Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 08/25/2010 - 09:30
Forums
International Continental Shelf Survey

I moved to Florida from Ohio in June. I will be attending St. Mark Catholic School. I have talked to my friends from Ohio on e-mail, video chat and the phone. How do you keep in contact with your friends while you are gone so long? Kyler

Wed, 08/25/2010 - 17:36

Bill Schmoker

Hi Kyler- thanks for the note!That's a very insightful question. Fortunately I've had several avenues of communication to keep in touch with friends and family. The main way I keep in touch is through ship's email. We've been out of range on our high-capacity satellite system (the "V-Sat") for a while now but we still can get emails in and out with small attachments on the ship's email system that connects via satellite. When I get a question posted to my Ask The Team feature on the PolarTREC page I get and email and then I reply to it to post a response. I've been posting my journals by email, too. I first send out my journal and then I send each picture separately in subsequent emails.
When we had V-Sat (and when we get it again going south), we could get to the internet for outside email accounts. We can't use pages like Facebook or YouTube, though. But we can buy phone cards that let us call off of the ship from our cabin phones with the calls going over V-Sat. Otherwise calls are only possible on satellite phone. The science team has one that we can use now and then to make short calls home. It is pricey but works anywhere in the world.
Best from the Arctic! -Bill Schmoker