This is Sognefjorden where we sheltered from the storm.


This is a picture of my in Sognefjorden, the longest fjord in Norway. we came here to shelter from weather, although we hit the worst of it on our way to the fjord.

I had a few short clips of the weather on Emerald and put some really random melodramatic music to it so all could experience the joys of the North Sea.

Weather - Our Lives

In normal life, weather is the topic you turn to when there is nothing better to say. Here on Emerald it is always a topic – what is the weather going to be in a few days, what is it right now? Will it get worse? Did you feel that huge wave last night? Will we be able to crew change? But its not just small talk, it is what affects our lives.

Side seas mean the difference between sleeping and not sleeping. Rough weather means that we can or can not shoot, that we can or can not work on gear in sea, that we can or can’t go out in the work boat.

Imagine going into an office and everyone is sitting at the desks typing away, but with one hand bracing themselves. You would laugh. But in rough weather that is what we do. We are sitting in our chairs, one arm is always bracing. Or our legs are set as brackets against the swivel.

In the North Sea the weather dictates our lives. This summer has reportedly been the worst in 18 years. Low pressure after low pressure keeps sweeping through the region. It is exacerbated by the fact that we are in the northern part of the north sea – so the nearest shelter to the west is Greenland or Iceland. There is nothing stopping the low pressure systems from blasting on through.

The current job that we are working on was started at the end of July and was supposed to take about a month. It is now October and we are still here – this is a mix of weather, fishing activity, plus having an exceptionally large number of other seismic vessels in the region this summer. In Norway fishing takes priority over oil and if fishermen want to be in our area, then we must give way. This can be a problem as we tow over 6km of cables behind us. But I digress. The weather is our lives. As soon as it abates, it is quickly forgotten, but this summer it was rarely forgotten.

Our weather over the next 2 days is going to be crazy – click here and check out the graphs – (remember the wave height is in meters, not feet)

Kräftskiva

While in the US Rasmus got to experience a very Maryland tradition – Crabs and Old Bay. Actually twice. And everytime someone (or many people) would ask – “do you eat crabs in Sweden? Do you have crab fests?”. The answer was yes we eat crabs, but not like this, but we do have a crayfish party or Kräftskiva. And a few weekends ago one of our Swedish friends hosted one so that the displaced Swedes could have their crayfish and also share them with the rest of us here in Norway.

Is a Kräftskiva like a crab fest? At both you eat crustaceans. At both it takes a good bit of work to get any meat. And both are during the late summer. However. A crab fest is messier (thanks to the Old Bay). A Kräftskiva has funnier hats. A crab fest has newspaper on the table. A Kräftskiva has swedish drinking songs (about bumble bees of all things?). If there are any sides while eating crabs it may be something like corn on the cob. A Kräftskiva has sides of salads, bread, and cheese.

A Kräftskiva (pronounced kreft-hweeeva) started because early in 1900’s you could only harvest the crayfish in the fall. Often (and advisably) you have them outside (due to the smell). There are cray fish decorations – plates, napkins, bibs, hats, and man-in-the moon lanterns. When you eat the crayfish, you suck / slurp the juice out of the crayfish before eating it. And Swedes are really into their drinking songs, so there were plenty of those. My favorite one is sung to the song of popeye the sailor man and is translated something like
“we are small bees bzzz bzz, we are small bees bzzz bzzz, we are small bees, we drink the sting of a wasp, we are small bees bzzz bzzz”.

I was worried that because many people weren’t Swedish they wouldn’t get into the silliness of it – the hats, the bibs, the songs, but everyone did! Although we would have to sing each song 3-6 times just so everyone got it.

What's a fun summer tradition for your family?

The table before everyone arrived

The crayfish - ready to eat.

Pierre Loic and I with our funny hats.

Rasmus Shopping at Walmart

Rasmus, Me, and Tesia at Englanders

The Deomolition Derby

Personalized Hershey Bars. Rasmus is now a fan of hershey bars. It turns out the only place to get them here in Norway is at the Movie Theater.

What to show a Swede?

