L A U R A

The Family Gathering

2011-08-03T18:03:00.013+02:00

I can already imagine watching the trailer for the film. A black blank screen, the following words fading in and out (read slowly pausing between each): 14 People, 5 Nationalities, 4 Languages, Age – 2 Months... to 78 Years. One House, One Family. Guerrero.

That’s right, 14 people, 5 nationalities and 4 languages and yes all in one house in the middle of Zurich Switzerland. Fede’s family’s annual get together is truly a re-union. One brother plus family (French) flies in from Gabon, one brother plus girl friend hails from Congo (Argentine + French-Congolese), One actually does live in Zurich with his wife and 2 daughters (Swiss), then there are Fede and myself (Argentine + American) in Argentina, but bounce all over on our respective vessels. And then the parents of the Guerrero Family, who are still residing in Argentina. phew. That’s four continents covered and lots of traditions, customs, habits, all in one house

There are bits and pieces from each country that enter the family meeting ruckus. What to do when greeting someone? In Argentina its one kiss, In France its 2 and in Switzerland its 3. Being an American, kissing has no place in a casual greeting. What to do? I usually just kept kissing cheeks until the other person stopped. Being that no one really knew when to stop, the Swiss 3 seemed to be the overwhelming option of the week.

Eating times. Here the argentine custom held sway. Lunch at 1pm that segwayed into an hour siesta lasting from about 2:15 until 3:15. At 3:30 afternoon activities would begin culminating with a 9pm dinner.

National holidays. I woke up on July 4^th and walked into the living / dining room. Both of Fede’s parents greeted me good morning and then started to stand up from reading their online newspapers. I said “good morning, its ok, its ok, sit sit”. Then from the kitchen I heard coming from what had the sound quality of a YouTube clip “O-ohh say can you see, by the dawn’s early light….” I entered the kitchen to find indeed a You Tube clip playing and donuts. What else represents America better than donuts? Topped off by an Argentinean Asado (BBQ) the evening (with the addition of corn on the cob specifically for the Americans present - me).

The eating times, the languages, the kissing of too many cheeks never got in the way of the main activity which was to catch up, spend time together and build relationships across all the newer parts of the family - new kids, new girlfriends, etc) and strengthen old ones. The week included lots of swimming – in the river and in the lake. Geocaching, a visit to the city of Berne, a wedding, a baptism, a hike up to a view point over Zurich, and so as not to forget their roots, a visit to the Argentina Embassy in Switzerland. My contributions to the week included the Smith favorite honey chicken and a custom made geocaching hunt / race within a 1km radius from our house.

The most important times though were the meals had together, outside, under the tarp / awning, in the little backyard surrounded by jealous apartment owners. The house seems to have come from Kansas and landed in Oz. It is an old house from the early 1700’s that is surrounded by modern apartment buildings. We have a small yard, while everyone around us has balconies. And use that yard we did - We laughed, BBQ-ed, got confused at translations, talked of future plans, of the past year, and of the events of the day.

Next year will be different. The Swiss family is moving to Granada. So Zurich is out. Granada is a bit too far for the whole family to get to. The current potential location is a house in the Pyrenees that the family in Gabon have. The adventures will be different, each of us will have become better in the other languages, we will have all grown a year, and had new adventures. But one thing I know won’t change – there will still be a siesta!

It Takes a Neighborhood

2010-10-03T19:04:00.020+02:00

It takes a village to raise a child, or so the saying goes. And now I’ve concluded that it takes a neighborhood to build a boat. I tell people that my boyfriend is building a boat. They always reply with, “He’s building it?” They are wondering whether the statement means that he is paying someone to build a boat or he is actually building the boat himself. I reassure the questioner with yes he’s building it, noting that he started with plates of steel. But of course he did not build the whole boat only by himself.

A walk through a small dirt road, stray dog-filled neighborhood in Benavidez will reveal those who helped to build this boat. The boat itself sat in the front yard of a family that wanted to earn a few extra dollars. For three years they watched welding, sawing, and painting as well as their grass turn to a brown mud pit. Jesus, lives next door to the yard that turned to mud. He had already built five steel hulled sailboats, prior to Quijote, so his knowledge in just about everything was essential. He is a perfectionist when it comes to the steel hull. Just before the boat was launched I saw a guy at the marina come up and knock the hull to see if it was steel or fiberglass – a HUGE compliment to anyone who has built a steel hulled boat. Jesus lives with his tools. His workshop is an extension of his home, or possibly the other way around. Jars of washers sit between the fridge and stove and next to the bread. Boat plans are pinned up over his bed and sailing magazines rest next to the toilet. Jesus knows what he is doing, but also needs some nudging now and then to actually start the work. Often times the flat screen TV, bought with a bonus for finishing the keel of Quijote can often become an easy distraction.

Let’s continue through the neighborhood. Ricardo, another neighbor, does car upholstery for a living. While sailors are supposed to be good at sewing, we left the upholstery on Quijote to the expert. The couches in the main saloon (eating area) have a beautiful leather set of cushions on them. Ricardo also made the mattresses, which had to fit the beds that have no right angles (this tends to happen on a boat where every bit of free space is used). All of the pieces got delivered in his old (very old – see picture) Ford pick-up.

Continuing down the street, there is a little old woman who lives in a small house with a shop window (I wanted to end that sentence with the word shoe – to the little old woman lived in a shoe). In the front room of her house she keeps a small shop of essentials – bread, pastries, cans of tomatoes, beers, plastic toys, thermoses, tea, and hamburger patties. Her shop filled our bellies many days. I’m sure Q4 revenue will drop now that the boat is finished.

Alberto, Claudio, and Sergio live a short drive away. For one and a half years they built the inside of Quijote. Two years ago she was an empty hull of steel. Alberto led the transformation with the initial framing up to the final touches of each closet door. Alberto used to work for a shipyard, but after an injury works for himself. Claudio, his son-in-law joined him, where together they worked on another boat, Antarcticos. And now after the economic downturn, Alberto's son is back from working in Spain and is the helper around the boat – sanding painting, doing whatever odd jobs need to be done.

Gaston also lives a short drive away. He is the electrician and he is a talker. He has proved his Italian ancestry, doing just as much hand waving as lip moving. He ran all of the wires for everything from the steering system to the sonar to the toilets. A miracle, after kilometers of wires were run, nearly everything works.

A friend from the sailing club does refrigeration work. He installed the refrigeration, which is built into the galley cabinets and runs down into the keel for effective cooling.

Hugo doesn’t live in the neighborhood, but swings by to join the “club” whenever he can. He is also building his own boat and brings encouragement and support. Also in the “Club de Jesus” is Nestor. He is building his own boat in the backyard of the family on the other side of Jesus. Nestor graciously ran many errands often claiming a store was close to his home, when he would often drive halfway across town.

And then there are the family contributions. Fede’s dad helped fund the engine, wanting his son to start his boat right with a good new engine. Fede’s Aunt provided the Aft cabin bath towels. My mom donated $500 from her winnings at Bingo that went to purchase the battery charger. Fede’s mom will be purchasing a small dingy. I donated my safety award points to buy the sonar . WesternGeco unknowingly has donated many used ropes and shackles (not to worry – all were expired as per their certifications, meaning they would have been thrown in the trash by westerngeco – RECYCLING!!).

Also a note should go out to our worldwide logistics hubs. We have one based in Oakland, MD (ie mom and dad) and one based in Zurich Switzerland (Fede’s brother Tomas). As items have popped up on ebay or super special sales on UK sailing websites, Fede has purchased and shipped items around the world.

Fede, of course, spent nearly every waking hour of his five weeks off for the past three years working on the boat. He planned the whole construction, the position on each cabin, each pipe, each screw. He worked side by side with Jesus each day welding and building the hull. He installed the entire engine system and all of the plumbing. He drove around the entire greater Buenos Aires picking up LED's for all the lights, oil for this, oil for that, flooring for this, pipes for this, connectors for that, hinges for this, and dropping off lights at the mast man.

Yes. He built his boat.

After three years of building his sailboat, Fede successfully started the engine and motored away from the marina on September 11 2010.

For even more information about Quijote, check out her website: http://syquijote.com/

Entering Pirate Zone

2010-08-19T08:13:00.014+02:00

As soon as we left the Persian Gulf two things happened 1. The temperature dropped about 10 degrees (Celsius), changing the weather from a horribly hot humid summer day, to a wonderfully comfortable late summer day. Unfortunately escaping from the Persian Gulf also brought bad weather in the north western corner of the Indian Ocean – most likely thanks to the Indian Monsoon season. With the sea state change, about half of the crew (half of our 21 person skeleton crew) realized that their love of the sea perhaps was not so strong and instead found comfort in their beds, toilet bowls, and the wonders of a soup and Gatorade diet.

Half the crew could not manage a smile and lots of things that we thought were secured actually were not – including a full reel that managed to break free in the wee hours of the morning, pretending to be a pin ball bouncing around on our top deck. (luckily this was quickly secured and no one was injured, only a few spare life rafts were damaged). Also our carefully placed dummies weathered the storm, but were in a sorry state, very similar to many of our crew.

