What We Learned About Staying In Touch While Sailing Through The Caribbean

© 2010 David H. Lyman

The Coconut Telegraph may or may not be an effective way of communicating down here, but it certainly has to be better than the mail service.  It took more than a month for a letter to reach its State-side destination from the islands of Bequia, and just as long for a package of mail to reach us on this tropical paradise.

Being away from it all was one reason we came this way . . . but there had to be a better way to get our mail, and to get bills paid back home. Here’s what we found worked or us.

Having a Secretarial Service at Home

Mail and Post. Forget it.  It does not exist down here. Even in the US Virgin Islands, mail took a week to reach us and as long to reach its destination. When we realized this we came up with the following process:

Jane, the home based secretary who was collecting and forwarding our mail, opened the envelopes that was not junk mail and scanned the contents.

She then sent us the scans as attachments to an email.

We opened the attachments, read over the contents and if need be responded.

Occasionally we had to take a file ashore on a “thumb drive” and printed it at a local service center. Scan it there to the same thumb drive and send the signed document back via email.

FedEx and DHL

This services are here in the islands, as is UPS, but their services are costly. I needed to sent the IRS our quarterly payments, in a hurry. My only option was FedEx.  It costs $50 US to send a simple letter envelop to the States from Grenada. Since I had to send four separate envelope to four different address, the total bill was $200.  Had I thought this through before hand, I could have sent Jane in Maine a single envelop containing the four payments and had her post them there.

Better yet, I sent Jane a batch of checks, with a letter to my bank authorizing Jane to sign my checks. This way she could make out and mail check in a timely fashion to cover insurance payments, taxes, and other bills.

The Internet

The Internet is alive and well in the Caribbean. There are cafes and Internet hot spots in every village.  We found hotels, especially those with cottages scattered around their compound, had excellent and fast WiFi access .  . for free.

We also found HotHotHotSpot.com, a company based in English Harbor in Antigua, had wireless stations set up in every important anchorage from St. Martin south to Prickly Bay on Granada. For $50 a month we had wireless access, on the boat. This access did require we have a special WiFi antenna mounted above decks and a booster connected to an on-board router. This provided my wife and I with simultaneous online access, 24/7.  The HotSpot locations often dictated where were would spend time at anchor: Prickly Bay, Grenada; Union Island, Bequia, Rodney Bay, St. Lucia; Two locations on Dominica; the Saints on Guadeloupe; English Harbor and Jolly Harbor on Antigua. A new site was being test on St. Martin when  we left.

Cell Phones & SKYPE

DigiCell came down to the islands recently to give Cable and Wireless a run or thie money. The “Red company” out promoted the over-priced established cable company, supporting local activities and regattas, and grabbed a large segment of the cell phone market. Phones are cheap, and cards can be “topped up” at many locations, even rum shops and Ma an Pa shops. Service is good throughout the islands.

I used my AT&T iPhone account for a few months . . . until the bills arrived. I’d run up monthly bills in excess of $200 in roaming charges.  I put my iPhone away and  activated my SKYPE account. With Internet access in most locations making calls now costs pennies rather than dollars per minute. I even signed up for a land-line phone number so people who do not have SKYPE access or account, can call me.

SKYPE Proved a time and money savor, as Julie and the Kids could not only talk with their grandparents in England, but could see them as well on the laptop screen, and the grandparents could see their grandchildren, all tan, healthily and beaming with joy.

Knowing what I know now will make my life, and my communications, much easier in the islands next time.

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