Ready to go!

Ok, here's how this is gonna work. I am able to send an SMS (text) message to a blind email account that automatically posts here.  I have no web access so I won't be able to read your comments, but the others reading this blog (both of them) will be able to (so feel free to flame me mercilessly).

If you absolutely must send me a message ... like it is an emergency or something, then you should go to satellitephonestore.com/sms-portal.  Put in my sat phone number (clevery included in the third post) and send me a text.  Basically I plan on this being a one-way communique of what's going on during the race.  I will see you all and post photos/video when I get home.

BTW, Dustan and I came up with a way for me to quickly update her using an old radio check response.  I will say 5x5x0 and she will know that everything is okay.  Now the 5x5 part is the old radio bit. 5 for signal strength and 5 for clarity (on a scale of 1-5).  For us it is 5 for the crew and 5 for the boat.  The last number is for Orca sightings.  She is very concerned that the boat will be attacked by a killer whale.  While rare, it is not impossible so I am including that info for her.

Also I will try to provide our position in Lat/Lon so you can find us on a globe.  Lat is degrees and tenths North of the equator and Lon is degrees and tenths West of England.  For brevity you will see 33.2N118.1W with no spaces.

Finally, we are supposed to have a YellowBrick transponder aboard, but we haven't received it yet.  If we do get it installed then you will be able to see our progress in real time at transpacyc.com or yb.tl/transpac2013.  I don't know how the site works because I haven't been able to visit recently.  The boat is called the Stumppy J in case you need to search for it.

That's it for now.  See you all on the other side.
--Matt