Link...

This strange looking dome is probably the most important equipment on any ship... housed inside is a satellite tracking system which is our link with the outside world. Phone, email, internet all rely on this.

When I first started to work at sea, things were very different, there was little communication with friends and family back home and a real sense of being alone on the ocean. Now it's easy to pick up the phone and call anywhere in the world... I don't think I'd like to go back to the way things were before but in some strange way I do miss that sense of being totally apart.