Leaving Puerto Escondito

5/10/12 – We will be leaving here today and continuing our way further north along the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez. Most of the places we’ll be won’t have internet service, and cell service will be sporadic as well. We purposely got Mexican cell phone numbers and service, so this is a bummer, but we’ll just have to deal with it. We will be able to send and receive emails through our Single Side Band (SSB) radio, notwithstanding sporadic radio propagation problems. We’ve entered in all your email addresses into the SSB email software.
This radio email system has data limits on what you can send out. This means that when you get an email from us (from KE7FZH@winlink.org) you should not hit your ‘reply’ button and respond, because doing so needlessly appends your response to our original email to you. This might make the email exceed the data limits, and the email won’t reach us. Instead, please respond to emails from us by starting a fresh email. We also cannot accept cartoon graphics, clipart, photos or anything like that – send only text in your emails to us. But please (!), do email us!
Terry is going to (or maybe already has) send each of you a test email to make sure we have things set up right. It would be helpful if you’d respond to that in a separate email so we know things are working.
And just so you know, KE7FZH is Terry’s ham radio call sign There are ham radio people all over the world willing to relay messages back and forth for cruisers and family in the event of emergencies and for status/location updates. Click on Winlink and learn more about how it all works.
There are several ham radio and SSB “cruiser nets” that monitor cruisers whereabouts and status. We like to monitor and check-in with one of these that’s called the Ämigo Net. Every morning on this net, cruisers check in using their SSB radios, and provide the net controllers and other cruisers with location and cruise plans so that cruisers have a way to keep track of and help each other if emergencies arise. We are safe and happy here, so I’m not trying to scare you. However, we are very close to hurricane season, and even though we know of several ‘hurricane holes’ to go to ride something like that out, no place here in most of Mexico is completely hurricane-free. We really don’t expect to encounter one, but I’m giving you this information just in case.
You can still use our gmail for emails to us, but we won’t be able to check and respond to them with any kind of regularity.
That about wraps things up for now. I will be trying to post blog updates on the Harmony blog and this one too by SSB radio, but won’t be able to post a link on Facebook, so you’ll need to actually go to In Harmony’s Wake and First  Mate’s Musings to check for new blog posts. Please feel free to post on Facebook any Harmony’s Wake blog updates. Let me know if you have any questions!

UPDATE: If you want to see where we are on Google maps, click Harmony's Current Position and a page will open up with a map showing you precisely where we when we last reported. We'll be trying to report regularly. I feel like I'm loading  with info you probably couldn't care less about, but that how I roll I guess. Love and really miss you all!