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Archive for the ‘Communications’ Category
Happy New Year
Tuesday, January 1st, 2013Signs Are Us
Monday, March 19th, 2012People communicate by signs. The sign boards are usually displaying either commercial advertising or communal restrictions and warnings, the latter category often religiously related. Having spent the past 3 years mainly in countries with a major Islamic influence we have often seen signs like the one below. We usually do not choose this kind of establishments if there is a choice, like on the second photo. That sign almost made us drop the hook immediately (you may have to click on the photo to read the sign).
Recently we climbed Sigiraiya, the Lion Rock, in Sri Lanka (see report) and there was a sign displaying a ban on entering with liquor which, I suppose, referred to all alcohol (below). A cold beer would have been very welcome after the 1,200 steps to reach the top, but the only sign we could find up there was a warning that “going down is dangerous” (second one below). Well, be as it may, staying on the top without beer wasn’t an option either, so we quickly ascended the rock, almost seing mirages of ice cold beer on the horizon. Imagine our disappointment when, after finding a five star restaurant, they told us that it was impossible to buy beer anywhere that day in Sri Lanka – because of Full Moon Day! And this isn’t even a Muslim country and this time there was no warning sign.
Corruption among persons in authority at the port of Galle is rumoured to be rampant and we had some experiences ourselves. There is a warning sign posted at the gate, informing that asking for and offering bribes are criminal offences (below). It must have been a politician who had that sign installed. Politicians usually come up with ideas which have no relevance in resolving problems they address, but give them a chance to claim that they have done something. The second photo below displays what a Lankan tuk tuk-driver thinks about politicians.
Some signs are completely useless. Or what do you think about the advice on how to react if attacked by wasps (below). An equally stupid sign is the (presumably) restricted parking. But maybe the restriction doesn’t apply to foreigners.
Sometimes the warning signs are addressed to a particularly broad public. I bet the monkeys crossing the road at this particular spot in Malaysia are extremely grateful for being warned about vehicles.
Staying Connected
Friday, January 20th, 2012Yesterday we arrived in Kuah, the main settlement of Langkawi in Malaysia. Our first task, having visited the offices of Customs, Immigration and Harbour Master, was to get new SIM cards for both voice and data communication. It has been a while since our last visit and our old Malaysian SIM cards had expired. This time we purchased 5 cards: two for dumb phones, one for a smart phone (Nokia Lumia 800) and two for dongles that we connect to laptops (Mac and PC). As usual, we bought cards from two different operators, in case one has better coverage in certain locations than the other.
The three most important things nowadays appear to be: connection, connection, connection.
Related story: Biggest change in 20 years of cruising.
Strange Rescue at Sea
Tuesday, September 27th, 2011Recently there was a strange story in The Phuket News.
NAVY HELPS YACHT TO SAFETY
According to the article, the Royal Thai Navy has rescued a sailing vessel with a crew of two foreigners, an Italian and a South African, on the way from Langkawi to Phuket. The crew had called for help from turbulent seas in the middle of the night. They reported that their vessel was struggling in heavy waves.
The navy searched for the boat for two hours, and about six hours later the sailing vessel was towed safely to a port in Satul Province.
This article raises several questions, but I will address only a few. There is no mentioning of break-downs of the yacht or it’s equipment and no report of sickness aboard either. As far as I am aware, there was no horrible storm blowing at the time. The area in question (outside Satun province) is not an open ocean, on the contrary, the yacht was on a coastal passage, where there are several large islands along the way. Depending on the direction of the wind, it should have been possible to find relative shelter either behind the mainland or one of the islands. The waters are generally shallow all over and anchoring is possible almost anywhere.
Obviously it was pitch dark when the call was made, so maybe the problem had to do with navigation …
Unexpected weather?
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011Two weeks ago Phuket and several other regions of Thailand were hit by severe storms, causing several fatalities and great loss of property. On shore landslides killed dozens of locals and tourists and on the coast boats broke their moorings and were washed up on the beaches or smashed against rocks.
