On Saturday 14th May (only 2 weeks late), the Skipper, Galley Slave and the Squatter all set off to Dover to get things ready for the big off, kipped on the boat overnight and then studied the weather forecast.
It said it was going to be blowing a bit, so we set off tentatively with a jib and 2 reefs in the main.
Had a cracking sail and reached Boulogne in world record time.
The skipper got out his laptop to check emails and stuff and noticed that the WiFi that was here last time had mysteriously vanished. Went to check with the Marina staff. "Oh yes, we're not using them anymore, we're putting in some free stuff, but that won't be here for a while."
Doh!
Next morning we all set off to get a couple of PAYG USB Modems. They were quite easily purchased and although a little expensive, didn't seem like too bad a deal.
Got back to the boat to try them out.
They didn't work. Went back to the shop., "You need to wait for 3 hours for them to be activated". We waited three hours and they still didn't work.
At this point the Squatter was bored of spending her weekend in a mobile phone shop and decided it was time to go back to Blighty. So we saw her onto the train and bid her au revoir.
Then it was back to the shop. "Oh your SIM cards expired at the end of April, we'll need to get those reset, wait an hour and come back here and we'll try them out again".
Went back in an hour and they still weren't working. We were told that they would work in about 30 minutes. So we went back to to the boat and tried again.
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They worked.
For 10 minutes. Then they were saying our credit had run out, but by this time it was six o'clock, the sun was very definitely over the yard arm and there were more important things to attend to.
Tuesday morning, we went back to the shop and they got them topped up with some credit.
Finally we could do some work.
It said it was going to be blowing a bit, so we set off tentatively with a jib and 2 reefs in the main.
Had a cracking sail and reached Boulogne in world record time.
The skipper got out his laptop to check emails and stuff and noticed that the WiFi that was here last time had mysteriously vanished. Went to check with the Marina staff. "Oh yes, we're not using them anymore, we're putting in some free stuff, but that won't be here for a while."
Doh!
Next morning we all set off to get a couple of PAYG USB Modems. They were quite easily purchased and although a little expensive, didn't seem like too bad a deal.
Got back to the boat to try them out.
They didn't work. Went back to the shop., "You need to wait for 3 hours for them to be activated". We waited three hours and they still didn't work.
At this point the Squatter was bored of spending her weekend in a mobile phone shop and decided it was time to go back to Blighty. So we saw her onto the train and bid her au revoir.
Then it was back to the shop. "Oh your SIM cards expired at the end of April, we'll need to get those reset, wait an hour and come back here and we'll try them out again".
Went back in an hour and they still weren't working. We were told that they would work in about 30 minutes. So we went back to to the boat and tried again.
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They worked.
For 10 minutes. Then they were saying our credit had run out, but by this time it was six o'clock, the sun was very definitely over the yard arm and there were more important things to attend to.
Tuesday morning, we went back to the shop and they got them topped up with some credit.
Finally we could do some work.
Oi Leuty, how come I've been demoted from Lodger to Squatter? In fact, I should now be promoted to House Sitter! Perhaps I'll leave the back door unlocked next time I go out.....
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