Mountain Expedition

Mark and I are still not able to receive or send emails through our trustworthy sat phone; the one way of communication and weather information we need and hoped to rely on. There is a problem with the mail service we use and nobody can figure out what went wrong. So, we still feel cut-off from the world, being on an island without internet facilities. We hope to respond to everybody when we get to the island of Hiva Oa, the latest, where internet is available. Not sure when that will be. Fatu Hiva is still amazing and we are not ready to leave yet. To be honest, I don't even know whether these blogs are getting posted, but I'll write them anyway. :)

We were very lucky with the weather on Monday, when we planned to join a crew into the mountains, where they would clean up a trail. On Sunday, it rained all day, making us question the expedition or the state of the trail the following day. On Tuesday, after a rainy night, it kept raining throughout the day, turning Hanavave Bay into a massive brown mud puddle.The highlight of that day was a morning show performed by a big pod of dolphins. They jumped, turned and flipped at the mouth of the bay for hours, feeding and frolicking. When we finally joined them in our dinghy, they played with it and jumped alongside. Too bad the water was so dirty or we would have been able to snorkel or swim with them.

On Monday morning, it stayed dry. Mark and I were picked up at the "Mairie" (town hall) of Hanavave by a truck full of old people. Were these the guys responsible for widening the trail in the mountains? No, they were just getting a ride to Omoa, the other town on the island. Where did we want to be dropped off? Well. How about the trail head where Lionel and his friends would start their work? The driver didn't seem to know anything about our arrangement, but luckily he did know which trail I meant. There really is only one trail into the mountains, which ends in Ouia, an ancient village of thousands of people hundreds of years ago, but empty and abandoned now. Together with a local guy, hiding in the bed of the truck, we were deposited
halfway between Hanavave and Omoa, at the highest point of the bumpy road, which had been extremely steep the whole way. In the chilly mountain air, we waited for Lionel, our French friend we met a few days earlier in Omoa.

After twenty minutes or so, he showed up with three big guys and a truck load of equipment. They unloaded the four weed whackers, extra cans of fuel, cooking utensils, food, cooler, propane, stove, and personal belongings, and arranged everything on the covered picnic benches along the road, one of which they wrapped into a tarp. They would spend the night here. Then, we all set out on the overgrown trail, at a fast pace, following Lionel, the aged leader of the gang. The path was hard to see at times and so narrow and muddy that it was a bit scary. We tried hard not to slip and fall into the depths, off the rocky, steep slopes.

Every 25 minutes, a man stayed behind with his gear to clear the trail towards the beginning. We followed our host until the "col", the highest point on the trail, where the last man started work. The same group would do the second half of the path, the steep decent to Ouia Bay, a few weeks later. Mark and I also turned around, getting freaked out by the steep, muddy, overgrown and narrow continuation of the trail. Our old sandals with no traction were not up for the job, and we had both already slipped a fewtimes. The hike back was at our own pace and very enjoyable, apart from the narrow stretches and one short fall off the side of the bushy mountain, a good scare. We took in the amazing scenery and magnificent views, the different kinds of trees and ferns, the strands of bamboo, and many colorful flowers, the songs of the birds, the sight of green parakeets, the quiet of the mountains. We took our time getting back to the main road, following short lengths of neatly cleared path at intervals, handing a homemade peanut butter cookie to every member of the work force we passed and thanking them for their efforts.

Once back at the road, the next part of our walk started. We followed the rickety dirt road all the way down, first to where the rutted and rocky part turned into pavement, then to Hanavave village, all the while enjoying the views, taking lots of pictures and cursing the steepness of the track, holding ourselves back, making our knees suffer. One car drove by. We watched the sailboats deep down in the protected bay. We passed the little Maria statue, where our driver had stopped and everybody in the car had said a long prayer. We saw the waterfall dropping off a steep cliff in the distance. We cut off a rack of bananas and carried it for miles and we finally found a mango tree with (unripe) fruit. We walked and walked for hours in the sun and finally arrived on Irie, exhausted, covered in mud and happy to be home, and to have been part of this interesting "expedition"!

Online Position Tracking with Your Inmarsat ISatPhone for Free (By Mark Kilty)

We recently purchased the ISatPhone to allow us to receive weather information (via email) and for emergencies while offshore on our upcoming trips in the Pacific.  We do not have an SSB installation on Irie, and nowadays, with Sat Phones being more reasonably priced, don’t see a reason to justify the cost of an SSB.  The phone we purchased was $550 new, and the basic cost per minute is $1.  Data calls and voice calls are all billed the same, so however long you are connected getting your emails is what you pay.

