Connectivity

I'm using a Treo 600 (GPRS, not WiFi) and get reasonable coverage from Olympia to most of the San Juans and into the more populated areas of Canada. I get weather radar from AccuWeather.com and NOAA gives me text weather and NDBC buoy data. There are several online directories of Puget Sound marine facilities such as marinas, gas, parts, etc. and I also have a pretty good collection of frequently used facilities in the address book.

Surprisingly I've encountered several marinas that only take same-day slip reservations over VHF, not cell phone. I called Point Hudson (Port Townsend), asked for a slip, they said yes they had one but I'd have to call back on the VHF. Proves I'm nearby I guess.

TideTool comes in handy for trip planning but I rarely use it if I'm near a tide book. I also have an app called Colorize that lets me change all the colors to shades of dim red for nightime use.

I'm also able to do all my email from the Treo and I have Mobile TS that lets me into a Terminal Server connection at work if they need support.

I have MMPlayer and a 1gb memory card and keep several full-length movies on the Treo in addition to lots of music. This, of course, isn't a replacement for the on-board DVD player and stereo system but I *can* lay in my bunk and watch a movie if the kids are watching something I'm not interested in.

You *can* do all of this with a laptop. I have an old laptop, mounted at the nav station, running SeaClear with a GPS PCMCIA card (reception is fine without an external antenna). I have a Sierra wireless card the lets the laptop get on the Internet through a GPRS (cellular) connection and that works fine too but I rarely use it outside of work.

We did connect to a couple of WiFi networks last year in Roche Harbor and in Victoria. I have little use for general computing outside of work so it was mostly for my wife and 17 year old daughter.