What is the American Experience? Rasmus, my Swedish boyfriend came home with me during my most recent break. What do we do here that I haven’t seen in Norway or Sweden? Rasmus had his own list (taken from watching American TV and Movies). This included:

-eating a Twinkie
-eating at a diner

The strange part about these two is that they were also on the list of a Norwegian friend of my Aunt’s.

I made sure we did both. At the diner (Englanders in Oakland, MD) Rasmus discovered Western Omelets and decided that they were good (actually he couldn’t stop talking about them) I tried to steer clear of the normal tourist things. Instead we did everything from going to a demolition derby to going to an Amish country fest to going to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water to playing miniature golf in a cave. Not to worry – we did do some normal stuff – hanging out at the lake, going swimming, going into DC for a day, and going shark tooth hunting down in southern MD.

What would you show to a Swede coming to the US? What is unique about where you live within the US?

Me, the photographer (aka MMO) and the assistant with the white screen (aka medical with dry erase board)

The photo shoot in action

one of the actual shots. I'm not sure what look I was going for?

The moment when I realized that Keith was watching.

The motley crew that did the photo shoot.

Spare Time

I am now back in the North Sea. Our current prospect straddles UK and Norwegian waters – we are just about due west of Bergen and North East of the Shetland Islands.

The boat is a limiting place (but potentially liberating?) – I only have 250 feet of space to move around in, therefore you get creative. Last trip our party chief had polo shirts made for everyone commemorating our vessel leaving Asia, as Emerald had been working in Asia since 1992 when she was launched, so it was quite momentous for her to come to Norway. In the instrument room I tried on the T-shirt and modeled it / walked around, pretending I was on the runway. Also – when our Helideck is folded up for bad weather, all that is left of the round deck is a rectangular runway, which I always thought was a hilarious image on a vessel like ours – a catwalk on a seismic ship.

The other day I was eating lunch with one of our MMO’s (marine mammal observers) and it turned out in his off time he does a lot of video-work, but has also done some fashion photography. Half joking, I said “we should do a photoshoot on the helideck with me in my coveralls” and thus our hilarious afternoon on the helideck was born. So we started planning. Sam, one MMO’s would be the photographer, Mark, the medic would hold a dry erase board as the white thing that reflects light onto the face, and Dougie, the other MMO would photograph us doing the Photoshoot. Now I knew this was utterly ridiculous, but I didn’t care, only, I didn’t want one person to stumble upon us and that was Keith, the party chief.

So off we went to the Helideck. Sam telling me where to stand and moving Mark for the perfect light angle. Dougie had his bandana on his head, making him look particularly artsy – photographer style. After a few shots in the middle of the helideck we moved in back towards the vessel. I was pretending to pull on this rope when I looked up, when who did I see staring down at us? Leaning over the railing – Keith - shaking his head saying “my my what do we have here?” in his strong British accent. I about died. I dropped down into the fetal position; however he wouldn’t leave until we continued, so we did. And to top it off, the next day as Sam and I were looking at the pictures, who is the ONE person to find us looking at the pictures. Yeap – Keith. You can believe that I will NEVER hear the end of this one.

The route that we took up Mount Little, one of the "Ten Peaks".


Me climbing Mount Little


Ondrej and I at the top of Mount Little

This is the snow covered valley.

Reliable Sources

Rarely do people go on vacation with someone that they have met for just an hour, but I did during my last break. After 2 weeks in Houston, I flew to Seattle to meet up with Ondrej, the UVA college room mate of my cousin Landon. We had met once briefly a few Christmases earlier at Landon’s house, but that was it, and now here I was flying to Seattle so that we could go on a mountaineering trip together in British Columbia in Yoho and Kootney parks (on the border between British Columbia and Alberta - just west of Banff National Park).

I arrived in Seattle on a Thursday evening and we spent the next day going over our gear, buying food and eating lunch with a girl that I had met at geology field camp3 years earlier. Then Saturday morning we were off. We had to rent a car, because neither of us had a car and in the previous year the total driving hours between the 2 of us was next to nothing. But off we went.

The Trans-Canada Highway through British Columbia is really amazing. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this much diversity. It went from rolling / flat farm land to high tree covered mountains to high dry desert hills and then to steep jagged peaks. We spent the night in Glacier national park giddy that we could see glaciers and continued on the next morning and that next morning happened to be Canada Day.

