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Internet Communications While At Sea?

Posted by timothy on from the use-carrier-whales dept.

ubergamer1337 writes "Next semester I will be participating in a college study abroad program known as Semester at Sea. The gist of it is that over four months 600ish students sail around the world on a converted cruise ship, visiting diverse port cities while taking classes when we are between ports. Debates about its educational merit aside, my internet options while I will be at sea will be severely limited. We get just 100 minutes of internet access for the entire voyage, and once thats gone the only internet access we have is a university email address, which is limited to messages under a megabyte with no attachments. I have been pondering different ways to staying in contact with friends and family back at home without running to an internet cafe in every port, and I have already decided that I want to set up a blog that can be updated by email, but I wanted to ask the collective wisdom of Slashdot if anyone knows of any other ways to transmit more then just your standard message through email. Some things I would be particularity interested in being able to figure out would be a way to send photos (encode them as text?), and a way to get Wikipedia pages etc. emailed to me."

2 of 504 comments (clear)

  1. Try RFC 1149 by Hoplite3 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html

    With the size of microSD these days, you might be able to send really big packets too...

    --
    Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
  2. My Semester at Sea Experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I went on Semester at Sea in 1997 before the internet was available on the ship. I have to underscore what so many people have been posting -- focus on the experience while you are having it and share it when you return. Snail mail addresses of the ports of call are available ahead of time and it makes it enriches the experience to receive and send a physical letter. I would recommend keeping a journal (or local blog) and then creating a website upon your return. Friends and family will still be interested!

    As an alumni I had to opportunity to voyage from the Bahamas to New York on the new ship this past summer. Let me tell you that internet access is slow and spotty. I do credit the administrators that they allow the wifi only to be in a few public spaces so that students will not be holed up in their cabins.

    Have a great trip -- it was one of the best experiences of my life!