Saturday, Aug 29, 2009 at 15:10
Hi Matt,
Back when the Navman marine VHF was installed to the 80 series, we lived on an Island off the
Pilbara coast, where we managed a pearl
farm and charter fishing resort.
7 meter tides twice a day meant that simple things like "going to town to shop" are 2 or 3 day marathons of boat and 4wd transport from the Island to Balla Balla by boat - Balla Balla to Whim Creek By Motorbike, Whim Creek to
Karratha and back by 4wd etc etc, and same for return trip.
The Lodge has a long whip aerial on the roof with VHF Base station thats monitored 24/7 and reaches as far as
Dampier and
Port Hedland.
My Family (2 lads and daughter) were my 'employees' and so staying in touch with them no matter where they were, becomes paramount, for safety and OHS reasons not to mention the worries of a parent for his offspring.
The VHF covers all bases - no matter where they were, they could get in touch with me.
It wasn't uncommon to have to have to sail back to the Island at night because of the tides in totally uncharted water with no navigational marks - i.e. entirely by "local knowledge" - i.e knowing where you are, whether a new (no) moon night or not purely because of the tidal restrictions.
VHF's in all our boats and vehicles - just meant that when things went astray from the agreed plan (as the often did) we could be in touch.
Several times the lads would grind to a halt on a sandbank in the dark due to an exceptionally low spring tide and have to sit it out for 8 hours until the tide came back.
Without communications - one would have had to start a search and rescue - but with the VHF a simple call would put the situation into perspective.
The road from Balla Balla to whim Creek (28km's of gravel), has no houses etc so again with the 4wd any problems (flat tyres etc) could lead to lengthy delays - missing a tide shift for the boat and hence long periods where no one would know where the boys were, and resultant calls to the Roebourne or
karratha police for a search, before we put the VHF into the 4wd!
It was the best thing we did.
With boats and 4wds being our "business" - it only makes sense to be able to communicate between them.
Many 4wds in convoy use 2 way radios to "stay in touch" so all members of the group know what each other are doing - so it is with our business where boats and 4wd's need to meet up for recovery onto trailer or launching etc.
We would be "co-ordinating / collecting clients / guests" from the airport in
Karratha for example - who had travelled 45 hours straight from Florida in the USA to come stay and fish with us at the island resort. When you take into account the 7 meter tides and their effect on transport by boat to the island etc - the vagaries of air transport delays, missing baggage and so on, the ability to stay in touch via the VHF in the 4WD was indispensable.
Because of the range of the base station on the island and the line of soight across water, direct radio from Island to 4wd at
Karratha airport was possible.
It wasn't uncommon to send the lads and 4wd to collect passengers sometimes 2 days ahead of when the plane arrived, in order to fit in with the tides to get to the airport - and then to fit in with the passengers air timetable & the tides to be able to get back to the island - and this sometimes involved overnight stays in the beachfront house at Pt Samson, from whence you could see the lights of
the lodge on the Island 35Nmiles away at night and from which comms by radio were a piece of cake.
When you live on an island and shopping is once a fortnight or once a month - the convenmience to be able to call the lads on the radio - while they were in the
Karratha Light Industrial area and have them collect a required plumbing part or spares for the fresh water deslainator - parts ofr the generators etc was a godsend.
People in citys take everything for granted - when you have to rely TOTALLY on yourselves for EVERYTHING including water and power and theres no
shop just down the road for anything you need - you have to take advantage of those rare trips to the mainland and shops.
Nuthing worse than - the lads left yesterday and today something breaks down - they are in
karratha and could have grabbed the required part to fix it - BUT you can't get in touch with them...to collect it and bring it back.
The Marine VHF and our base station on the Island fixed that!
We had mobile phones as
well of course - but until the advent of the Next G network our mobiles were useless say on the Whim Creek road - no coverage at all.
The VHF was the best thing we ever put into the 4wd, because of our business and circumstance at the time.
They are not for everyone - specially people without boats - but while out at the island our boas were like your car a convenient means of transport, we had about 6 (boats) and 2 x 4wd's and motorbike etc.
We always had to have some means of communication and between:
VHF system
Next G Mobile
Sat Phone
Sat Internet
We were pretty much always able to be in touch with our staff and paying guests, no matter where in their journeys they were.
The north west marine environment (pearl
farm) is a very dangerous, remote, place to live and work - with large tides and cyclones etc - crocks
sharks and so on just a normal days usual range of risks to be faced and dealt with.
Communications are critical to dsafety - I could have a medivac chopper on deck at the island within 15 minutes of a call.
But if you don't know there's an emergency due to poor communications - then, you can't really help anyone.
When the people who's lives are at risk are your own kids and also paying clients to whom you have a legislated duty of care, you start to take all these things very seriously.
To me communications was a premium thing, the two boys would swim the pearl lines once aday every day. Given the tides and strong currents -
sharks irrucanji jelly fish crocks etc etc, the risks were really high and communications the difference between life and death.
Siting back in suburbia in the armchair comfort of a modern
home, with power and water laid on its hard to appreciate what others in the real world might need in the way of good communications and then it;s just as hard to communicate that without 10,000 words to make it understood in it;sproper context.
Of course we had hand held uhf radios - two or 3 sets, becvause we also had pealring barges anchored out in the bay in front of theisland where the boys would have to work cleaning pearl shell etc, we had dinghys that everyone would use every day and so on.
Maybe that gives some idea of why we would have marine VHF's in our boats abut also our 4wd's. Not a lot of use in the city - but for us - an everyday item just like the phone.
Just another every day
hazard
For us - this was
home for a year.
When your on your own - you can't rely on anyone else to save your bacon if / when things go wrong, and thus communications become paramount. What is normal daily routine doesn't make any sense to city dwellers.
Hopefully this will give you some idea why we have a marine VHF in the 4WD when to many others it would make little or no sense.
Cheers.
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