One of the nice features of the ISatPhone is it allows you to send short emails (160 characters) directly from the phone.  So, no need to turn on your computer to let someone know everything is ok, just power on the phone, type your email, and send.  Nice and easy.  These emails cost a flat $.50 per address that the email is sent to.  By the way, short emails (160 characters) can also be sent directly to the ISatPhone from anyone you give your email address to, and the cost per incoming message: $0.  Nice. It is also free for the sender.

Along with this built-in email feature is another feature called a “Position Report”.  Since the phone has a built in GPS, you can configure a list of recipients to receive a Position Report (including a 55 character custom message), with the click of a button.  Also costing only $.50/address the report is sent to.  The position report is just a preformatted email that the phone builds based on the current latitude/longitude that the GPS receiver in the phone receives, and then adds your custom message to it.

This is again a great feature, but I wanted to be able to map our location, and keep track of our history as we moved, all on our blog, and on a map.  Similar to the way the SPOT device works that a lot of cruisers use.  But if I could figure out how to get the SPOT mapping equivalent, using our ISatPhone, it would be great.

Here is what my goals were:
1)    Create a map that was always current with our location on our blog.
2)    Be able to update the position via our ISatPhone.
3)    Be able to update the position via a normal WiFi connection when available.
4)    Be free.

Google Maps has the best mapping service available for free, so I wanted to use their maps to display our location on our blog.  Google also provides a service called Google Latitude that allows you to share your current position with others, and provides a way to display it on your website or blog (http://www.google.com/latitude).  The issues with this service, however, is it does not allow anyone but you to view your history, and there is no way to update the location from the ISatPhone.  It is tightly integrated with Google Maps, and there are a number of third party applications available for Apple and Android devices that can be used to share your location.

Further searching led me to another service, mapme.at (http://mapme.at).  This service is similar in functionality to Google Latitude, but uses open source maps for their map data.   I wanted to show the satellite view from Google Maps, not a map one would use to drive in a city with, which is what mapme.at uses.  Therefore Google Latitude has to be linked to mapme.at. Some of the great things about mapme.at are: it allows a number of ways to update your location (including email, and now the ISatPhone), allows anyone you permit to view your history, and integrates with Google Latitude (and other location based services) so your location is in sync between the services.

So here is what you need to do to get up and running:
1)    Create a mapme.at account for your boat (http://mapme.at).  Set up your account (“Accounts” tab) and upload a photo to be used when your location is displayed.
2)    Create a Google account (https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount) if you don’t already have one.  Log into Google Latitude (http://www.google.com/latitude) and set your Privacy Settings to “Set Your Location”.  This will make sure Latitude only updates your location when you request it and not automatically, when you use your computer for instance.  Also, log in to Gmail with this user account, and set a “Google Profile” photo for your boat.  This image will be displayed on your Google Map on your blog/website.
3)    Link your Google Latitude account with your mapme.at account.  Click on the Sources tab at mapme.at, and select “Push your location from mapme.at to Google Latitude” and follow the steps to authorize the sharing of location data between the two services.
4)    In mapme.at, also in “Sources”, generate an email address you can use to update your location with.  It will create a custom email address, xxxxx@email.mapme.at.
5)    Enable the “Sharing” settings on mapme.at to allow “The Public”, “Full Accuracy”.  There are ways to limit access to your location information, which you can try as you need.
6)    Turn on the Google Latitude Badge in “Application Settings” at Google Latitude, and integrate that HTML into your blog or website.
7)    On your ISatPhone, configure the “Personal Alert” (Menu->Extras->Personal Alert->Configure Personal Alert), and add the email address from mapme.at.

That’s it.  You can update your location on mapme.at (and in turn, Google Latitude) by one of these methods:
1)    Send a Personal Alert from your ISatPhone to your mapme.at email address.
2)    Go to mapme.at and manually enter your lat/long.
3)    If you have a GPS enabled phone/tablet, and are online, go to http://mapme.at/me/mobile and click on the “Auto CheckIn” box to update you position, then you can uncheck it so it does not update as you walk around town :).
4)   See the “Tracking” section for more ways as well: http://mapme.at/wiki/Home.

The link to your history page is simply http://mapme.at/where/USERNAME, so you can add this link to your blog/site as well to allow people to view your past locations.  USERNAME is your account name you set up on mapme.at.
 
Now you have full mapping and tracking from a number of sources, including your ISatPhone via their simple and inexpensive, Personal Alert feature.