The whole process of getting media off the boat, especially video, can be best described as "long winded". It takes a long time to shoot and edit each piece of video. Sometimes you will even have a number of storylines going on at the same time, so keeping everything organized can be a job in itself. Once each video is finished, and you are ready to send it back to Volvo Headquarters, that is when the real work starts. Fortunately I don't have to do any of it, the computer does most of it for me.
First, the video must be converted into a format that can be transmitted via satellite. This process takes a while and then the actual transmit is the really time-consuming part of the process. It depends on a number of factors, both the video length and the strength of the connection between the boat and the satellite. It usually takes around around 30 minutes to send a two minute video.
The only thing I have to do while the video uploads is watch the progress bar. Howver, it is not a bar, just a percent complete number that appears on a screen along with some other technical jargon, such as signal strength and satellite position. Anyway this is when I do the bulk of my movie-viewing.
I've had a DVD sitting in my bag for months that a friend on the shore team gave me. He said I should watch it if I ever had some down-time on the boat. The DVD is called 'One Giant Leap - What About Me?' Hand-written, in marker pen on the sleeve are the words "An explosion of music and philosophy which gives an inspiring and alarming look at our collective insanity". I watched it the other day and would have to say that it's brilliant...two thumbs up and all that. Anyone who is interested and enjoys a good documentary should look it up. It has great interviews with the likes Noam Chomsky, Deepak Chopra, Billy Connolly, Stephen Fry, Bob Geldof, Maxi Jazz, KD Lang, Tim Robbins, Eckhart Tolle, Susan Sarandon, and Michael Stipe to name few.
We now have about 200 miles to the scoring gate at the northern tip of Sumatra. We'll be sailing right by Banda Aceh, which is the place where a great many people lost their lives in the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004. I'll be happy to get out of the Bay of Bengal and start heading down the straits to Singapore. It will be sad moment realizing that four years ago almost to the day such terrible devastation took place where we now race.
- Rick