Like responsible hikers, we stopped in at the national park visitor center in Field (that’s the name of the town) to get current trail information. A WARNING – the Canadian Park service is not the place to get trail information. We asked about the trail to the first hut we were going to stay in. The first woman didn’t know, so she got someone who did. We told her our destination – Fay hut and she said “ Ooohhhh that trail is snowed in. winter conditions.”

“when you say ‘winter conditions’ what exactly do you mean?” we asked. She responded with, “At least knee, likely waist deep snow”. This was frustrating, because we knew we could do it, but it would be very slow going, and it was already noon and we still had a some driving before reaching the trail head. Then another woman came up and said “oh my friend’s parents did the hike 2 weeks ago – it was great. They started hiking at 5 am and with all the snow made it by dinner time, but it was beautiful”. Hmmm, just what we needed to hear as the minutes were ticking away. Then they brought out the binder with trail info to show us that the trail was indeed snow covered. We just looked at each other with frustrated faces. Then another woman came up and said “I think Fay hut burned down.” Just what I needed to hear. Luckily I knew that it had burned down in 2003, but it was rebuilt in 2005. Clearly the park did not have their facts straight. Meanwhile, the first woman, the one who couldn’t help us at all said, “Do you want some free Canada Day cake?”

We weren’t getting any closer to the hut by standing talking to the park service, so we continued on our way to Lake Louise and stopped in there, hoping for better information. None. I was given the safety warden’s phone number. I called. I asked about snow conditions. He said “the trails are clear to Fay hut”. I asked again, “so no snow?” he responded “if there is any snow its really small patches.”. My eyes were wide by this point. I said thank you and hung up. I went to tell Ondrej and we were off. We decided, what ever was there was there and we were going hiking. It was another 30 minutes of driving and as we were going down the valley towards the trail head, there was not a patch of snow to be seen. Anywhere. There were acres and acres of burned trees from the 2003 fire, but no snow. At 3:30pm we pulled into the parklot, tired from 2 days of driving and with 13 km of hiking ahead of us. All we could do was stare at the complete and utter lack of snow that had caused us sooooo much worry and frustration all day.

Over the course of the week, we ended up climbing 2 peaks that are featured on the back of the Canadian $20, which shows the “Valley of the Ten Peaks”. Four of those days in that area we saw no one but ourselves. On the second venture into the wilderness, we ended up meeting an amazing couple, who spent 20 of their years making films for National Geographic. They would do everything – propose the film, go shoot it, edit it, and then send the final thing to National Geographic. They said not once did any of their ideas get turned down.

We made it back to Seattle in one full day of driving. It was crazy to think that we started the day in a hut up in the mountains and ended the day in Ondrej’s apartment – a truly amazing contrast.

The adventures to the archery range in Houston.

Long lost friends - I hadn't seen my friends from Alaska since I left Alaska and now here we are meeting up in Houston - who would have ever guessed that!

Peter and I in the lake near Asker. This is the lake that I can easily walk to from work and where I live.

A Clerk?

Getting off the boat all I wanted to do was walk. I wanted to go further than 82 meters in one direction. And that is exactly what I did. The very first day off the boat I dragged 4 friends along and walked a few km down to the fjords for a picnic. The next day 3 of us walked all over Oslo for this food fest (and tried whale along the way, plus a lot of reindeer and Norwegian brown cheese). That night I walked over to the lake to camp out, and back the next day. Then after work I walked to the lake again go swimming. This is why I love where I work in Norway. After work, I walked home, changed clothes, and walked about 30 minutes over to the lake. The walk takes you through town, up along the road past this old church, past the prince’s house, then down along some farm fields before coming out at the lake. Cliffy hills surround the lake. Fabulous.

I can’t say the same for here in Houston. From work I can walk along some highways. So I’ve had to find other endeavors besides walking. I’ve been finding other random stuff to do or having other random encounters. One guy from work is really into Mongolian horseback archery. He’s rounded a few of us up from work and taken us off to this shooting range to practice. It’s an interesting mix of bows – the ones they use for the Olympics to compounds for hunting. You can shoot at targets, at fake deers, or fake hogs. Its fun.