After a day or so in this weather we joined our convoy and went into lockdown mode – thank you to the Russians. Many Countries have their Naval vessels in the Gulf of Aden, but only a few countries actually organize and lead convoys of commercial vessels. The Russians Chinese are among the few. I think the South Koreans may also run convoys. (I will note that there is an organization the helps coordinate commercial vessels to group themselves into convoys based on speed, but they do not guarantee military vessel escort – this announcement has some good information). Also the Russians recently extended their convoy length due to an attack of a Russian vessel earlier this year - you can see more in this article. And, I think this article talks about our convoy.

In our convoy there are four commercial vessels, including our own, plus the Russian navy ship. We have formed a nice square with about 0.5-0.8 miles between each vessel – you can see our formation on the radar. The Russian destroyer Admiral Levchenko acts like the sheep dog in the pack of sheep. She goes back and forth between each side, and continually radios up to remind vessels to slow down or speed up – nipping at our heels to keep us organized. However, since the weather was so bad there was no chance of a pirate going out for fear of his own life and that of this vessel. And due to the weather, one of the 3 other vessels in our convoy could only maintain 7 knots.

Yesterday though, the weather calmed down a bit (after a very rough night during which anything that had not already fallen over, did fall over and off the shelves, desks, etc and onto the floor). At this point the Russians decided it was calm enough to transfer some of their soldiers over to the other vessels in the convoy. First the bulk carrier off of our port side got 6 Russian soldiers. We watched as the Helicopter came and 3 times winched soldiers down from the chopper and onto the vessel’s deck. Then we got a call if we were ready for soldiers. The officer on watch called up the captain, to check. Our captain came to the bridge and confirmed that yes we would like soldiers, but that the helicopter could not land on our helideck (our helideck is not rated for a chopper of that size). So we assumed in perhaps 45 minutes we would be getting a visit, but just at that moment, the bridge officer turned around and said “THERE is the chopper, RIGHT THERE”. And sure enough. It was hovering perhaps 10 m above our deck. HAHAH this was like the movies, soldiers rappelling down out of a helicopter! When they hit our deck they would lie down immediately – most likely from training this is what you are supposed to do! Now we have 6 Russian navy guys as visitors as we transit through the Gulf of Aden. There are 2 of them on watch at a time – one at the bow and one at the stern. And they brought LOTS of guns and weapons with them. I’m not a gun expert but there were lots and many were big!
Last night in bed I heard a somewhat large BANG. There are always things hitting and banging on the boat, but I’ve been on this boat now for two years and this one was a bit different. This morning I went up to the bridge and asked what the big bang was around 10pm. His reply: a rocket launcher. The Russians were doing a drill between the different vessels. The deck officer said first they fired a rocket launcher, then a machine gun. He said there were small bits of red between all the vessels! Perhaps I’ll catch it if they drill again tonight.

Pirate Prep

2010-08-17T05:02:00.011+02:00

My boat is now in transit between Dubai and Malta and the course between the two includes the Gulf of Aden - Somali Pirate zone. So over the next few days I will document how this part of the transit progresses, starting with preparations.

As we left Dubai and the Persian Gulf we finished up our pirate prep. The pictures tell alot, but I'll explain what we did to ready ourselves for the gulf of Aden.

The Ship:
1. Boarded up all the open backdeck spaces. Since we are a seismic ship - our stern is more or less open, so we boarded this up and painted it the same color as our hull, so it looks like one large closed deck.
2. Barbed wire - Everywhere where someone might try to board
3. Our extended dummy family - we placed about 8-10 dummies around the perimeter as "lookouts"
4. Fire hoses were mounted along the rails so that they could be sprayed down upon attackers. They were also rigged so that people would not have to be there manning them.
5. The entire accommodation area was locked from the inside except for up on the bridge - yes basically will lock ourselves in.
6. Dark boat - at the moment except for Navigation lights all lights are turned off on-board and all windows closed, so that we do not attract attention due to light shining out. If necessary we will turn off the navigation lights.

Our own Prep
1. Drill - We had an on-board drill where we went through the whole deal- all the way from a pirate approach and pirates shooting at the bridge and injuring a person, to them boarding and then taking over the boat.
2. Drill - We also had a drill with the office to go through the shore side response.

Meet the Smith Family

2010-02-14T21:19:00.021+01:00

“Meet the Parents” came out, then “Meet the Fockers”, now sit back, relax and get ready for “Meet the Smith Family”.

Fede came to the Lake for Christmas – his first time in the US, and more importantly his first time to meet my family. However, I must stop here and note that it was NOT his first time to interact with my family. He and my mom had been emailing almost daily for the past few months – which will come into play very soon in this “feature film”.

I had warned Fede that in the States its less common for boyfriends-girlfriends to share rooms in the parents house. So having heard this, he emailed my mom asking if there were any house rules. She responded with the usual Lake rules:

No shoes in the house
No boogers on the wall
No Italian Hair in the bathroom
No eating on the couch

He responded “great, Glad to hear you are so liberal and sharing a room is not a problem for you”. And thus started the beginning of the great series of “tests” that Fede would encounter. Also note at this point that my mom has always had a theoretical test up her sleeve for potential boyfriends. Her plan was - once they were at the Lake, she would go loosen a washer on the toilet or sink. Then a bit later complain of a leaking faucet. If the potential boyfriend said “Mrs. Smith let me go take a look” and then came back saying “oh, I tightened everything up, all should be ok”, then….thumbs up. If he said “you should call a plumber” then…thumbs down.

Back to the bed sharing. So after the series of emails my mom started to plan. The first of the plans involved a pillow case. She bought a pack of those iron on-print-off sheets that you can use to iron on a picture to a t-shirt. She found a picture of me sleeping, hair crazy, and drool dripping, and printed it. Then she ironed it onto a Pillow case, so that when Fede arrived, he would pull back the covers and find Laura seemingly with him in the bed. (note she found this so amusing that she carried the pillow case in her purse with her for weeks showing everyone)

Fede finally arrived the 18^th of December and there in the Bedroom was the pillow case, but also a warning. My mom had placed SPEARS on the ceiling fan above his bed. She informed him that should she need to, a quick door slam would easily bring them all down… luckily he laughed and noted that he would removed them before going to sleep.

And that was just the beginning. There was no leaky faucet, but the snow blower did break and luckily Fede fixed it (or knew what needed replacing) within minutes. He also got coerced into putting the (live) tree into the Christmas tree stand. After the third attempt at a straight fall-free tree, Fede exasperated, proclaimed with his head poking out from the tree “this is harder than sailing across the Atlantic alone (which he did a few years back)”.

On Christmas Eve, Eve my mother had a "Meet the Fede Party". I thought the name was just a joke and it was really just a chance for some family friends to come over before Christmas. However, I asked my mom about her planning and she said the whole get together started when my former piano teacher made a comment about wanting to meet Fede. Solution: throw a party and invite 10-14 guests!

Other tests around the house included playing the family card game “oh Hell” with the same consequences of losing as the rest of the family – cleaning the dishes. He not only did well, but WON 2 of the games. He also easily and happily played the whole gamut of Smith games, and did so with a smile.

And yes. He passed all of the tests. Two thumbs up from Mom. He fit in wonderfully with the Smith family. All those at the "Meet the Fede Party" also gave a thumbs up. The door never had to slam to drop the spears and he took the pillow case home to show his family. And he was even invited back.

High's and Low's

2010-02-02T21:34:00.016+01:00

It’s a common tradition on Outdoor Action trips to reflect on the day or a trip with “highs and Lows”. Its’ been a while since I’ve blogged, so I’ll do a “highs and lows” of my past few months.

High:
Going home for Christmas. I had been out of the US for 13 months. Everyone came home for the snow that dumped on the East Coast this year: Tesia flying from Japan, I flying from India, and Federico, my Argentinian boyfriend also flying from India. All forms of winter were enjoyed – skating, sledding, downhill skiing, cross country skiing, a sleigh ride on Christmas eve. Fantastic. However Christmas deserves more of a description, so I promise to write more in a later post. It was Fede’s first time to meet the Family and I swear a movie could have been made about the 8 days he was there – I promise to expand…

Low:
My whole Fall. Well not the whole fall, but much of October and the beginning of November. I was somewhat forced to go early into the office and push going to Japan to the second half of my break. Somehow I’ve managed to become the ONLY person who can test our acquisition software. After a week of isolated testing, I had to help move our lab & equipment to our new building. This involved working 12 hour days in the basement of a building where no one else was working yet. So needless to say, I saw none of my friends. This may sound petty, but since I’m not around that much, people don’t know I’m in Oslo unless they see me, so this means, no one invites me on hiking trips, or picnics, or dinners. Its rough sometimes. The night before I left Oslo, I broke down crying and weeping that “I have no friends”. I even had to work one weekend. The Japan trip that was supposed to be 2-2.5 weeks was reduced to 5 days since I had been PROACTIVE and had actually gotten my Indian visa. So I had to return to the boat 9 days early.

