May 24- Communication on another Sea Day

This age of communication makes traveling be a quite different experience than for the earlier sailors. We have heard lectures and read books recently about people leaving home, boarding small animal skin covered boats, and sailing away across the cold

Atlantic toward North America. We’ve seen where people lived settled and lived in underground huts and other rough dwellings. You wonder how the families felt as they waved good-bye to the adventurers and discoverers never knowing if they’d be in the same place at the same together again.

When we were first married and lived in Germany the long distance phone calling was all that could happen and those calls cost $12 a minute. So we had four phone calls the entire three years we were in Germany. My college roommate, Magie Fishburne, called to wish us happy 1^st anniversary and was shocked that the 3 minute call cost $36, Jim’s parents called to tell us Dad wasn’t going to have surgery, Jim’s brother Julian called because he wanted to say hello but didn’t know there was a time difference so it was 3:00 AM for us, and Jim’s parents called after Bill Barnett was born.

But this day and age it is not like that….it is amazing! To think that across the miles you can tell if someone is online or not, you can quickly click a button, and after a brief pause can be face to face for a conversation. Saturday evening we talked with son, Bill, in Sydney, Sunday afternoon we talked with Katherine and their three boys,

and later we talked with Bill and Lucy Kemp. All conversations were with pretty good connections and all for free. You can see the 2 snapshots that I took of iChats as we were chatting. Bill carried his computer around so we could see their new home in Sydney and we carried our computer around so Katherine and the boys could see our temporary home at sea-Stateroom 664. All of it does create a “sort of like being there” atmosphere.

This morning we are enjoying another day at sea, however the sea is rough. From our balcony on the 6^th deck the waves don’t look so big but from the windows in the dining

room on deck 4 the waves were as tall as those windows. Lots of motion, lots of staggering up the corridors, and not many people eating in the dining room. The fog horn is sounding about every 90 seconds and the view from the bridge camera is covered in rain drops. Haven’t seen another ship in ages.

The really blue screen shows the actual map of where we are at this moment- 10:45AM on Monday…plus the location and the other statistics. The celsius temperature converts to 40 degrees farenheidt- no matter what that feels chilly to me. Sure glad to be traveling in the comfort of this wonderful ship.