Wow.
It's been a long time since I've written here. We've been to
Lisbon, Nouakchott in Mauritania, Africa, and now we are in El Ferrol, Spain
since I last updated the web page. So here goes.
The Web Page
To start let me first apologize to those faithful ones who have
been religiously checking the web page while when we get into port. I
haven't been able to update the web page since Lisbon. Mauritania doesn't
exactly have the most advanced telecommunications structure. (That being
said however, I did meet a guy from France who wants to set up satellite
internet for the country.) So it's been a month, and I'm sure you're all
anxious to read about what we've been doing.
This leads me to my second point. I don't normally get the opportunity to
update the page the day we get into port. I have to find an internet café
in town, and our first day in port normally consists of a full days work,
and some form of formal reception or party in the evening. Also, when we are
at sea (and when the helicopter is working), little time is left in the day
for extra work such as the web page. There you have it. Please be patient,
and at some point in time while we are in port the page will be updated.
E-Mail
My third point concerns e-mail. As we all know the e-mail hasn't been working
as well as we are all accustomed to when we are at home. All our problems
stem directly from the way we connect to the internet while we are at sea.
While at sea, an antenna on the ship has to lock onto a satellite in order
to establish an internet connection. Sounds simple, but those of you who
have satellite TV (Starchoice, ExpresVu) in your homes probably know how
precisely you had to orient your dish on the roof of your home in order to
get a good signal. While we are at sea, the ship pitches and rolls and
turns, speeds up and slows down, all of which makes it extremely difficult
to establish a connection, let alone maintain it. Once we get a connection
we are limited to a 0.3kbps connection, a far cry from the 28.8, 33.6, or
56k modem connections we are used to at home.
So we try to minimize the amount of information we send to, and receive from
Halifax. This is why we have the web page e-mail you use at home to contact
us on the ship. This is the best way we've come up with so far to get all
the e-mail you send to us and at the same time keep the file size very
small. What we didn't realize was the large number of people trying to
access and write their e-mails to the web page at any given time. As a
result, the computers at PSPHalifax couldn't handle all the people using the
site at one time. That is why we divided the e-mail site into six different
departments, and a miscellaneous section. Now the e-mail is saved to seven
different files, which keeps the computers in Halifax happy, and at the same
time keeps the files we have to receive even smaller!
The Pictures and Stories
Lastly, and most importantly, the pictures and
stories. Since we've been away for so long and we have so many tales to
share with you, I'm dividing this page into several sections to make it a
little easier for you to surf through. Down below you'll find links to
People, Places, and Life at Sea. I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we
enjoyed finding captions for them! All colour photos were provided courtesy
of Cpl E. Jacques, and PH3 Murata, USN.
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