A Mariner's Telephone Prayers Answered

When I started sailing commercial ships (10+ years ago now) I made a promise to myself that I’d quit when my first child was born. Now as I write this my son Jack is 15 months old and I’m still spending over six months per year at sea. So what has changed to make this possible? In a single word; technology.

Today I have shipboard access to the internet, telephone (well I always had this but it use to cost me $6 per minuet) and even a webcam to watch him take his first steps. One technology that has made my life much easier this past year is GrandCentral.com.

So here is what you need to do:

head to the website and register for a new phone number.
enter your existing phone numbers
check out their extra features

The killer feature is voicemail via email. When you are aboard the ship grandcentral answers your calls and forwards any voicemail you recieve to your email account. This alone is worth the cost (which is FREE) but other features include:

forwarding to any or all of your phones (they all can ring at once)
advance caller id
in call recording (for when your boss calls)
in call forwarding (great for when you need to transfer a call from your house to your cell)
listen in to calls (just like listening in to your answering machine when work calls)

We currently use GrandCentral to handle all of gCaptain’s incoming calls and consider it a must have service. We are not the only ones however, who must have this service… google just paid an estimated $50 million to purchase the company.

GrandCentral.com