Going Offline and South

I’m off to Antarctica from 10th of February to 9th March. During the trip there will be essentially no internet access, though the occasional email or blog post may get through.

While I am away I will turn the comments on the blog off, to stop potential growth of the several spam comments that I have to manually remove each week. My apologies for that.

In emergencies, or for calls where you don’t mind paying international roaming rates, there are two numbers to try. The bridge is manned 24 hours a day by Russians who may or may not speak great English. Ask for me in cabin 510, and then call back after 5 minutes or so. 0088 167 7705 483

The other option is the public phone in the communications area, which I suspect will be manned a lot of the time anyway. You’ll get a fellow Our Far South traveller and can ask for me, in room 510 again.  0088 167 7705 485.

Apparently we will be assigned an email address specific to the ship and voyage. Email is data, and data is $10,000 per GB or so. I’m not expecting to send or receive many, if any at all.

I have not been offline for 30 days since the mid 90s, when I travelled around Europe for a few months in a world before internet cafes. It will be an interesting experience.

It’s a bad time to be away, and will miss seeing everyone at great events like Foo, Webstock, 0to60, the Broadband Summit and  InternetNZ Council. Have fun all!

It’s great to be part of the Our Far South crew, and I expect to come back a lot better informed and energised about the region. The aim is, says Gareth Morgan, to have all of New Zealand sick of Our Far South by the end of the year. To make that happen there will be four books published and two documentaries screened by mid year, while plenty of schools have picked up on the trip and offers of visits.

To the South!