High:
Last trip I officially became certified as a coxswain on the boats. For some reason this seems to mean a lot to me. I’m pretty proud of being a coxswain. Why I’m not sure – perhaps because not too many girls are? Perhaps because when I first joined I decided this was something that I wanted to do / achieve? However, I was certified at the end of the trip so it was only 5 days ago that I went out on my own for the first time. Trial by fire. Our first job of the day was to go back to a cable to investigate fishing gear. We had the cable in the arms of our work boat and I was dropping back along the cable. The crew was cutting off ropes and fishing gear. The next thing I hear is “we have a dolphin, we have a dolphin in the fishing gear”. Aye aye aye. I shout back “is it dead or alive?”. The respond “dead, very dead”. After 30 seconds or a minute, they managed to cut the ropes and it dropped off into the blue of the ocean. (note having a dead dolphin was NOT a high)

I also took out the Fast Rescue boat (FRB) for my first personnel transfer. Its usually the damsel in distress that gets rescued, but ha, here it’s the other way around!. Fede had had to go over to our supply boat to advise their captain when he came alongside our boat for bunkering of fuel and provisioning. Once the supply boat had been cast off, Fede needed to be brought back to our boat. So I was sent off on my first personnel transfer and I went to Pick up Fede!!! I just keep reminding him that I rescued him…

Small Boats

2009-08-23T11:36:00.007+02:00

I just wanted to share this video of me driving our various small boats on board. Its also good if you have ever wondered how we pick the boats up out of the water. If you are patient enough, that comes towards the end of the video.

We have two types of small boats - the workboat and the FRB - fast rescue boat. The workboat is the workhorse of the small boats; it is what we use to go out on the cables and do work like changing sections or fixing other equipment attached the cable. The workboat actually has arms that can pick up the cable so that the crew of the boat can stand up and have the cable at hip level. The workboat is even capable of towing the whole cable itself if necessary.

The FRB meanwhile is the fun loving fast jet boat whose primary purpose is for Man overboard scenarios where you need a fast and safe response. We also use the FRB for personnel transfers between the chase boat and our boat. And once and a while for a few various cable work tasks.

Hopefully soon, once we get to warmer, calmer locations, and I get a few more trips under my belt - then I can get sign off as a coxswain!

A Shift Leader

2009-08-19T23:15:00.008+02:00

The seismic world is 24 / 7. All time is money, so full time production is a must. Therefore our work is shift work. I passed the test to become a shift leader last October, but given the current economic climate, on our boat, by December we had 4 people qualified to be shift leaders, so I never got to take on that role. This trip, one of those 4 was laid off and I became a shift leader.

I learned this fact the day before joining and suddenly all the worries of incompetency for this role cycled through my thoughts. Luckily - its been a perfect trip to ease into the shift leader role. For one, I'm on the same boat I was before (it can be a pain to have to learn the role and a new boat on the same trip). Secondly, its been a quite calm trip - no major equipment failures, no major software failures. nice and quiet - production, production production. And I have had a fantastic set of people working with me in my department.

It was all perfect until I caused my first downtime 3 nights ago. We were about to do the near impossible - finish a job in the morning for one client and start another job for another client that same afternoon. Not impossible - it just would require alot of work - a new gun configuration from the gunners, reconfiguring all of our onboard software systems for a new client, new job, new job specifications... and finishing up everything from the last job - shipments, data QC, missed data...

Mid afternoon the gunners deployed the reconfigured guns and I started to enable them one by one (there are 24), so that once all were firing I could calibrate them and run some tests. Once about 75% of the guns were firing, it became clear that the air pressure was not holding on one array. After some confused investigating we discovered the cause to be a twisted hose. The solution meant one gun array must come back onboard, so my gun test had to be delayed.

Once the guns were back in the water, we were heading towards the first line of the new job. As usual, I had to start the guns one at a time - a process which takes between 20-30 minutes. By the time that had finished we were about 20 minutes away from the start of line. I had no time to do the test I needed to do, but I did have time to calibrate the guns. By this point we were in the "dummy shots". I went to calibrate the guns - it checks the signal that they are creating versus a known value of what they "should" be creating. I went to check and the known value was telling me "no reference". I tried to figure out why I had no reference - did I not put in gun volumes into the configuration? fine- okay? did I not put in gun types? no - so I put those in and still no luck. I went to check the directory where the files were. On a previous boat we did not have the files for each gun volume, but no those were there for each gun volume. Checking checking. Almost the start of line. I called my chief down (or rather woke him up, it was about 11pm). He came down - no ideas. Finally I looked at the files again and noticed that we did not have the files for the specified gun depth of 8m. The solution was to copy files from close depths and rename the file for the 8m depth we had, then the system could find them. Now everyone was there - the 2 clients, the party chief. Unfortunately we had already started the line - we had missed data and that data had uncalibrated guns and was therefore no good. We aborted the line and circled.

Unfortunately, I think about things too much, I run things through my head. Run the situation over and over and over again. What if this, what if that, next time this, next time that.

Conclusions:
- I should have slowed the boat down. That is the normal procedure. Why I didn't do this I'm still not sure - some sort of pressure of this being the first line? Me thinking I could solve it in the time allowed? I still do not know. Usually I slow the boat down if there is a problem.

- I can blame myself and say I should have checked the files, but these files are set for most standard configurations. This is only the second time in 3 years that I have had to interact with these files, so perhaps checking them should be on some checklist, but its not 100% standard procedure to check them. Trust me, I will ALWAYS check these files before a start of job from now on.

- Afterward the client said, that really a test of the guns should have been done before the real line and someone higher up should have delayed the first line so we could have done the test. Had we done the test we would have noticed the missing files immediately and fixed the problem miles from the start of line.

I will admit - I did cry that night when I got back to my room. Its still not fun to cause downtime. I'm sure there will be much more downtime in the future. Its inevitable I guess.

Welcome to being a Shift Leader.

A Return to Normalcy

2009-06-18T23:00:00.024+02:00

A return to normalcy. We returned to the back deck. Ports were behind us, south of us. We sailed into the open Barents Sea. For 6 months my vessel has been idle and without work. Our last production shot point was on December 26^th 2008. But now we sailed north – away from West Africa, towards a job north of Norway. There was a bit of dread – back to the back deck, a bit of excitement – long days out working north of the arctic circle, and the comfort of returning to the normal routine. But, I guess this begs the question of what is normal. I thought about this for awhile as I was on the back deck deploying and reconfiguring 10 streamers. So I decided to document one day. On June 7^th, I photographed what I did and recorded a pretty thorough record of how I spent my day. This is not the same every day, but it’s a good snap shot of what I do.

23:30 (6 June) - alarm goes off

23:40 - I actually got out of my bunk

23:50 – I went to the laudry to get my cold weather coveralls, only to find that no one had moved them from the washer to the dryer, so I put them into the dryer and put on my normal coveralls with long underwear and a fleece underneath.

23:55 – Onto the backdeck for the acquisition handover. The noon-midnight shift passed along what they had done and what we needed to do

0:15 (now 7 June) – we started moving sections around. We had to rebuild the front 600m of our streamers with new sections.

3:00 – we finished adding sections and
were able to deploy those 600m into the sea

4:00 – we had to move the streamer from the starboard side of the vessel to the port side, in order to change the leadin (the heavy duty cable that connects the streamer to the boat)

4:20 – we removed the adapter that goes from the cable to a large metal wing (this
is used to pull the cable out wide)

4:40 – I went to the bridge for my daily “lessons” each day, the chief officer and I teach exchange a lesson - seismic for maritime. Today I taught him about the effect of the sounds from the guns bouncing off the water surface and coming back down, which cancels out certain frequencies. He taught me what to do if you are in shallow water and suddenly you skim the bottom and get stuck.

5:00 – I went back to the back deck to help the gunners put a large piece of rubber on the lead-in so that when we attached floats to the leadin it does not bend too much

5:20 – I went to change for breakfast and then went to the mess room for breakfast

6:00 - I was back on the back deck preparing to change a leadin

6:45 – we started the operation of removing the old leadin.

8:00 – we finished spooling off the leadin and then we had to disconnect it from the reel

8:45 – we fed the new lead in down off an upper deck down to the reel and started spooling on all 900m of the new leadin

11:30 – we finished transferring the new leadin from the reel it was transported on, onto the actual winch it will tow from

11:55 – hand over.

12:15 lunch!

12:45 - a fire drill, so we all had to muster at the muster station just aft of the bridge and move our cards over to indicate we were present

13:00 – watch humpback whales about 100m off our port bow

13:30 – go out in the fast rescue boat (FRB) in order to run some tests for the engineers (going max speed to find max RPMs, checking temp) and for me and another guy to practice coming alongside the boat.

14:40 – we returned to the back to Western Pride

15:15 – I chatted with the medic for a bit

15:30 – a shower, especially to get the salt off my face – the rest of me had been covered in a waterproof work suit.

