Morning twilight
According to the customs agent I’m going to get an early Christmas present today. I got up just as the sky was brightening prior to sunrise and fired up the computer as I made coffee. Armed with my coffee mug, I tried to sign into my conference call, but the little MiFi device wouldn’t give me a Wi-Fi hotspot! By the time I got that sorted out the conference call had almost ended, but I got to say “hi” to my colleagues before they signed off.
Morning
Work is progressing, but I’m fairly certain my internet is going to suddenly die when my prepaid data SIM runs out of juice. Luckily many are taking this week before Christmas off from work, so the workload for meetings is light. I went topsides just now to turn on the engine to charge the batteries a bit and was surprised to see all those new mega yachts and cruise ships at anchor (see the image above). They weren’t there at sunrise. The blue one on the left is 90m long and called Barbara. She can be chartered starting at a mere €1,100,000 per week, plus expenses and fuel.
Lunch and afternoon
I just got an e-mail saying that my Starlink RV has arrived and can be picked up in the marina office. That means that today is indeed an early Christmas present day! It is about 2.5 kilometers away by dinghy but there are showers coming through, so I am going to wait. If I time my weather window correctly, I can sneak between two groups of showers and remain dry.
After the showers had passed, I got into the dinghy and raced to the marina. The Starlink needed to be picked up in the customs and immigration offices. Once there, I told them I was there for my package, but it was a long while until they realized I was still waiting and acted. Finally, they brought the Starlink over and we opened the box to confirm the contents.
Package in hand, I raced back to the boat and went about setting it up. The original Wi-Fi network name of “Stinky” had already been changed. I secured it forward temporarily, as I think it will function adequately from belowdecks. The signal frequency is such that fiberglass is transparent to it. Within a couple of minutes of plugging it in the motors in the antenna, named “Dishy McFlatFace”, had swiveled. But despite the name, Dishy points roughly north and works like a charm. According to the customs agent I’m going to get an early Christmas present
