I am now in Dénia on Costa Blanca in Spain. On my way to Gibraltar and the Atlantic Ocean again. This will mean that I am going to be sailing far from land and certainly outside the range of any radio masts. Cell phones and VHF radios will therefore be useless if you want to communicate with the rest of the world. So if you want to get weather updates, tell the rest of the world that all is well or indeed tell someone that you are not OK, you will need another way to stay in contact.
The traditional way of doing this was to use a long wave radio. These are quite expensive and require a complicated installation on a boat. I have opted for a satellite router that essentially provides me with my own Wi-Fi network onboard. A really slow network, but one that allows me to send and receive text messages, make a limited amount of phone calls and to download weather information wherever I am on the planet.
An additional benefit with satellite communication is that it enables you to send a GPS positioning message to the rest of the world as long as the router is turned on. In my case the system should automatically send an update with local conditions every hour that Saoirse is on the move. I have placed a link under a separate tab of my homepage that will take you to a page that will look something like this:
https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/SV_Saoirse_1
Saoirse 