Where I am staying they have wine, cheese and some small appetizer every night. One night I was down there and an older man was waiting for the wine so I offered to pour it for him. He started joking about having a nice pretty young girl pour him wine, so I started joking about that. As we were leaving he apologized or said he was sorry for bantering about that. I said, oh its no big deal, I work off shore and have to do this banter all the time. He turned and said “oh are you a clerk?” I repeated it, “a clerk? Nope, I’m out there doing the work”. I’m not sure he totally believed me, but he was shocked none-the-less. Nope. Not a clerk.

This is how we celebrated Norwegian national day on board (note my very blue tongue and my color appropriate outfit)

This is Emerald probably around 3 am or so. I got pretty excited taking early morning pictures.

This was around 12:45am on the back deck.

Communities and Decisions

it's been way too long, I know, but after the first week I tried not to turn on my computer after work (since I was sitting in front of one for most of work). Instead I ended up playing lots of foosball, working out in the gym, and doing lots of QHSE stuff for the boat. Now I'm back on land, but I'm actually missing the boat. part of it is the community. Below is an exerpt from my journal from a few weeks ago.

It’s really cool how you learn some of life’s basic lessons here on the boat. Kind of like in the wilderness, life is broken down into the basics. Here on board, you have one sole purpose in life and that is to get seismic data. Perhaps the people in the office and I work for the same company, with ultimately the same goal, however, their daily life is not one purpose. They are working on several projects – some people with marine, some with land, some are finance people. They go home at the end of the day, may see people different from work (although perhaps not), they have a life outside of work. But while they all have the “same goal” they are working on it in very unrelated ways. However, here on the boat, the goal is very tangible and it is the same for all of us – how do we shoot seismic, to get the best data and get it fast? Therefore decision making is very different, and more urgent than say in the office. It requires both a single person as well as the group.

Today we realized how poorly ballasted some of the streamers were. And we couldn’t go into production until we fixed it – 8 couldn’t stay at 8 meters, 6 was a roller coaster, and 1 was barely any better. Good thing 1 and 8 are on the outside (just kidding – this is not good). We had 2 options – 1. Go out in the work boat, and ballast by filling with kerosene, all of cable 1, 6, and 8. Or recover all the cables. The work boat option would take 1 day, well one full (24 hours) in the work boat, plus we can only go out in 1 boat due to limited dry suits / survival gear. While recovering and then deploying the cables is estimated to take 6 days. Why not the work boat? The seas are rough and expected to get worse on Sunday (today is Friday). Not sure if we will ever get a window. It came down to an impromptu meeting with most of acquisition, nav, and gunners there, plus Keith. Keith was very good natured about it. Everyone offered their advice and ultimately it came down to Ernie saying what he thought was best. People setting timelines, and then questioning them and determining a new one. First we decided on what was most important if the workboat were to go out. Then we thought – what if we recovered the streamers, then we set a deadline of 3pm – if no weather window, then retrieve. Then we asked, why not start retrieving now and save those 6 hours?

It was cool, because I think in some way everyone felt a part of the process, and everyone agreed with the decision.

I think the cool part as well is that a decision was made – it wasn’t just suggestions that no one will ever act on. We had to make a decision right there and then.

So the last 4 hours it was out on the backdeck again recovering.

Yes it is Winter

Today it was rough and much more like what I expected from the Barent’s Sea. The swell was up to 5 meters (over 15 ft), and the wind was averaging about 25 knots. The temperature without the windchill was hovering just above freezing. Plus a lot of out work was on the boat deck, which is high and fully exposed.

I thought this was a good picture, of me the boat, and the mountains in the background. I've got at least 3 or 4 layers on underneath my coveralls!

2 days ago it was cold, but clear and you could see the new snow on the mountains in the distance.

If you click on this picture and look closely enough, you can see the snow from this morning. This is a view off the back deck - that thing going diagonally across is one of our cables that we were deploying.

Summer or Winter?

First before starting I must note that 2 days ago my Swedish phrase of the day was Sommaren är här, which means the summer is here. How ironic given this morning’s snow.

