Testing communications options

Having a blog is all well and good, but it would be of little use as
a window on the experience of doing seismology in Antarctica if it
was not possible to update it from down there. The main limiting
factor is internet access. I will be without it for most of the time
I'll be away.

However, all is not lost. I am told that email access is possible,
with emails being exchanged over satellite links once or twice daily,
both during the ship crossings, and at the Concordia base itself.
Blogger provides a feature for sending posts in by email, which I am
using right now to send this post.

This is a text-only email, with a photo attachment that should appear
somewhere in the post. If this format is readable I'll continue with
it, as text emails can be sent from any application. If not, then I
may have to write my mails in html. The next few posts will be tests
of how posting-via-email works in practice.

Now for the photo: this is a picture of one of the means of
transport we will have out there. It is a twin otter aircraft, of
the kind that will ferry JY and me up to Concordia from Dumont
d'Urville. It was taken by another colleague of mine, JB, who went
on several missions up to Concordia before the base was fully built.