16:05 – go to the bridge to chat and end up learning some breakdancing

17:30 – go to bed

23:30 - alarm goes off…

The English Channel

2009-05-12T22:35:00.003+02:00

Last night was rough. Things were crashing in my room. The feeling of the bed falling out from under me, only to run up and meet me again. The boat vibrating with a loud thud. The English channel has its moments. I also discovered that at some point someone put a paper hole punch on one of my shelves. That fell off around 1:30am and I woke up to a floor covered in snow-like round white paper dots. My Chief looked shell shocked in the morning. It was quite bad yesterday afternoon as well. I made everyone in the instrument room watch the documentary "Around Cape Horn", a movie about a 1929 journey of a clipper ship around Cape Horn. It helps put the current weather into perspective.

Now we are in Den Helder. Flat. but windy. Typical Holland I guess.

An Evening Stroll

2009-05-10T00:24:00.007+02:00

I just want to write about my walk tonight. Just a walk, after dinner, up on the Helideck around 9:30 as our boat enters the Bay of Biscay. The changes from west Africa to Europe are quite apparent. Yesterday I went for my nighttime star gazing walk at 8:30, only to find broad daylight – of course. Tonight, my walk at 9:30 was merely in dusk at best, and it stayed dusk for the entire walk. In West Africa (or any equatorial location), dark comes in an instant.

I joined the boat four days ago in Las Palmas in the Grand Canary islands, to continue Pride’s journey north from Namibia. A skeleton crew of us joined to take her north to Den Helder (and then onto Norway) – usually there is a full crew of 53 on board. Now only 36 and 6 of those are outside guys doing work around the boat. Everywhere is quiet and empty.

The transit north feels like we are going at light speed. When shooting seismic we usually trod along at a crawl of 4 knots. Now we are going 3-4 times faster. While walking tonight the helideck rocked – a lot. I got more of a hill walking experience, full of short ups and downs, than a flat, sea level plain.

Not only is this trip quiet, but its also uncertain. We’ve been told we have a job in the Barrents Sea, but no one knows for sure. And we may have a job before that. Or maybe not. The configuration may be our maximum number of streamers or it may not. So much uncertainty. But since today is Saturday, we won’t know anything at least until Monday. Life keeps going here, but the office stops. In some ways its nice.

On board, the few of us that are here, are doing jobs that need doing – removing old computers from the racks, installing new ones, preparing for the engineers who will join us in Den Helder. Yesterday we had a mid-day helideck-Hockey game. A few crew have gotten sea sick – the feel of the sea going this fast is much different. Its only the beginning as we head north through the north sea and then further north still. And thus we go further and further north…

(I’ve included some pictures from this past break of me in Scotland and Skiing over easter in Norway, in case I don’t write more about it later)

The End of a Quarter Century

2009-03-15T22:58:00.012+01:00

I came back to the boat from Oslo and Western Pride was still in Dry dock. Our dry dock was a floating dry dock, so when our boat was out of the water it was still on the water and the dry dock could move. What happens is the sides of the dry dock fill up with water and the whole thing sinks. The boat then moves into the dock and slowly the water is let out of the sides and the whole dry dock rises up. Sadly I didn’t get to see Pride go into or out of dry dock, but the whole idea is pretty cool. Other dry docks work differently – some are carved into the land and work like a lock and get filled up with water.

Meanwhile – we came out of dry dock, and then had to start loading lots and lots and lots of gear back on board (and hopefully cleared out the mess while we were at it). This included loading everything that we had to take off so that the dock workers could safely access places they had to access (and so there would not be a fire hazard while they were doing hot work). I also worked on a lot of projects – I spent a lot of time trouble shooting the wiring of our new gun pressure monitoring display and alarm, I redid the day room complete with a new cabinet that we designed, new DVD cupboards, new carpeting on the riser, hanging instruments and a complete clean up. The change in the room is dramatic. Plus starting and stopping our computer systems a few times, due to switching between shore and ship power a few times.

Its also been a bit frustrating – things kept going a bit wrong. We were supposed to go to sea trials 3 times, with each time something breaking or going wrong. The pilot actually stopped coming on time, knowing that we probably wouldn’t actually go out.

At the moment we are still short one generator – due to the dock yard breaking one of ours. But thus is life. And I guess luckily or unluckily there has not been a job for us to go to, so we have been in no rush.

Some FAQ’s about being alongside (courtesy of questions from my dad and a few others)

1. When we are in Dry dock I do not work 9-5, but still a 12 hours shift. However, almost all of us are working together on a 7am -7pm shift

2. I do not get weekends off while in port – we still work the whole 5 weeks that we are onboard

3. Since we share cabins, I actually see my room mate, as opposed to usually we share, but are on opposite shifts. Its fun – its like being back at college.

Now we are at anchorage outside of Walvis Bay – waiting for a job. And there are seals everywhere. In fact we’ve had a few visitors coming up our gun slipway!

And finally to finish the quarter century – back when I was very young, the night before my birthday my parents would video tape me and ask me some questions about the previous year. About 5 years ago I resurrected this tradition for myself. And below are a few of this year’s favorites:

Favorite TV show: Seeing as though I have no recollection really of watching TV, I’ll have to go with the Nobel prize ceremony, that I watched. And watching The Office onboard.

Favorite mountain: Innerdalstårnet

Favorite food: passion fruit juice

Favorite song: Swedish drinking songs, seriously, I just think they are really fun

Favorite country: Norway

Favorite Animal: reindeer – they run ridiculously, whoever thought they might be able to fly? Or at least the reindeers in Finmark are uncoordinated.

Favorite word: abrigado – the only word I learned in Portuguese

Seasons

2009-02-15T21:21:00.011+01:00

Seasons. There are 4. Well, at least in much of the developed world there are 4. In Vietnam students would love to ask me, hoping that I would respond incorrectly, “Teacher Teacher, do you know how many seasons there are in Vietnam? “ Since usually by this point either I had lived there for 8 months already and had experienced all the seasons to be experienced or because on my second day someone had told me, I would respond “ah in Vietnam, you have Two seasons, the rainy season and the dry season”. The eyes of the querying student would always open wide, shocked that I knew. Ah so easy to impress.

I returned last week from Tanzania, where I was visiting Susan, my room mate from Princeton. Just as I was leaving the short rains were starting to come, reminiscent of Vietnam. However, I was reminded that while there are only 2 seasons in Vietnam, and Tanzania, and only 2 in much of the developing world, which seems perhaps to make life simpler, seasons, and the food that is associated with those season is much more complex. When I arrived at Susan’s in the middle of January mangos, were in full swing. During the night they would drop and with a thud hit the roof above my head. In the morning we would go out, pick them off the ground (that is if the bush babies had not gotten there first), and have a wonderful breakfast of mangos and yogurt. And according to Susan, this had been her pattern for the previous 2 or 3 months. On my last day in Tanzania, I woke up and went out to gather mangos, only to find – there were none. Not a single mango on the ground or in the tree, at least as far as I could see. And thus ended that breakfast pattern. Its just a reminder how disconnected we can get from the actual food patterns, when in the super market we can get what we want when we want!

So the food that was in season was great – I had lots and lots of passion fruit juice. We made some great guacamole and a fantastic pineapple upside down cake. The cake was for the Inauguration party we went to. Which I found amusing, because having grown up in DC, I could not remember any inauguration. I have no idea if I even watched the others on TV (and its not that I don’t follow these things, they just must not have left much of an impression). However, there is something quite special about gathering around a TV in a very foreign country to celebrate with Americans and non-Americans the coming of a new president. Its also an opportunity to get to explain the way in which our government works.

The reason that Susan is in the town of Moshi, Tanzania is to do AIDS research in a collaboration project that the hospital there has with Duke. While I was visiting there was a monthly CAB meeting – Community Advisory Board, a forum with members of the community, high school students, nurses, and researchers. That month they were looking at issues surrounding recruiting people for the research. It was really interesting to hear some of the hurdles and issues- things that I would never have initially thought of (note they were talking about research involving expecting mothers with AIDS): in Tanzania it is the custom that mothers, once they have given birth stay home and rest for 30 days. So convincing the family to let the mothers go to the hospital for follow-ups turns out to be a challenge. Or other mothers were worried that their neighbors would see them “always” going to the hospital and think things were wrong. I guess back at home, where many times people don’t even know their neighbors this would not be an issue. It was just interesting to hear these concerns and then hope that they can get addressed somehow.

Ah yes, and while in Tanzania a friend of mine from Oslo, Michel, came down and together we climbed Kilimanjaro, via the LeMosho route, and then went on safari in Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and Lake Manyara National Parks. Both were quite fantastic.

Coming Ashore

2009-02-15T20:11:00.010+01:00

Life at sea has a rhythm – its regular. There’s the night shift and day shift – midnight to noon, noon to midnight. The chiefs work six to six. Breakfast 5:30-6:30, lunch 11:30-12:30, dinner 5:30-6:30. Deck hockey at 10am M, W, F, and at 1pm on T, Th, Sat. For 35 days life keeps ticking.