When we arrived in Phuket on the second of April, after our two-week passage from the Maldives, we were told it was the first non rainy day in more than a week. There had been periods of 50 knots of wind and there had been almost 200 mm of rain in at least one 24-hour period. Good timing on our side for once, it appears.
The reason I’m writing this post is that I find it difficult to understand why these storms are allowed to cause so much grief and destruction. After all, they don’t just fall out of the sky unexpectedly. Actually, when I was preparing for our trip in the Maldives more than a week before the storm and 1,500 nautical miles (almost 3,000 km) away, I saw that this low pressure system was about to hit Thailand – that is if you believe what the GRIB files are predicting 7-8 days ahead.
On March 18, two days before our departure from Male, I downloaded GRIBs showing cyclonic-pattern winds at Phuket on the 168 hour (7 days) forecast. The forecasts on the two following days confirmed that there was something unusual going on. The image below shows what the GRIB file of March 20 forecasted for the Phuket area on March 27.
This forecast didn’t concern us aboard Scorpio at all, we would still be far away south of the Bay of Bengal. However, we naturally kept a close look at the progress of this predicted weather system all the way.
But how could so many in Thailand be taken by surprise?
The Countdown Has Started
Friday, March 18th, 2011The last face of our preparations for a longer passage is looking for weather and deciding on the exact date of departure. We have been doing that for a couple of days now.
Read more ..
Letter from Ban Ki-moon
Monday, July 12th, 2010I check my junk-mailbox regularly (even the old, almost obsolete Hotmail-one), because sometimes important non-spam ends up there. Recently a mail TO ME from the Secretary General of the United Nations ended up in the trash. The subject line was: “United Nations Compensation Unit, To scam victims”!
I did not open this mail.
[Click on the image for a blow up]
Goodbye Hotmail
Monday, May 17th, 2010[Back to Scorpiosail Home Page]
I’m finally abandoning Hotmail.
The last drop was when someone hijacked my address book and sent most of my contacts a fake message recommending iPhone.
In the process all my contacts have disappeared from the address book and so have all mails in my inbox for the last two months.
I will change to the following address: henrik(at)scorpiosail.com. But for the time being please use both addresses (copy to hotmail).
Good morning Vietnam – Facebook blocked
Thursday, March 18th, 2010We arrived in Saigon yesterday and were positively surprised by our first superficial impressions. It certainly did not look like a socialist city in a developing country (except, maybe, for the thousands and thousands of mopeds and motorbikes).
It didn’t take long to realize that Big Brother is in control, though. I have used Facebook as a quick and easy (?) way of keeping our relatives informed of our daily movements during this journey on land in SE Asia. However, access to FB has clearly been blocked at the hotel were we are staying. After some quick research on the web, the following is apparently what is happening:
The Vietnamese Government has an Administration Agency for Radio, TV and Electronics Information that acts as a watchdog over Internet activity. In the name of public security, an official dispatch has been sent out to internet providers in the country, ordering them to block their users’ access to some websites, including Facebook.
Cartoon by Nguyen Thanh Phong (click on it for larger copy)
For an article about this issue at CNN.com click here.
We may now be unable to communivate via Facebook as long as we stay in Vietnam. So please check this blog here at Scorpiosail more frequently.
Why do I have to pay the call?
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009Usually, when we are staying for more than a month in a country, where they have wide mobile phone coverage, we buy prepaid local sim cards.
However, in one of our phones I use to keep my Finnish sim card – just in case there would be some urgent message from our families back home.
Unfortunately, most of the calls I receive on this Finnish phone are telemarketing attempts, typically someone in Finland trying to sell me a subscription for a magazine or newspaper. The annoying thing with this is that my operator will charge me for the roaming fee: the part of the call that takes place outside of Finland, while the caller only pays the local fee!
When I discuss this subject with friends, I’m surprised that they often don’t share my opinion: “But the caller can’t know that the call will be redirected abroad!”
So what? say I. But I didn’t ask for the call either!
It would be technically very easy for the operator to play a prerecorded message, saying something like:
“This call will be redirected through an operator abroad. Additional charges may be incurred. If you want to proceed, push “1”, if not, please end the call.”
Sometimes we use the phones for more sensible tasks, like here when illustrating the size of some prawns.