its changed a bit in the last few years….
working on a standby boat in the north sea 15 years ago, i’d write a letter, it’d go in a binbag with the rest of the boats mail, fast rescue boat would launch and take it to the rig, crane would drop its hook to collect the bag, wind it up, bag goes on next chopper, someone posts letter….
Girlfriend posts reply letter c/o operator of oilrig in the field where my ship’s working, it goes out in chopper with other mail and newspapers, riggers read the newspapers then next day bag them up with our mail, throw it over the side of the rig into the sea, call us on the radio for a man-overboard exercise, we launch fast rescue boat and recover bag of newspapers/mail, letter finally gets to me….
now i use whatsapp/ FB messenger. Limited internet bandwidth means that video calling, and sometimes voip is frustrating at best