Until, after I had been working at sea in Angola for 14 months, my boat had to go to dry dock. We came to port in Walvis Bay, Namibia. Then all regularity stopped. Suddenly everyone worked 7-7, except those who had to stand watch on the gangway through the night. Suddenly our family of 53 expanded daily with electricians, plumbers, engine guys, welders, flooring guys. The dock side was always full and active with crates and pallets coming on and off. Crew putting strops on, taking them off. Our normal seismic routine was turned upside down. No day seemed the same. Sometimes I was dockside recovering and preparing craned shipments, sometimes I was boxing up our gear, sometimes spooling sections, sometimes preparing paperwork for offgoing shipments, sometimes installing a new computer in the rack room. Then at 7 things stopped, usually. Sometimes we had to crane on a few last shipments. From 7pm until 7 the next morning we were free. We could go on land – how strange. We were no longer confined to 73 meters of space. At 8pm usually we gathered. Everyone freshly showered and wearing crew change clothes – a changed from their orange. Often we would head to the seaman’s mission. This made me feel like a real sailor. The first night I was the only woman there besides the old woman at the door making sure you signed in and the one behind the bar. We also explored Walvis Bay – it was the cleanest, safest, most functional place I have ever been in Africa – I can’t explain how amazing it is when things work – the port is clean, the sidewalks are clean(even the fact that there are sidewalks), there’s a nice beach and I saw people running along the beach, immigration was not an ordeal Even sailing in – it was a speck nestled into an endless coast of golden sand dunes. Sadly we crew changed before dry dock, so I didn’t get to see Pride out of the water. And surprisingly, the trip had gone so smoothly and was so much fun, that crew change rolled around and I was not even itching to get off!

Christmas in Angola (Offshore)

2008-12-27T01:21:00.008+01:00

I never thought he would do it. But he did. Greg partially shaved his head to emulate the largely receded hairline of our party chief. All for a Christmas play.

Yesterday marked the 3^rd of the past 4 Christmases that I have spent far from home- in Saigon with another American family, in the Indian Ocean on my very first seismic vessel, now off the shores of Angola.

My first seismic Christmas, 2 years ago, I came on board and found that no one had stepped up to organize a Christmas celebration. So hastily, as a trainee, I tried to pull things together – a fun picture / global celebrity quiz, a rewriting of Twas the Night Before Christmas (see blog post 2 years ago). I did what I could with one week remaining before Christmas day.

This year I prepared. Out ship, in the middle of Angola, became the confluence of many ways to celebrate Christmas. For some it's a family event with gifts, for others it's a very religious holiday, and many on board had never celebrated Christmas I wanted to make it a Christmas to remember.

I started the Christmas Celebrations with a Playmobile advent calendar from my mom (which I hauled from the US to Norway, then to Angola). Much to my surprise, the crew loved it. Angola is one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, so we made the decision to follow GMT, thus the night shift had to wait until 1am to open the next day's addition. I will note though, that this year's Playmobile scene was less Christmas based and more pirate based, but it was perfect for a seismic vessel such as ours.

On Christmas eve I played Santa, delivering a card to each crew's cabin.

2008, however, will mark Western Pride's very first Christmas play. I rewrote (again) Twas the Night before Christmas. Instead of the father "springing from his bed to see what was the matter", it was our party chief. And thus to better "become the part", I convinced Greg, a crew member, to shave his head. As he "sprang from his bed to see what was the matter" he threw off his hat to the hysterical laughter of the crew. We also had 6 "live" reindeer, 1 donkey, and 1 "remote" reindeer from Norway. Santa was from Nigeria. And workboots were hung instead of stockings. And when Santa sprang to his sleigh to drive out of sight, he radioed in "Western Pride, Western Pride, this is sleigh…Merry Christmas to Pride and to Pride a Good Night". It was a success – the prancing reindeers stole the show, as did the freshly bald party chief.

I organized Christmas Carol singing, complete with Santa playing the keyboard. The karaoke skills of the Filipinos came in very handy to fill the room with song. And I must admit, we sounded quite good.

Each crew member also got a gift from Santa, as well as the requisite photo on Santa's lap. (my gift was a singing Elvis mug)

And the final touch was a viewing of Elf yourself with all our chiefs (see it here).

The galley crew produced quite a spread with lobster, 2 whole pigs, gingerbread cookies, and a decorated galley.

Now the crew is asking - "Laura what are you planning for New Years?" I think Christmas was a success.

2008-10-25T05:02:00.002+02:00

In action - around kilometer 37 or so. I was easy to pick out with my pink - flowered children's bike helmet. Or perhaps it was the bright yellow-orange shorts that made it easy to pick me out?

Why Not?

2008-10-11T18:06:00.028+02:00

It all started when a guy from Tasmania decided to run a marathon in Berlin. The medic on Emerald, who is Australian and friends with this guy, thought “hey we crew change through Brussels, Brussels is just a skip away from Berlin (especially compared to Australia), and the marathon is the weekend after crew change, ‘so Hey I should go run the marathon after crew change in September.” This was June. So Stru, the medic, went to sign up for the marathon, however all 40,000 spaces were full. Sadden, he told his friends of the misfortune, who lamented, but responded joking and laughing “ha there are still spaces in the rollerblade marathon”. Stru thought “hey why not”, then turned to me and said “Laura, you should totally do it too” and I thought “why not” and so we both signed up. Thus started the rollerblade escapade.

Minor details included:
- Neither of us had actually rollerbladed in the past 10 years
- I did not own rollerblades
- Stru had rollerblades buried in a closet in Cairns
- 42.2km is a long way whether by foot or by rollerblade

The next break, back in Oslo I went and bought a pair of rollerblades, telling the sales guy “I need a fast pair, you see I ‘m going to be in a marathon”. He just turned and raised one eyebrow. I practiced around Oslo a bit. My fear before buying the skates was whether or not I could go fast enough for the marathon. I figured that I could ice skate decently. However I soon learned and realized that ice skating is always done on a perfectly flat surface. Rollerblading, meanwhile has hills involved, however small. And stopping is a whole other ball game. This is unfortunate because Oslo is known for its hills. This is fortunate because Berlin is known for being flat.

Training (however limited it was) came to an abrupt stop when I returned to the vessel. I had thought through many possibilities, including tying myself to something and skating around the helideck, but I ultimately decided there was no way to actually train on the boat. Although I did manage to find some amusing looking exercises on the internet, which I did try to do on the helideck (much to the embarrassment of Stru).

I got off the vessel one week before heading to Berlin. However, between rain and traveling I was not able to get back on my skates before heading off. I met up with Stru in Berlin (who by the way purchased his skates in Berlin). We decided to take a train over to Poland in search of better training ground (ie no cars to hit) and to get in touch with my Polish roots. We went up to the Northwest corner, which is a nice beach area, as well a ferry point for going to Copenhagen and Sweden. Our new fear was getting picked up by the slow bus during the race. In fact we had no idea how fast we could actually go – could we do 2 min kilometers or 5 min kilometers? All we knew was that the bus picked you up at a few points if your time was clocking in slower than 2 hours 30 min and that the last person over the line last year timed in at 3 hours 9 minutes.

While exploring the area we found the perfect training grounds – the road from the ferry. Perfect – flat, straight and very little traffic (only when cars got off the ferry, so only once every 10 minutes). Now we could time ourselves. When going with the wind we clocked in at 2 min 20-30sec kms, while against the wind we were getting times of 3 min- 3 min 30 seconds. Finally we had a sense of our time. We just might be able to pull this stunt off with officially 2 days of training under our belts.

So back to Berlin we went, meeting up with the whole crew of Stru’s mates from Australia and then racing the next day. We both managed to finish- Stru with a time of 1 hour 54 minutes, I with a time of 2 hours 2 min 24 seconds (ah I think I could have made it under 2 hours, but oh well, at least I left the pickup bus in the dust). And we both had a fantastic time. We had hoped to “see Berlin” by skates, but instead we got the grand tour of Berlin pavement, so I can tell you much more about the sewer covers, and trams tracks rather than the sites, but so it goes. The Berlin inline marathon is the largest in the world, so there were heaps of spectators, bands on the streets and the final stretch took us right under the Brandenburg Gate. So overall a great time. I would definitely do another one in the future.

And to cap off the weekend, the next day, the running world record was broken – 2 hours 3 minutes and 59 seconds (yeap that’s right I skated it faster – my current claim to fame)

2008-10-11T18:06:00.027+02:00

My middle name is Orzechowski and in Polish this means hazelnut. I went looking to buy a few candy bars with my name on them and this is the one that I found!

Stru's and my skills did not really hold up when we started falling while trying to take a picture of ourselves pre-race.

2008-09-03T11:58:00.004+02:00

On the west coast of Norway during a workboat course. We were practicing sharp fast turns on the jet boat.
The other observers on my shift on my new vessel.
This is the FPSO at night during a close pass.

