How will we post while in Antarctica with the sketchy and slow signal?…

My guy, looking fit, slim, and happy after taking good care of his health.

We’ve been contemplating how to upload posts and photos once we begin the Antarctica cruise in 11 days.  We read numerous accounts online about the difficulty of receiving and sending an email, let alone publishing a post laden with photos and text.

Previously, I used the app Live Writer, which allows the blogger to write the post with photos while offline and upload when there’s a signal, even if for a short period.

The waiting area outside of La Cabrera for the early bird diners begins at 6:30 pm and ends at 8:00 pm with a 40% discount on the bill.

Unfortunately, Windows is no longer supporting this app, and it no longer works. Instead, a few days ago, I purchased an app called Blogjet for US $39.95 (ARS 747) with a 30-day money-back guaranty from a reliable company I’ve used in the past, hoping it would solve the problem.

Unfortunately, for some odd reason, my blogger/google username and password won’t be accepted to allow the prepared post to upload when I instruct it to do so. I verified my username and password with Google, and there was no issue. They are correct.

Complimentary olives and a delicious tuna pate are served before the meal. Today’s photos are new, although they may look familiar from the last meal at La Cabrera.

To get this issue resolved would require an enormous amount of technical work and cost if I pursued a resolution. It’s not as if you can “call” google and get technical service for issues like this. 

Thousands of forums entries address this issue, and it sounds as if my problem has been experienced by others with many suggested solutions I’ve tried, to no avail. It’s a hopeless cause. 

More complimentary items are served a moment before the arrival of the main course, which includes roast garlic (in the forefront), applesauce, mashed potatoes, and mashed pumpkin. Delicious! Tom took the mashed potatoes and applesauce while I had the garlic and pumpkin.

I can get my email, perform other google related tasks and continue to post in the blog, but I was fearful, if I made any significant changes, it could cause a problem preventing me from doing either. No way would I risk this.

I contacted the company from which I purchased the software, and they were no help, nor did I expect them to be. But, it was worth asking if they’d had such an issue with other customers. No response. So it goes.

Tom was served an egg salad along with his monstrous steak.

So, I asked myself how to prepare posts offline to be later uploaded when we get a signal on the ship?  When there is a signal, it’s comparable to that of a dial-up connection of 25 years ago. 

It’s not the problem of the ship’s satellite. It’s Mother Nature’s fault for her majestic mountains and glaciers in the very remote location. Who’s to argue with Her?  Not us.

Tom’s medium rare, perfectly prepared steak was accompanied by three sauces. Not a sauce kind of guy, he ate the steak and mashed potatoes along with a few tastes of my roasted garlic.

When writing a post, one cannot use a standard word processing document such as Word in its original format.  Not only will it not upload properly, but the formatted elements of Word and other apps speak a different “language” than that of the Internet. Many outrageous errors and formatting issues would be uploaded.

Yesterday, I tested the capability of my writing a post, copying and pasting it, and uploading it to our blog while online. It worked without errors. In a hopeful state of mind, I perused Word on my laptop to discover an appropriate document available for use while blogging.

Chef Ramsey would be proud of this perfectly cooked medium rare 800 gram  (28 ounces) sirloin steak. The rib eyes looked good but have more fat, and Tom prefers less fat on his meat.

Some of our readers may have noticed a new post pop up yesterday that read “test” and suddenly disappear after I was satisfied it would work. Usually, one can’t easily copy and paste from other non-web-related documents.  (There are some exceptions).

Then, I busied myself for a while preparing the working documents in “blog” format using Word, naming each one of the succeeding days on the cruise as Day 1 Antarctica
Day 2 Antarctica
Day 3 Antarctica
and so on…until Day 17 Antarctica, the final day of the cruise.

Each day, after we return from our Zodiac boat expeditions (twice a day in good weather), I’ll proceed to prepare the post as usual and wait for a time slot when there’s a good signal. This may be in the middle of the night when fewer passengers are online. Even with a slow signal, it should be able to upload a story and a few photos.

Once again, I couldn’t resist the Caesar salad, but I didn‘t request the add-on avocado since last time they included an entire massive avocado cut into big chunks.  I couldn’t eat that much, especially when Tom placed a big slice of his steak on my plate.

The cruise consists of 7 sea days (out of 17 days total) where we won’t be getting off the ship, and it will be during those days that I’ll be fine-tuning the upcoming posts for eventual download.

Now, let’s supposed the worst possible scenario…we’re unable to post anything with a poor signal which is a possibility. In that case, I want all of our readers to know not to worry about our safety. 

Please know that as soon as we’re back in Buenos Aires for a short two days, we’ll upload a few of the posts and continue uploading them after we get to Africa and get a night’s sleep after the long trip. In that case, we’ll probably do two posts a day, one about our arrival in Marloth Park and its adventures and the other, the awaiting post from Antarctica.

Our entire bill, including a full-sized bottle of Malbec (the balance we took with us) and Tom’s giant bottle of beer, was a total of US $56.75 (ARS 1,063), including tax a generous cash tip. Wow! The 30-minute wait outside until the doors open was worth it! At the end of the meal, a giraffe containing lollipops was delivered to each table.

I’ll make it clear at that time. No worries. On the post before our departure to Ushuaia to board the ship, we’ll repost the link for this post as a reminder.

Now, I can relax a little during our remaining time in Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Next week, we’ll begin the daunting task of packing what we’re taking with us and consolidating what we’re leaving behind in cardboard boxes since we’ll be taking our two large suitcases with us (23 kg), 50-pound limit each). 

The hotel will store the items we leave behind, 70% of the clothing we originally carried in our bags consisting of primarily warm-weather clothing. It will all work out well.

Last night, we savored a second visit to La Cabrera and couldn’t resist sharing some of those photos after an exceptional meal. Today, I’ll be working with our web person to make updates on our site, including once and for all, writing a piece for the “About Us” tab at the top of the page. We’ll let you know when that’s ready.

That’s it for today, folks. As always, we’ll be thinking about YOU! May you have a great end of the week, and I look forward to a delightful weekend.

Photo from one year ago today, January 12, 2017:

We visited Brett, a citizen of Penguin, Tasmania, who has spent the past 40 years building his beer memorabilia collection. It was fun to see this exceptional collection. For more details and photos, please click here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *