The down side is that the road in front of Casa Winjama and adjacent to here has about eight inches of mud and a good three inches of water on top of that. In addition, the forty to sixty loads of rock that Transport put in has gotten rid of the really deep holes, it's just left an amazingly bumpy and uncomfortable ride. What fun.
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And this from the files of Odysseus or someone like him.
And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave Ulysses.
How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing.
Sparkling waves are calling you to touch her white laced lips.
-- Cream, Tales of Brave Ulysses, Live Cream, Vol. 2
I got this message Tuesday from Kyler, Gerhard's wife:
We need your help... Sunday, Gerard was sailing near Orchid Bay when a bad storm hit. He capsized and lost his Hobie to huge waves. He spent fifteen hours in the sea . Monday, he and some guys searched for the boat to no avail.Later on Tuesday, Gerhard reported the errant boat had been found in Sarteneja.
Now, I don't know about you, but fifteen hours bobbing around in the briney, is no slouch activity for anyone, much less someone of slightly advancing years. There was no mention of any hypothermia, injuries, or how Gerhard managed to extricate himself from his predicament.
Gerhard, you've simply got to stop listening to those sirens when you're out on the bounding main.
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Rodney and MiFi
This was a comment from Mr. Pancho (Rodney) about MiFi. Don't know MiFi from WiFi or HiFi? Don't worry, all will be made clear.
"Dave, It dawned on me that you snuck in that you switched from satellite to MiFi. Could you elaborate on that? Amy and I will both have internet jobs if we move to Belize (doing medical coding work) and will need a reliable internet source. I doubt there will be any wires ran up Consejo road for a wired connection. - Rodney"
In the heady days of HiFi - I can remember getting an FM adapter for the AM radio in my 1965 Valiant convertible. This super gizmo allowed me to receive what was then just coming in - FM radio - not even stereo, just plain old mono - the way God intended it - at least in my car.
I could listen to all the non-top 40, album-oriented rock by some really free-wheeling DJs. It was known as 'underground' or 'Free-form' FM, and eventually became known as 'progressive rock' along with the commercials which, at the time were almost unheard of and nothing was played that remotely showed up on top-40 stations or Dick Clark's American Bandstand out of Philadelphia, PA. Anyone remember listening to 'Mother' on some station in San Francisco, say around 1968? Some wonderful sets came over the air
So, enough of Hi-Fi. Just a flash on WiFi. If you've ever gotten on-line in Starbucks or some other joint or even wirelessly at home - That's WiFi. It needs a wireless router, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da. You know all about that.
So, along comes MiFi. It's probably been out for a while, I just discovered it a few months ago, when some friends here said they had dumped their cable internet provider, or whatever and gone down to the local Smart Phone Center (here in Belize anyway) and gotten a tiny little MiFi box.
MiFi, at least with Smart (Digicell will soon be offering their version of MiFi, according to a text Dianna got from Digicell), is sold by data in Gigabytes, as opposed to time.increments. Smart's prices are $30-1 GB, $50-2 GB, $70-5 GB, on up to $150-25GB packages. You can purchase either prepaid or postpaid.
We signed up for a 10 GB package. It looks like we're using roughly
Right now, we're paying $90 BZD for the 10 GB package. That's less than half what Hughesnet cost us per month. Startup is much less and easier as well. Hughenet cost about $2000 US for the dish, modem, and installation. MiFi cost about $100 BZD. You carry it home in your pocket and then turn it on. What could be simpler?
So far, I've found it visibly faster than Hughesnet satellite, plus there's no Fair Access Policy (FAP) to worry about. That was what finally decided us on switching to MiFi.
MiFi also seems to be almost completely impervious to hiccups due to weather. We've had virtually no service interruptions since signing up (just about a month now).
With the MiFi, you can have up to five devices hooked up simultaneously. The downside is the thing only has a 30-foot range. There is some equipment you can buy that will 1) remove the five device limitation, and 2) significantly extend the range of the thing.
The other downside is that I can't use my Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive. At least, if that's not the case, I haven't found out how to do it yet. I have hopes however.
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The Road
The Road
We just completed our third day without significant rain. Wow! For the past few days, our road has been really bumpy, I mean really bumpy. It's also had about eight inches of mud and water still on top, though having the deep holes filled was a definite benefit. Just today, we had the grader come back through and smooth out the road. It looks like there'll be a good chance of having walkies in the morning. First time in weeks if it happens. Keep your fingers crossed.