Its good for me

2008-08-21T04:32:00.001+02:00

The evenings are hauntingly beautiful from the helideck. Its still winter here, so there is a humid chill in the air as I take my midnight strolls. Our current prospect is a 4-D job, which means we are shooting seismic not to find oil, but to monitor wells that are already in production. 2 large FPSO’s (Floating Production storage and offloading vessels) hover in the center of our prospect – at night you could mistake them for cruise ships in full gaiety – lights coming out of every port hole, reflecting across the blackened ocean, multi-decks suggesting varying suites on each level, and oh - the large flame spouting out from one end of the vessel burning off H2S, which forces reality upon the situation. These 2 vessels pump out a quarter million barrels of oil a day each.

I’ve now moved to a different vessel. I spent the previous one and a half years on Geco Emerald as she searched for oil in India, Norway, and Angola. I didn’t want to open the email subject line: “Vessel Change”, I was so happy with my crew on Emerald – they were like family. I called a few of the crew “Cousin” or “Cus” (one of them actually shares the same middle name as me – Orzechowski – what are the odds?). I consoled myself with the knowledge that it was a temporary change and that it would be a good opportunity to meet more people, learn about a different boat, and then go back “home” to Emerald. Yesterday, I learned I would stay on Western Pride, my new vessel. It was one of those things in my gut I knew would happen. And, as much as I wanted to fight it and get back on Emerald, I know that logically this move makes sense. This boat uses a newer technology – one that all the future vessels of our company will have, and in 2 years time only a handful will have the old technology. And in the office I’m doing testing that is directly associated with the new technology – so the logic – yes keep Laura on Pride. Yesterday it was hard to face up to this fact. The new crew are very nice, although a bit on the mellow side. On Emerald I was used to basketball games, foosball tournaments, afternoon cricket and a pull up competition thrown in. Here – they watch movies and sometimes play the Wii. It will just take time – I have to remember I was on Emerald for a year and I developed relationships that one year ago I never thought possible. But now, here I am on Pride.

Our current job here in Angola is interesting because we literally must dodge the floating vessel / platforms. The trouble is that the most important part of what we want to visualize or “map” for the oil company is directly under the FPSO’s however for obvious reasons our, our vessel can not go directly over where the FPSO is. So we have to do 2 things – 1. Go as close as we possibly can. 2. Use a gun boat. This entails having one boat that has guns on one side of the platform and our recording vessel on the other. The midpoint between the 2 is directly under the FPSO – the target that the client wants. On these “close passes” sometimes I can feel the heat from the flame and see the people on the FPSO, watching us on the seismic vessel. The light from the H2S creates my shadow on the helideck at midnight.

2008-07-16T11:17:00.008+02:00

Emerald in full glory. Immediately behind the vessel you can see the guns, spread out to the side are the cables. If you look closely you can see them trailing all the way back and out of the photo.

A close up of Emerald

An Oil Spill drill (the drill was pretending hydraulic oil was leaking from the crane). Can you find me?

Our end of trip helideck BBQ (again can you find me?). We had it in the evening and as soon as the sunset we were all huddled around the grill - in ANGOLA, only a few degrees south of the Equator!

A Simple Scan

2008-07-15T17:12:00.001+02:00

Growing up, vacation planning started about 1 and a half years in advance and was tracked carefully on an excel spread sheet. About a year in advance, dad would make the key bookings and enter them onto the sheet and fill each column – location, contact details, price, website – as more information was known. As the months crept closer, dad filled in the details of each day – recommended restaurants, the activity of the day. And after each addition he would print out a new sheet and show it to Tesia and I. We would look at it, nod our heads in approval and wonder what exactly had changed (often it was the addition of a phone number or a price change).
Planning was of the essence (Dad we love you for all that planning).
Vietnam educated me in a more laidback approach to travel and seismic has taught me minute by minute flexibility is essential.

I thought this past crew change would be pretty normal – it would be my third time going to Angola, so I knew how it worked. A week before crew change I would get my flight details, 3 days before traveling I would get my visa. Once in Angola, I knew in immigration – go find the man in the white coat to show my yellow fever card, once through, I knew I would be herded into a waiting area while they processed by temporary 15 day visa, then transfer to the domestic airport for the helicopter. I was an old hand at entering Angola. As usual, I was supposed to travel on Saturday to Lisbon and then onto Luanda. On Thursday – I still had no visa. Friday morning at work – still no visa, so I started making phone calls. First, to our office in Gatwick, then to our shore representative in Angola. After a while I discovered that the Angola immigration officials had rejected my visa application because the scan / copy of my university diploma was bad. I found it interesting that the three times before when they issued me a visa this had not been an issue, but now it was. By this point it was about midday and the Angolan offices close at noon and then it was the weekend, so no there would be no action until at least Monday – I would not be crew changing on Saturday.

So the Angola officials wanted a good copy – I would give them everything I possibly could. First I sent them a copy of my transcript, then I faced the larger dilemma – I was in Oslo and my diploma was in Maryland. Luckily, my dad was able to take a picture of it, so that I had a color copy (the Princeton diploma is too large to put on a regular scanner). By mid afternoon on Friday I had all the necessary documents and emailed them off to Angola. Now I just had to wait. I couldn’t complain – the weekend in Oslo was fantastic – warm sun, a citywide music concert (versus being on the boat!). And the next week I just waited. Waited for news of a visa and finally it came on Thursday – I was given a visa and I would travel on Saturday (in Angola that you can’t enter the country until 3 days after the visa is issued). And so a week later I joined the vessel. Luckily it was raining that Saturday in Oslo, so warm and sunny Angola – here I come.

As for why it happened, many may chant “TIA” – This Is Africa as an excuse, others may point to the last minute nature of seismic. Me – while a Princeton diploma usually helps a situation, I don’t think Princeton’s decision to write their diploma in Latin helped.

2008-04-19T17:57:00.005+02:00

The Houseboat / sauna that Rasmus' whole family went to over Easter. It was snowing and I think we all jumped into the lake around 6 times.

My mom said that fron the last post she did not get a good idea of what the barnacles here in Angola look like. This one is about 3-4 inches long, no hard shell, just one long slimy barnacle.

Working on the back deck deploying the cable at 23:00.

A Woman's Touch

2008-04-19T17:51:00.000+02:00

Easter in Norway is sacred. Sacred, not because Christ was nailed on a cross and atoned for the sins of man-kind, but because it’s the last hurrah of winter before spring comes. Schools are closed for the week and the country shuts down – stores close, hotels close and all of Norway heads off to their family’s hytte (pronounced hut-a) in the mountains to ski.

For the sacred week I went to Sweden. In Sweden, Rasmus’ brother asked me to give a talk at the local Youth House, where they were having a theme night on Discrimination and Prejudice. Nikodemus invited me to talk, hoping I might talk about being an American in the many places that I have been. I agreed to talk, but then when I started to think, I felt I could give a better talk about being a female in a very male dominated job.

I titled the talk, “A Woman’s Touch” and introduced myself to the Swedish youth, telling them my name and where I was from. I then asked them to brainstorm what they thought my job was from that limited information and from what they saw of me standing there. I got many responses – a social worker, a teacher, a journalist, and even a comedian. I told them I worked off shore and all, were indeed shocked. I then showed them a loud music, fast paced 3 minute video about seismic. After introducing them to the offshore world I just wanted to share a few experiences. On the whole, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised at how I’ve been treated off shore. Its much a more a family – with the guys acting as brothers, uncles or fatherly figures. However, I had one incident last fall that I shared with the crowd. Instead of recapping it, I’ll copy here what I wrote in my journal last October..

Today I had a pretty amazing conversation (this is amazing as in whoa - shocked, not whoa great). A trainee (mid-career hire, he is 35) George, from Romania. He is pretty quiet. The first part of the trip we talked some on the back deck, cracked some jokes. Everyone else was saying he was quiet, and I was sticking up for him. Over the last few days though he just wasn't talking to me and basically flat out ignoring me. Today we sort of confronted each other. and he basically flat out told me men are better than women and that no matter how hard a woman tries, as soon as she makes one mistake, that's it, she is not longer viewed as equal or able in a "man's" world. He also noted that smart women are the exception not the rule. He also noted that there may be a few high up women, but that people don't really respect them or view them as equal.

WHOA - I've never met anyone who actually thought this way. This whole conversation started when I said "thank you" to George for emptying a bucket of kerosene for me. He told me "you don't have to say thank you" I said “Oh why not" He said "because its not like this is a personal favor or anything".

whoa again. we also talked about how the trip was going. He doesn't think he will pass his appraisal. He rarely smiles, and doesn't really engage with people. This is a problem when the environment on the ship is really team oriented. He also says he has another job offer back in Romania. so he may not be back

An eye opener for sure. Thank goodness for Allan - I was able to talk to him about it. George is pretty cold to him as well.

The question to leave with is have you been discriminated against? In what way? How did you react. For me, my goal was to hear out George, I wanted to know why he thought this way. Me, arguing was only going to cement his beliefs even more.

2008-02-17T01:43:00.004+01:00

Halfway between the coast and getting to Luanda via helicopter.

Helicopter view of Luanda on my way from the boat to the airport.