I was hoping to equate my experience this far in the Barent’s Sea (North of the North sea off of Norway) to the TV show “Deadliest Catch”, however its only half been that way. On the supply boat that we took out last Tuesday it was rocking and rolling, big time. Then yesterday I went out on the work boat (think small motor boat) and I got sick. I have always prided myself on not getting sick, but this was bad. At one point I was sitting and trying to look at the ocean and I couldn’t focus, so my eyes kind of glazed over until I fell asleep. Then I managed to throw up twice. We left around 4am and got back at 9:30 am - those were 5 ½ very long hours. However, then I started to think, why? Because I had also felt a bit queasy on the supply vessel coming over. And there was one link – both days I had eaten an apple, not too long before feeling queasy.

Today around 6:30am the weather got calm enough to go out and I was put in the crew – 4 people usually go out. I was both excited (I hadn’t eaten an apple and wanted to test my theory) and horrified at the same time – what if it wasn’t the apple. So we donned our dry suits and off we went and it was great! No problems, no falling asleep, and beautiful sun.

Ah, and did I mention that it snowed this morning around 4 am while we were working on the back deck? Most of the days the temperature has been hovering around freezing, with the wind blowing and dropping the temperatures even further. And all we’ve been doing since getting on board is backdeck work, so I’ve been out side constantly. Luckily, I put on a lot of clothes under my coveralls.

And yes, it is not dark here. I am working the “night” shift from midnight to noon, but I have renamed it the midnight sun shift.

Rasmus is proving that his home town is indeed not flat, but rather böljande landskap (rolling landscape).

The Easter Parade in downtown Ystad. All of the little kids are dressed up like witches.

Jantelagen and Påsk

Small differences are interesting. Living in Vietnam, the differences between my life in the US and lives in Vietnam stood in stark contrast. Food carts at every corner and people squatting on the street waiting for a bus (very difficult actually) are hard to miss. Spending the past 2 months in Scandinavia, life is much closer to life in the US, but it is the little things that are interesting.

In Norway, my 2 closest friends are 2 Swedish guys from work, Peter and Rasmus. They have been filling me in on the nuanced differences between Scandinavia and the US. I also got to spend Easter at Rasmus’ house in Ystad, Sweden, giving me a chance to live with his family and really see and discuss differences. Jantelagen, is what I find most interesting. Lagen means law, and from my understanding, it is this sense among everyone not to be too proud or too ahead of the pack. Rather the desire is for everyone to be together. No need for one person to rise proudly from the rest and display it. This I thought stood in stark contrast to what we do in America. We proudly display our awards, our trophies, our achievements. I was telling Peter and Rasmus one day about how I had a Spelling Bee for my students in Vietnam. They said that a Spelling Bee would not happen in Sweden – pitting one student against another? Only to have one winner? I have since bought “Spellbound” to bring back to Norway next week. (Spellbound is a documentary about the Spelling Bee, which if you haven’t seen, you really should). One night in Sweden, I started watching the movie the Devil Wears Prada (I say start, because I fell asleep half way). However, after all this talk about jantelagen, the first scene was very striking. A fresh college graduate goes into a NY magazine to get a job. And as they hesitate to offer the job she starts “Well I was editor of my school newspaper for 2 years and a reporter for all 4 years. I won the outstanding thesis award and I started the….” And she kept going. This scene would not have happened in Sweden. I’ve been thinking a lot if this is a good or bad trait of Americans. I can’t decide, nor do I think its clear cut. There is something to be said for humility, but there is also something to be said for putting yourself out there and really pushing your self – your thoughts? There is an interesting entry about Jantelagen in wikipedia.

I love to see how others countries celebrate holidays and this was no exception. In Sweden (or at least in Ystad, since that is the only place I was) herring, herring, and more herring was the norm. The Swedes also have a tradition surrounding Easter witches. Children will dress up as witches on Maundy Thursday and go around to houses for sweets, which they call Påskkärringar. However, don’t think witches as in green ugly faces and black hats. Rather think aprons and skirts, girls with red rosy cheeks and colorful scarves on their heads.

Finally I was introduced to MyMaps on google. You can click the link here and see where I went in Scandinavia. The cool part is that I have also included photos, so when you click on the locations, you will also see a photo a description of that place (almost all of them have a picture). Let me know what you think.

One of the first ski jumpers of the day, it may even have been a test / trial jumper.

