I was on an expedition cruise in Antarctica last week, standing at the bow of the MS Fram, when I noticed a life preserver ring floating near an iceberg. I alerted the crew, and we stopped and sent a rescue boat to retrieve it. The ring turned out to be from the MS Explorer, which recently sank about 30 miles from our location. I took photos of the ring floating in the water and of the retrieval and of myself posing with it and some crew members who formerly served on the Explorer. Using one of the ship's computers with satellite access, I used my Gmail account to transmit three photos and text to timesunion.com, the Website of the Albany, NY, newspaper, where I work. The Web staff posted the story and photos in their travel blog, and the story was online throughout the world just a few hours after it happened. Gmail helped me get out the story quickly and keep in touch with friends while cruising at the very bottom of the world.
Paul Block, Novelist and Journalist
Albany, NY
Labels: keeping in touch