Me and the barnacles on the work boat. This was a brief break from hand ripping them off the tail end of our 8km cables. (for most of it we don't hand rip them off, we use tools we made, called the jaws of death)

Barnacles on the cable.

The Sea Life in Angola

2008-02-16T10:43:00.000+01:00

Even with two Angolan stamps, one full page 15 day transit visa with a photo and a work visa is on the way, I have yet to step a foot further than the hot crumbling Lunada Airport. They started building a new airport with all the oil money, but they found diamonds as they were excavating, so that was halted. So it’s the old one. I’ve now been in and out of Angola twice, but only in her waters – south of Luanda. Visas have been an issue, so on the transit visa I wasn’t able to stay or go anywhere. Hopefully with the work visa (if it actually happens) I can see a bit more of Angola.

Here is what I can say about Angola:
There are lots of sharks, turtles, and barnacles and all three affect my everyday life here on board.
Sharks. They like to bite the cables (no kidding). And when they bite the cables, then sea water intrudes the cables and there are electrical faults. This unfortunately means that we have to stop production and either retrieve the cable(s) or go out in the work boat and change a cable section. If it’s in an easily accessible location and day light, this may only take an hour to rectify (although we have to stop production) however if its night or in a less accessible location, it could take a day or 2 (which equates to a lot of money lost).

Barnacles. Angola is barnacle heaven, or else the world’ breeding ground from barnacles. Fortunately for the barnacles we are going slow enough (less than 4.5 knots), that they can attach themselves to our streamers. Unfortunately for us, this causes us lots of problems. These problems include large amounts of drag, which creates large amounts of tension on the cables, and lots of noise on the hydrophones, which means lower data quality. Imagine 4 inch barnacle flowers flapping around on top of a microphone – its adds a lot of noise to the data. The tension is actually so great that we have to slow our speed down to 3.5 knots, which results in a loss of control of our cables and a tendency for them to cross each other, which as one might guess is not a good thing – 8 km spaghetti is never good.

Turtles. Turtles eat barnacles. So the turtles hang out around the cables and feast. Unfortunately they hit the cable when they eat the barnacles. It hits the cable and then the whole cable shakes and creates a lot of noise on the hydrophones. Its like a huge bang against a microphone. We can actually watch the turtles work their way down the streamer from our computer screens in the instrument room.

Of the three – sharks, barnacles, and turtles, barnacles are the most constant nuisance and they require us to go out and clean the streamers about 3-4 times a week. I love it, as I get to be out on the work boat, drive it sometimes and just spend the whole day outside. The smell though can get pretty bad – imagine lots of barnacles or any sea food sitting outside in the baking sun. Plus it’s a pretty messy job. We go along the cable at about 7 knots and the barnacles come flying off with our jaws of death tool. I think the pictures show just how many barnacles there are!

2007-10-11T01:29:00.000+02:00

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.

2007-10-10T11:14:00.000+02:00

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

2007-10-10T03:24:00.000+02:00

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

2007-09-28T01:20:00.001+02:00

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?

2007-09-28T00:52:00.000+02:00

The table before everyone arrived

The crayfish - ready to eat.

Pierre Loic and I with our funny hats.

2007-09-13T20:31:00.000+02:00

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?

2007-09-12T22:18:00.000+02:00

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?

2007-07-27T13:53:00.000+02:00

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

2007-07-27T13:52:00.000+02:00

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.

2007-07-27T13:37:00.001+02:00

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

2007-07-27T13:33:00.000+02:00

This is the snow covered valley.

Reliable Sources

2007-07-27T13:12:00.000+02:00

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.

2007-06-23T16:02:00.000+02:00

The adventures to the archery range in Houston.

2007-06-23T16:00:00.001+02:00

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!

2007-06-23T15:58:00.000+02:00

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?

2007-06-23T15:57:00.000+02:00

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.

2007-06-16T23:24:00.000+02:00

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

2007-06-16T23:23:00.000+02:00

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

2007-06-16T23:20:00.000+02:00

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

Communities and Decisions

2007-06-16T23:13:00.000+02:00

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

2007-05-07T14:12:00.000+02:00

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.

2007-05-06T15:00:00.000+02:00

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!

2007-05-06T14:54:00.000+02:00

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

2007-05-06T14:48:00.000+02:00

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?

2007-05-06T14:42:00.000+02:00

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.

2007-04-17T23:10:00.000+02:00

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

2007-04-17T23:06:00.000+02:00

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

Jantelagen and Påsk

2007-04-17T23:01:00.000+02:00

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.

2007-03-20T20:49:00.000+01:00

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

2007-03-20T20:47:00.000+01:00

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

2007-03-20T20:44:00.000+01:00

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

Heie Heie Heie

2007-03-20T20:43:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-03-10T23:37:00.000+01:00

Skiing in the Nordmarka

2007-03-10T23:32:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-03-10T23:26:00.000+01:00

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

2007-03-10T23:23:00.000+01:00

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

2007-03-10T23:17:00.000+01:00

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?

2007-02-27T22:54:00.000+01:00

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!

2007-02-19T22:26:00.000+01:00

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

2007-02-19T22:23:00.000+01:00

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)

2007-02-19T22:20:00.000+01:00

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

Norway

2007-02-19T22:18:00.001+01:00

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.

2007-02-06T20:14:00.000+01:00

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)

2007-02-06T20:10:00.002+01:00

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.

2007-02-06T17:14:00.000+01:00

The beach where we were in India

End of School - End of Shift

2007-02-06T17:04:00.001+01:00

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

2007-01-10T22:07:00.000+01:00

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.

2006-12-30T10:13:00.000+01:00

Me watching the sunset on a quick stop during one of the many hikes that extended well into the evening along the AT (a new and improved version of this picture, thanks to Jeff)

2006-12-30T10:11:00.000+01:00

Just to prove that there were no cars on Skyline Drive

2006-12-30T10:08:00.000+01:00

Mom working on the Spirit of South Carolina with Elizabeth, a student at the College of Charleston who helps out at the Shipyard

2006-12-30T09:57:00.000+01:00

I'm in the front left, having just come out from a smoke filled building.

The Great Unconformity

2006-12-30T09:53:00.000+01:00

I realized that my blog had a great unconformity – It jumped from the beginning of October when I was starting my training in Houston to offshore India in the middle of December. Any geologist knows that time isn’t actually missing, its just not accounted for.

After Houston, Schlumberger sent me to New Orleans for BOSS / HUET training (basic offshore survival and helicopter underwater egress training). The best part of that training was we spent a whole day fighting fires – full fireman’s suit, complete with oxygen tanks. We actually put out big (hot) fires.

Then I actually found my way home – although home now means Charleston, SC (although, yes I work offshore and I am still a resident of VA). I spent 3 weeks there – helping mom pick things out for the house and helping to build the Spirit of South Carolina, a new tall ship they are building for the city.

Mom missed home (old home) so much that we went up to DC for Thanksgiving with Aunt Pat and Uncle Doe. The very next day however, I was off hiking on the Appalachian trail, with this guy, Jeff, who at the time was a friend of a friend, but after 2 weeks on the trail, would most definitely be considered a friend. He is thru hiking (for Backpacker Magazine!) and you can read about his adventures on his blog: www.trackjeff.com . And you can view some really great pictures of the 2 weeks by clicking here. The weather was crazy – the first week it was in the 60’s and the second week it was in the low teens at night. The last night out it actually snowed on us. The crazy thing is that we got the usually super busy Shenandoah national park all to ourselves. The day before Thanksgiving there was a large ice storm, prompting a closing of Skyline drive. Trees were down everywhere – all over the trail. It was more like an obstacle course, than the usually almost well-paved AT. That didn’t stop our friend Matt, however from hiking in the middle of the night, off of some side road to hang out with us for the day!

After that I was back in DC for a day and a half before shipping off to India. I did manage to go see the Revels though and get a little bit of Christmas spirit in.

Make sure you check out the AT pictures – Jeff is a great photographer!

What is a bird?

2006-12-27T09:33:00.000+01:00

What is a bird you may ask? A bird is a 3 foot long tube with wings. Inside the tube is a motor, electoronics, a compass, and a battery. The bird is then attached to the cables. From the ship we can move the wings to change the depth of the cable.

2006-12-26T09:04:00.000+01:00

This is what I did early Christmas morning - fix birds!

2006-12-26T08:52:00.000+01:00

Click on the image to see the Night Before Christmas on Emerald

Christmas at Sea

2006-12-26T08:40:00.000+01:00

Yes its Christmas and again I am not at home. This year though was really different from last year or any Christmas really. Last Year I spent Christmas with the Owen family in Saigon. While it was not Christmas with my family, it still felt like what I knew as Christmas. We went to bed that night watching a movie, we woke up super early, we spent hours opening gifts, we had a big breakfast. There were 2 kids.

This year…

I guess I’ll start with the similarities. At home I’m up at midnight, usually at church. I was up at midnight this morning, although that was only because my shift started then.