Me and my 2 Swedish friends Rasmus and Peter - at the end of a cold day watching backhoppning

The final score. Note that the American is 58 out of 59. The other guy messed up pretty badly on style.

Heie Heie Heie

Despite numerous suspicions that I don’t actually work, I do. Okay, I don’t actually work, I’m just getting paid to learn right now. I’m in my 5th week now of START school, and life is actually taking the form of a “normal” life. I realized that these 8 weeks in Norway are the longest that I have been anywhere since I left Vietnam last June. I have a regular “work week”. I go to school at the Oslo Training Center which is in the same building as the Schlumberger / WesternGeco Oslo Technology Center, where they think up all the new technology to keep WesternGeco ahead of everyone else.

I’ve been learning a lot (a lot) about computers that is really useful no matter where I am. Unix and I are now much better friends, I understand networks, and I think I can set up, configure, run, and possibly even trouble shoot most of our software and hardware on board. This week we are focusing on our newest seismic technology, Q. It's special because using Q you can go back to reservoirs that are already in production, re-shoot seismic there, and monitor the well.

I also have exams every week, so I feel like Susan, my room mate from Princeton who is at medical school now and must take a massive exam every other week. I’m 100% sure her exams are much more difficult than mine, but I still spend a good part of Sunday studying (okay well not this past weekend, since it was my birthday, but hey).

Instead of studying this weekend I went to the world cup ski jumping event (backhoppning in Swedish). The day started with a blue sky. It had snowed and sleeted the night before, so the run was too slow, so they had to postpone the initial combined event and put chemicals on the jump. I realized that this was my first international sporting event that I had ever been to. The real event started though with a large marching band at the very top of the slope. I was just waiting for one of the band members to slip. Then skiers with each represented country’s flag skied down the slope and then it was time to start. The skiers jump from those with the worst standings to those with the best. Therefore, the American jumped first. I kid you not, after he jumped and landed everyone laughed because it was such a short jump. However soon I was surrounded by Norwegians shouting “heie heie heie” (cheer cheer cheer) and ringing their cow bells and Poles shouting “lec lec” (fly fly). Poles dominated the audience, because the current best ski jumper is a polish guy. Unfortunately he was last to jump and by that point the winds had picked up and he did pretty badly, which led to the canceling of the last round. A really cool way to spend my birthday weekend though.

Skiing in the Nordmarka

There is a reason for waxless skis. Someone told me to use the wrong wax and 50m into skiing I had a snowball superglued to the bottom of my ski. Getting the sticky gooeying wax off is not fun.

This is the biathlon World Cup. In the middle left hand side of the photo you can see a line of yellow and black. Just below those are the targets for shooting. Just in front of that is the penatly circle for people who missed shots.

Sledding Hill Attempt

Today I tried to go to the sledding hill. This past week has been pretty rainy, but I was hoping the higher elevation would have protected it. I took the train up and brought along some crampons along as well, so I could go hiking if plan A failed. I’ve learned to pay attention where lots of people get on and off on the train – it usually means that something is going on or there is something good there. Lots and lots of people were getting on the train today and then they all pushed their way off at the Holmenkollen stop – the ski jump from the 1952 Olympics. Hmm, I made a mental note.

I got to the last stop and took one look at the sledding hill – pure ice. I had already told myself it was a No Go if it was icy. 2 weeks ago a woman had severely injured her spine on this sled run and it was snowy then, so the ice was no good, especially given the number of turns that the run has. I walked down the hill to a stua (restaurant / cabin where you go to buy warm food after skiing) to see what was going on. The hill down was the sledding hill, so I almost killed myself in that icy covered process, but eventually made it to the stua, where I could look out over Oslo, the surrounding hills, and the encroaching fjords. I stepped inside to ask what was going on, because I thought I could just barely make out the sound of a crowd in the distance. A boy working there said – yes it’s the biathlon down at Holmenkollen – just walk 500 meters down the road. So down I went (more like a kilometer), but I found the crowd and then I found the hill that was free to watch from (as opposed to the stands where you have to pay). Who cares if its below freezing? People bring their foam sleeping pads to sit on, they bring small makeshift grills to make hot dogs on – its like a picnic. No, actually its not even “like” a picnic, it is one.

