To post a message to the message board, access the particular category and forum you wish to post to. For instance, you are looking for a shipmate. Go the the Shipmate category on the board, then click on Connecting with Shipmates.

You will see a list of posts there. To add a new one, click on the grey tab immediately above the topics section that says New Topic. You will enter a subject for the topic, and a message. You can use some text tools to make your words bold, italicized, underlined, even change colors and sizes.

Below the Message window, you can check the box next to 'Watch this topic...' - this will enable you to be alerted if someone posts a reply to your post.

When you are done typing, you can preview your message or just post it straight away.

To reply to a previous post, just open the post you wish to answer, then click on the grey tab that says Add Reply. Type up your message, then click on post. Again, you can opt to be notified of any activity on the topic by checking the box next to 'Watch this topic...'.