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)