One of the most common question we get is "can we communicate at sea?". During our preparations in Vancouver, it became apparent that we need to be able to communicate with family to let them know we are safe. In Campbell River, Vancouver Island, we had no contacts with other offshore sailors to get advise from. We sailed to the northern part of the island to Port Hardy to visit an electronics company we have dealt with, who services fishermen and fish farms. He agreed to help us on condition that he will not climb any masts, nor crawl around tiny spaces. For a whole week, Kjartan spent most of his time either up on the mast, or down in the bilge, connecting cables, checking and testing.
For long distance communication, we installed the single side band (SSB) radio, ICOM 700, the AT130 tuner and antenna. It wasn't until we reached San Diego, USA where we installed the SCS Pactor IIPro modem, a data transmission mode. By installing the Airmail software (free software built by cruisers for cruisers), we have the capabilities of sending and receiving emails at sea using the SSB HF radio, the tuner, the Pactor modem and our laptop. The last step was to join the Sailmail association (http://sailmail.com/) , a non-profit association of yacht owners that operates and maintains an email communications system for use by its members. We got our ham license in Mexico (arranged by American cruisers) for amateur radio and were then able to join the Winlink organization (http://www.winlink.org/) which is a worldwide system of volunteer resources supporting e-mail by radio, with non-commercial links to internet e-mail.
With long distance capabilities, we can chat in "cruiser's nets", report our positions and share weather information. In addition, we can upload our position and weather reports in YOTREPS, a voluntary reporting scheme for small boats at sea that plots positions on a web page chart. My family can then click in to http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/reporter_list.php, look for my callsign and see on the web our exact position. I try to report everyday during passages so our familes can see we are moving along fine. But I also warned them that if I don't report for several days, they were not to worry because there are several reasons why we cannot report - i.e. bad propagation.
Having all these equipment is really a plus for us. Not only can we get weatherfaxes, but also, I always look forward to chatting with friends on the net and listening to other cruisers. Without all the volunteer work of cruisers and land-based radio operators, communication at sea would have been impossible unless we had a satellite phone onboard.