The men’s event started 12 minutes after I got there and I found 2 Norwegian guys to explain what was going on. Don’t laugh and say “silly Laura it’s skiing and shooting” yes, I know, but do you know what happens when people miss? They have to go around this small circle and do penalty laps for every missed shot.

In the competition everyone does a total of 5 longs laps and then they shoot after the first 4. Each time they shoot they have to hit 5 targets. Twice they shoot standing up and twice laying on the ground. The start times were based on their results in a race on Thursday. A French guy was in first, then a German, then a Russian, then the Norwegian. The Norwegian pulled into a neck and neck race on the 4th lap with the German. Then in the final round of shooting the German missed 2 shots and had to take 2 penalty laps. This ensured the Norwegian win!

And that’s what happens when the sledding hill is icy.

Snow Treasure

I sat in the curved part of the U of desks in Mrs. Galloway’s third grade class during the middle part of the year. Every morning we had SSR – sustained silent reading and that U- is where I sat for a week or two of mornings reading Snow Treasure.

Small little details about the book have stuck with me. The cover has 2 children on sleds and a purple border. I strongly remember not wanting the book to end. And I remember wanting to be the kids in the book. A few days before I left for Norway in February, I flashed on the book again and went to the library and then to the children’s desk to find the book. These are the details that I told her to help me find the book (I could not remember the title at the time). I told the librarian, “it’s a book about Norwegian children who put gold on the sleds to hide it from the Nazis. And it has a purple cover.” She typed in a few words into her data base / search catalogue and then asked “is it Snow Treasure?” Yes! I went to the children’s section to find it.

That night I read half the book – The premise is based on a real rumor (never to have actually been confirmed). The book is based on a story about children saving the Norwegian gold from Nazi hands, just as they are invading the country. It’s amazing because the book was actually published in 1942 while Norway was still occupied. That aside, as I read this book again a month ago, it talks about how the children ride on their sleds with the gold – down from their houses, past the German soldiers (who smile and let the children pass) and down the hill for perhaps half an hour. The problem I had reading it was that when I think sled ride, I think a quick 10 – 15 second ride (if I am lucky) down a hill. How could the children have actually sledded for 30 minutes (or even longer).

Ahhh – but they can. And children proved this to me last weekend. I went up to Nordmarka (north forest), which is a greenspace / park just north of oslo (if you take the subway line 1 and get off at any of the last 5 stops, you are in the Nordmarka). My intention was to go cross country skiing and get off at the very last stop. About 5 stops from the end, suddenly 10 kids with sleds got on the train. Hmmm. They stayed on the train to the end with me and jumped off the train, plopped down their sleds and they were off. I asked someone – where do they go?

To the bottom – was the response.

Well – how far is that?

Its about 15 minutes and it ends at a subway stop, so everyone just hops back one.

AMAZING. A sled run that I later found out runs for 2 km, drops 250 meters, and the translation of its name from Norwegian is “the corkscrew”. It was also the bobsled run for the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympics.

So much for my doubts about the book. Now I really know why I wanted to be the kids in the story - a 30 minute sled ride, must be fun.

Any books that you have remembered recently from when you were younger?

I forgot to add this picture a while ago. It's from when I was doing offshore survival / helicopter escape training down in New Orleans. here I am in my helicopter!

This is the view from the walk that I went on the first day I arrived in Norway.

The left photo is of me driving the workboat. The right photo is of me working the arms of the boat (via the remote on my hands) in order to pick up the cables from the water. (don't forget you can click on the picture to make it bigger if you want)

One of the boats we were working on. We were working in beautiful fjords around Kristansund.

Norway

Here is an entry from my journal from my first day in Norway:

Yes it is Valentine’s Day. And here I am in Norway. Norway is meeting and exceeding my expectations so far. After all the hype I was worried that it would be dreary, not cute, no mountains. BUT. There are mountains, there is snow, it is beautiful out, the sea is right there. Buildings are cute. It’s a mix of all my passions and ideals. I love boats. There is water. I have seen more than 3 or 4 beautiful wooden boats in the harbor. I love mountains. There are mountains and rocks everywhere. The rocks and hills define the town and looking into the not so far distance I felt like I was in Anchorage looking at the Chugach Mountains at one point. Small compact town. In terms of city planning I have always said that I would rather live in a small house or apartment in town and near work rather than live in a larger house more in the countryside. The benefits of not driving to work far outweigh for me the benefits of driving. Here though, the houses are small and close – as they should be! Also while the town is cute, its not overly cute to the point where it is a tourist town that only has cafés and boutiques. Instead it is a real town. There are normal stores lining the streets. There is industry – ships are tied up right in town – large tankers and fishing vessels.

