Keeping in touch
As I may have mentioned once or twice before, I’m at sea, currently in the middle of nowhere. My family, on the other hand, is safely at home missing Daddy. While I’m glad that they’re home safe, I would much rather be there with them than out here.
Keeping in contact with the family is difficult at the best of times. Until recently, we had three Mini-M satellite telephones on the ship. The phones are still there, but the nation-wide contract expired at the end of September, and there seems to be nothing currently in sight. As annoying as the phone sometimes was (it’s hard getting used to a 2-second delay from when I speak until my wife or daughter hears me), it was at least a way that I could hear my family’s voices and that they could hear mine. Coordinating times could be a pain (my current time zone is 19 hours ahead), but it was worth the effort to spend my weekly 20 minutes talking back home.
Now that the phone is gone, members of the ship’s company have to look for other methods of reaching home. Our internet connection, slow though it may be for web browsing, is more than sufficient for sending email back home. It doesn’t need a live connection, so timing coordination isn’t as important. I don’t get the joy of hearing my 2-year-old’s reaction to hearing me on the speaker phone (Dad? Dad!! Dad!!), but I’m able to get news from home and send some back. I’m able to talk to my wife and daughter, and I know that my son can hear what I send, even if it’s not spoken in my own voice.
When I’m in foreign port, I find an internet café and log into Skype. I bring my own laptop with me, so I know that I’ll have a working webcam when I get there. I can see and talk with my family. I’ll see my son’s latest temper tantrum turn into a huge smile when he recognizes my face and voice. I get a bit more interactivity than with the other methods; it’s the next-best thing I’ve found to being able to hold my family in my arms. I can at least see them face-to-face. I can talk to my son, and watch him tell me to come home in sign language (my wife translates for me on voice-only calls). Even though it hurts that I can’t come home, I know that he knows and recognizes me, and that he misses me as much as my wife and daughter do.
The old-fashioned mail package is also available, although much more limited. Every few ports, we send and receive mail, which can include letters, gifts, stories, or anything else that will fit in the box (and is allowed by mail rules). It’s much slower than the other methods, but it also includes something that they can hold onto. My local MFRC had a craft session before the last mail call; both of my kids’ artwork came to me in anMFRC package. These are now posted in my office, where I can see them every day.
The internet, of course, has given us more ways to communicate, but they are less than reliable. It can take forever to load Facebook when two hundred sailors are sharing a 512 kbps connection (about 1/20 the speed of a cable modem). Even posting to my blog would be nearly impossible without the aid of Postie, which allows me to post to my blog from my email account.
Any of my readers who spend time with their families apart and use other means of communication with them, feel free to comment. You could help another family stay in touch while separated.