That might be it. I spent the first half of my shift in the bird shack repairing birds. Since the seas are still bad in the job block on the tip of India, we are back on the western side of the country in calmer weather, so we can go out in the work boats to fix the cables. I went out 2 days ago – there were 4 of us on the boat. One person driving, one person changing batteries and 2 of us holding up the cable. This may sound not too difficult. But if you remember that the cable is 6 km long (and thus very heavy) and the swells are most definitely topping 2 meters, it was quite a struggle to keep hold of the cable. It was two of us versus the vast Ocean. The work boat is just about the size of a motor boat on the lake. Then yesterday I was inside “driving the cables”. Usually the cables are kept between 7 meters (about 22 feet) and 14 meters (50feet) below the water surface, but I would monitor where the small boats were and bring up the necessary sections of cable and then check the devices to see if they were working. Some of the devices did not work yesterday, so today I got to fix them – changing batteries, calibrating them, changing motors and compasses. I managed to fix most of them. So that was the first fourth of my Christmas.

I spent the rest of my shift, helping drive the cables, working on some of my learning modules, and getting the final preparations ready for the Christmas activities after the big lunch. And big it was. They cooked a pig out on the boat deck during the morning, there was a huge ham, some sort of huge chunk of beef, prawns, king crab legs, some sort of stuffed lobster, and cakes galore. The real amusing kicker was the drinks – “wines”, really grape juice, as no alcohol is allowed on board.

After lunch, we all went to the day room, where I read the Geco Emerald “twas the night before Christmas that I had written (click on the graphic above). Just as I read “When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh, and 8 tiny reindeer” Santa burst in. It was perfect timing and he was clanging a bell (okay, a pot lid with a spoon). After the reading was finished, everyone was called up, sat on Santa’s lap and got a gift. I don’t really think I’ve sat on Santa’s lap in quite a while. It was quite amusing watching some of the large engineers and mechanics sit in Santa’s lap.

And now its 3pm and its bed time. I guess I will have 2 Christmases, as I wake up for work at 10:30 pm and it will still be Christmas.

2006-12-22T09:36:00.000+01:00

This is my vessel, although clearly at a distance. Since I missed crew change by a week and the Pacific Lion II, one of our chase boats which was also doing a resupply was going out, I got an overnight ride on it to get to the GECO EMERALD.

2006-12-22T09:26:00.000+01:00

I'm all the way on the right. This is reel B out on the back deck. This was the start of bringing in all of the cables (look how clean we are).

Unexpected Findings

2006-12-20T10:34:00.000+01:00

Guess what we found today! No not an old dead fish, no not some fishing line with hooks tangled in our cables (although we did find that 2 days ago), no not oil, but a… keep reading… We finished our job 3 days ago, and since then have spent our time bringing in 2 (of 8) 6km cables for repair. Yesterday we deployed the 2 cables (about 6 hours per cable to deploy). Now we are on our way to the new site. (our new site is located at the very tip of India. If you draw a line from the tip directly south and then a line from Columbo Sri Lanka due west, our new site is where they intersect.)

But what did we find? As we were streaming along, there was suddenly a lot of noise coming up from our cables. Think seismograph that just has straight lines and then suddenly there are a lot of up and down. First guess – earthquake, but looking at the lines and how they hit the cables, the arrival of the waves was not that of an earthquake. The choice – submarine! We called the bridge (where the captain and chief mate and all the steering equipment is) to ask (kind of jokingly) if they knew about the sub. They did, but for a different reason. On their radar they had seen a small blip and assumed it was a small fishing boat, however it was headed straight for our cables, so they sent one of our chase boats after it. By the time the chase boat got there, there was nothing and it had disappeared off of the radar screen. The sub thus dove under our cables!

Now we are about 45 km away and just hanging tight until we get there. We are moving at 4.5 knots, so we still have a bit of time (and its why I’m able to write this while I’m working!)

Entering India

2006-12-16T09:27:00.001+01:00

I started my journey in DC, from where I flew to London, to Bahrain, to Kochi, India. Once arriving at 3:30 in the morning and waiting outside for quite awhile, I made it to the hotel by 5:15am. I crashed until I was awoken around 1:30 by a call from the ship’s port agent, telling me he was in the lobby, he needed my passport. He took it saying that my security clearance was not through, but he would be back by 4:30 / 5:00pm at the latest. I must have fallen back to sleep because at 4:47 I got another awakening phone call, this time to come down quickly, we had to go to the immigration office before it closed. Here is what I wrote in my journal:

“oh how I felt like I was back in Vietnam again – it was hot, the building was old plaster that was inevitably peeling, there were three people to do the job of one. Instead of shamrock green table clothes in Vietnam, there were floral vinyl coverings. I had to fill out a departures form. I vaguely remembered filling out an arrivals form only 13 hours before. This time for the vessel I wrote “ship” and destination “high seas”. There was another guy, a mechanic, also there going out too. He had had to come in on Thursday because his mother had died. I was really glad to have someone else there. After awhile I was whisked back to the hotel to pick up my bags, then off to a customs guy, but the customs guy was not there, so we had to drive to his home, but he was not there, so we had to drive back. Someone was found to sign off (although I’m not entirely sure money didn’t change hands) As we left the gate guy tried to get a bribe, but the agent told him that he would be back and the gate guy waved us through.
Again, like Vietnam, nothing is clean, there is just dust and stuff everywhere. And finally we made it to the boat – the Pacific Lion II (note this is not my vessel, it is our seismic vessel supply boat). Also, the mechanic told me that I still did not have Indian offshore clearance, but that the port agent had told the immigration officers that he would get it to them in a 2-3 weeks.

To be continued in a day or 2 – stay tuned.
I know most of you are probably wonder what in the world I was doing this fall, besides training in Houston - I'll get that next post, hopefully in a day or 2, along with pictures.

NY Times Article

2006-11-09T03:17:00.000+01:00

Here is an Article from November 8th, 2006 talking about oil in the Gulf of Mexico. However, It highlights the Western Neptune, a vessel owned by Western Geco (Schlumberger) and its very similar to the Geco Topaz, which I will be on in India. I'm putting it up here, just to give you an idea of what I'll be doing.

Drilling Deep in the Gulf of Mexico

2006-10-11T04:39:00.000+02:00

I am the girl in the middle. This was at the injury prevention class where we learned how to carry things in Tulsa, OK

New Jobs

2006-10-11T01:47:00.000+02:00

I am in Tulsa right now and it is a direct consequence of taking a ferry ride last May from Pho Quoc Island to my Vietnamese town of Rach Gia. I had spent the previous rainy week alone on the island (alone meaning without Dan or my Vietnamese friends) pondering, no agonizing over whether I should go to Norway and become a data processor or jump on a seismic ship and look for oil. As I stood out on the bow of the ferry that day in May, looking out on the ocean, I knew – the boat.

I have now stepped into the “real world” and am now making more than $80 a month, much to my father’s delight. However, as many of you know I make this jump with trepidation. Trepidation because if two years ago when people learned that I was a geologist, they would remark – “oh so you are going to work for an oil company?” and I would respond with “oh course not” and that was a true fact.

Let me clarify exactly what my job is. My job title is Marine Seismic Acquisitions Engineer, which as the word marine implies, I will be working on seismic ships all over the world. Very simply, I will be looking for oil. That’ right I, Laura Smith will be looking for oil.

Preceding my starting the job I found it difficult to admit to people what I was about to do. I would hang my head and give a response such as “Well like any good environmentalist I am going to go look for oil and kill and deafen fish in the process”.

The thing is though, I am really excited about the job. My job will not be an ordinary job. My schedule is the following: I will spend 6 weeks on the boat. While on the boat I will work 12 hours on, 12 hours off, 12 hours on, 12 hours off, continuously for 6 weeks. Then I will work in the office closest to the boat for 3 weeks. Then 3 weeks off.

On the airplane down to Houston for training I brainstormed the following goals:

1. Gain more practical skills
2. Better understand the oil industry
3. Better understand for-profit companies in general
4. Learn new skills
5. Have fun
6. Enliven the lives of the people around me
7. Leave if I am in overall compromising situation
8. Do my job to the fullest of my capabilities
9. Continually ask questions

Now I am in Tulsa for the Schlumberger Injury Prevention program and defensive driving school. I spent all of last week in Houston learning about the company, getting my new laptop, 2 sets of fire retardant coveralls, and new steel toed boots (that look like cool cowboy boots). The diversity of people at training is shocking – in my class of 48 there are people from 15 countries and we are all going into different segments of Schlumberger. I was honestly expecting a group of 48 boring quiet engineers, instead I have been presented with 48 cool, fun, … engineers.

I’ll wrap this blog up for now – I’m already itching to write another one though about how much I have already learned.

I do need to clear one thing up though - I am not going to Norway for my first tirp, I am going to India. My vessel, the Geco Topaz is currently in Norway, but by the time that I board her in November, she will be in India. Rest assured though, in January I will go to Norway for my technical school.

I do want to end with one question though. Where ever you are or what ever you are doing, do you have clear goals for yourself? What are they? If not, then what are your goals?

I would love to hear from you.