Today after I got to town and dropped my stuff at the hotel, I went for a walk. First point of note is that there are many people walking around town. (I also later saw that gas I about $7 a gallon, helping to explain this, although I think it goes much deeper into their culture. It hovers around freezing and people sit outside at street side cafes with blankets over them). This walking though, is in strong contrast to Vietnam where people could not understand why I would walk anywhere – I mean why not just take a motor bike? I walked for about 10 minutes and ended up on a trail through pine trees. Along the trail I passed a reservoir where kids were skating. The trail wound around and I soon stood atop a bluff looking out on the ocean, and off to the mountains. Snow covered mountains to be exact. I LOVED IT. Then I found my way back down and around to the rocky beach and I just watched the sun play off the mountains, the houses, and the bridge in the distance. Just as I had hoped.

Also of note. For some reason I have always wanted to actually see my own bags loaded onto the airplane. I know that at least once (and perhaps a few times), I have watched the people loading intently for perhaps 10 minutes, in hopes of seeing my own bag. Yesterday in New York City, I just happened to look out the window and there was my blue backpack, oh then followed by my black duffel.

Everyone keeps asking about my room on board. Here are 2 pictures. I shared with a polish girl, Anna, but we were on different shifts, so we were never in the room at the same time. if you look closely you can see Puff on my bed (my stuffed animal)

Muddy Creek Falls up at Deep Creek Lake - this was the snow and winter I was dreaming about on the boat and finally got. It was my first snow since May 2005.

The beach where we were in India

End of School - End of Shift

The last few days I felt like I was back in an elementary school classroom days before school lets out – desks have to be cleaned, blackboards washed, personal belongings taken home. On board Emerald the days before crew change– we cleaned the floors, finished up odd jobs, cleaned the tools, the bird shack, and created a detailed description of all the specifications for the job contract that the client kept changing. The 9-year-old child's pent up anticipation of summer holiday also struck the crew. Knowing that in a few days they would be on land, have beers in their hands and soon be on airplanes to see their families, brought smiles across their faces. The last few shifts seemed to take forever – we still were not shooting. Over the course of the week we would proceed south until the noise on the hydrophones was too much and then turn around north again. Only once did this work for us and we managed to shoot one line. Every other attempt was aborted.

Crew change lasted 2 days – because the helicopter flights were long enough that the pilots would run out of flight hours in one day. Suited up with my ear phones and life jacket, I boarded the first chopper out to Trivandrum - a town at the very tip of India (take a look on the map). For me, it was like taking a flight to another time zone. My midnight to noon working hours had to readjust to the rhythms of a normal human day (only to readjust 5 days later when flying to the States).

By 1 pm the second day, the off signers were onshore and the on signers were off shore. I and 4 other crew members headed 20 km down the coast to a beach where we hung out for a few days. I was amazed at how tired my body actually was after working 12 hours days 7 days a week for 5 weeks straight – that’s 84 hour weeks – or 2 plus work weeks in one.

Now I’m back in the states for a bit – until feb 13th when I leave for 2 months in Norway. I'll be in Norway for more training so that I actually know how to look for oil, as opposed to some great pretending.

What I do

If you click on the link to this Canadian oil company, they have a great animation on their homepage that shows what I do. Click on it and you can see a boat pulling a cable. There are guns located very near to the boat, that go off about every 10-15 seconds. On the cables there are hundreds of receivers (or hydrophones), that pick up or "hear" the sound of the guns. The receivers hear the direct sound, but also the sound that bounces off of the ocean bottom, and off of geological layers below the surface. The result is the black and white picture / diagram that you can also see in the animation. One difference though between the animation and us, is that we have 8 cables and not one.