Yeah, satellites and all that went with them sneaked up on all ship’s staff without notice or prior warning. Once upon a time we could leave port and not be heard from, left to our own devices until next port but now we are being constantly monitored and required to send daily reports through to company. No longer is it “have a safe trip and see you when you get there”, now it is “we’ll be watching you”. Ah, long gone have those days when we where a team all alone on high seas!

Engineers never really became involved with Sat phones for many years. One day sunbathing on Monkey Island and next a UFO had landed on your favorite spot. And funny thing was that nobody ever really talked about it at all. If it had been a new generator or a new ballast pump then everybody would have been discussing it for months before and after. “At last we are getting a new one”, Chief would say and Captain would respond with “no more blackouts then eh”? Faxes and telexes would fly around and all would be posted for all to see, even cook would become enthused due to excitement surrounding him. “A new ballast pump eh?” cook would say at dinner, “yep, 300m3/hour” third would reply enthusiastically. The cook would then typically respond with “good, great, no more blackouts then, eh?” having totally crossed his wires. But satellite remained a silent misnomer that was unheard of one day and then next installed and running. I am never sure why this was as whole idea and set-up far exceeds that of new machinery or anything else but there we have it. I would hazard a guess for secrecy and lack of conversation regarding this advent – that of fear of such tremendous change. So new and so large an alteration in way of life at sea, but this is only a guess.

And Captains? Well, they all changed. Most became serious recluses (more so than before) and watched these phones day in day out, warding off Engineers and others alike from getting close. Padlocks and intricate codes were used to prevent usage other than by themselves, and those that could installed phone in their cabins. It was a stressful time and lasted nearly ten years. Ten years of complete disintegration of any normalcy between Engineers and Captains and ten years of Engineers having to beg, borrow or steal to even get close to Black Handset. I suppose it was such an advanced and sudden change that it took a while to get used to and become accepted as an everyday piece of equipment – just another one that may break down or require maintenance.

The mini-camera phobia has now reared its ugly head and although it has long been a futuristic novelty idea it is now with us for real – phones with cameras in them. The James Bond life style can be with us all! The cost of these phones is prohibitive to all but fashion conscious desperate, those with lots of money and Koreans. In Korea 4 million handsets have already been sold to gadget crazed population. Four million little mobile phones with a camera lens in them have been purchased by four million potential spies.

Allot of bad publicity has followed development, introduction and us200200age of these cameras worldwide. Most of bad press has focused on possibility of spying on others in a simple and effective manner – as highlighted by woman who used her new acquisition to photograph a poor innocent bather in one of Koreas many public baths. The bathers were naked: young girls showing off their fine bodies and in corner was a crabby old lady talking on a mobile phone, ignored by crowd. Only she wasn’t talking on phone she was taking photographs of nudity surrounding her. A few days later this lady sold these photographs to Web Sites around world and made allot of money.

It is not all bad though. Recently a phone was used to photograph a sex maniac on prowl. A young lad snapped shots of driver and license plate of a car and subsequently submitted them to police. The driver had followed boy making rude suggestions and innuendo but soon found himself arrested: with possibility of five years in prison.