My mate Elon

They include

• VHF - limited range voice only (20 mile +/- and only vhf to vhf)

• EPIRB - emergency only to summon rescue

• Phone - horrendous roaming charges on slow 3G or an endless supply of local sims

• WiFi - only where available on land and we’ve tried all kinds of extenders to jump on a connection from local bars etc. - all rubbish

• Sat phone - we’ve got one - it has download speeds reminders reminiscent of the old style dial up modems that burbles and burped but cost that would make your eyes water.

• Satellite braodband - until now totally unafordble and by that I mean tens of thousands of $ for the kit and further tens of thou s to run it - enter my mate Elon and space X

Starlink is billed as a game changer and so far it is. it is running faster than my broadband at home here in Guatemala and will do the same whilst we are on passage to Honduras next week; and in remote anchorages in fact almost anywhere we will go.

Fitting was the usual tussle but that’s to do with the nature of boats and not the Starlink system once Id run the cable and installed a smaller inverter (turns 12v battery into mains AC voltage) to avoid running the less efficient big one we already have, the set up took 5 minutes and we were immediately getting blistering connection speeds.

Zoom cals, website editing event streaming entertainment all possible anywhere. The kit was much cheaper here than in. USA or Europe because STARLINK are subsidising developing economies and the same goes for monthly fees - less than BT at home.

So you see, whatever they say about him in the media, Elon is my mate because I’m about to hit the upload button and this blog will be on the site seconds later without me going for a beer I don’t want in order to get a connection..