Good Luck Mendip. An addition to the coffers will make you feel better.
Good Luck Mendip. An addition to the coffers will make you feel better.
Nice thread.
Ootai... I discovered some privacy settings in the TeakDoor software and now everyone can see the pics! I thought it may help advertise the next street litter needing homes.
Golf... I'll think about it. Like I said my slice killed my game dead nine years ago and I got the hump with it, but maybe I should try again...
Yes... the occasional arsehole does turn up but hopefully my new found colleagues aren't thinking this... Any conflict can really effect the atmosphere of a spread so usually these people are weeded out very quickly and not employed. Of course occasionally it is unavoidable and for me, if there is someone I know I will conflict with, I generally manipulate the shifts so I'm opposite. Its strange but nine times out of ten if someone is bugging you, you later find out that the same person bugs everyone. It just takes a while to confide in people when you freelance and are constantly turning up on new boats with new people and are always the 'new' person.
Lucky for me I'm really nice and everyone likes me!
It's a bit small but OK. There's not many sharing cabins on this boat but as I was the new freelancer I got the short straw. So long as the cabin is clean and quiet that's really all I care about... it's only for sleeping in.
Yes, it's certainly not ideal but at least the gardener isn't onboard to sneak up behind me!
But right now I have more pressing problems than my work station set up...
Another chunk fell off the sole of my right trainer today... the grip on the helideck is brutal...
The entire sole is now starting to detach itself as well.
This is a bladdy disaster as I'm only one week into a six week trip... maybe seven... and no way will my trainers last.
I'll find the tech tonight and see if he has any decent glue but I can't see see them lasting more than another couple of days...
Bladdy hell...
Coronavirus: Dozens test positive for Covid-19 on Norwegian cruise ship
At least 41 passengers and crew on a Norwegian cruise ship have tested positive for Covid-19, officials say.
Hundreds more passengers who travelled on the MS Roald Amundsen are in quarantine and awaiting test results, the company that owns the ship said.
The ship, which belongs to the Norwegian firm Hurtigruten, docked in the port of Tromso in northern Norway on Friday.
Coronavirus: Dozens test positive for Covid-19 on Norwegian cruise ship - BBC News
We port called in Tromsø on Wednesday, two days before this cruise ship, so I guess that was lucky.
Norway has managed Covid very well up to now, but judging from the complete lack of social distancing and mask wearing I witnessed at the two Norwegian airports I transited through ten days ago, I fear the worst...
"The MS Roald Amundsen had been on a week-long voyage to Svalbard in the Arctic,"
Coronavirus: Dozens test positive for Covid-19 on Norwegian cruise ship - BBC News
Thor was looking out for you.
Just sail over to Sydney. They'll be happy to let them disembark there.
To be fair, they probably do cost a tenner Full-Board.
Probably Americans.
I was chatting to some of Jof's ilk in Ireland last week, they're not happy that the country is open for tourists from the States. In their words 'We didn't just spend 4 months locked up at home, for fucking 200Kg Mary-Lou from Texas and 5 of her cousins to fly in and prance around our shops and restaurants pawing and sneezing'.
^ Nid... the days of the open bridge are long gone!
A view of my helideck from this bridge...
One of the nice things about working in Norway is the standard of the boats and living quarters. They're all purpose built and a far cry from the converted trawlers I started working on 30 years ago with four man cabins and communal showers.
The day room on this boat... I wouldn't mind a couple of these sofas at home, they're a lot nicer than what I've got.
And the mess. A meal is served every six hours.
There's always cold cuts available for a snack, and being a Norwegian boat smoked salmon is plentiful. In the mess there's always a bowl of these kind of seed bars which I'm fast becoming addicted to... but they just have to be good for you. I have this for a snack most nights around 4am instead of breakfast at the end of my shift at 6am. Surely I'm gonna lose weight this trip!
Do you get much time to socialise? Watch football on the TV etc?
^ To be honest I've lost interest in football since Bristol City ballsed up the season and sacked their manager.
These boats used to be very social with a movie on at the end of shifts and card games during times of bad weather. These days every cabin has a TV and most vessels have wifi. Everyone just disappears and does their own thing at the end of shift and there's very little socialising. Shame really... but I disappear off to my cabin as well!
This is what the sea looks like at 73 degrees north, 300km north of the Norwegian coast... probably the furthest north I've ever been and definitely the furthest north I've ever worked.
This is at the Wisting Field. In a few years time there will be a great big FPSO floating on this same piece of sea and there'll be all manner of infrastructure on the seabed, 400m down. I'm hoping this bit of seabed will produce enough work to keep me going this year.
I had company on my walk today...
Though judging from the state of the helideck I don't reckon these are alone.
Didn't take long to find the culprits... you're rarely alone on a boat. These seagulls are living in hope that we're a fishing boat... eventually the disappointment will hit them and they'll fly off.
And cormorants as well... constantly diving so I guess there must be a lot of small fish about.
These seagulls and cormorants are incredibly hardy and live at sea all the time apart from once a year, when they go back to land to nest. It must be pretty chilly even with this nice weather but in the winter it'll be storm after storm and dark 24 hours a day. Not much of a life... maybe life in Isaan isn't so bad after all.
Did you work up a get-around for your runners? That helideck will make mince out of any shoes soles by the look of it!
Gonna look the biz on his next deployment.
...quite a difference from my experience on the old Saudi Training rig DP2: we had a small dining area for non-Muslim staff where we could enjoy such delicacies as pink tuna (canned Danish hams from Bahrain) prepared by Indian Christian cook staff. Those who actually got their hands dirty on the rig (Saudi Shias mostly) had nightly biryani with large chunks of mutton. Like you, I also walked around the helipad for exercise as the room set aside for that purpose had exactly one exercise bike and old vids. The nightly highlight, however, was climbing to the top of the rig and shining the huge spotlight onto the Gulf: all manner of marine life would suddenly appear and sharks would have a feast...
Majestically enthroned amid the vulgar herd
I've a big problem with my trainers... it's not just the soles getting chewed to bits but also they are detaching themselves. I've noticed before living in Thailand that you can put on a seemingly new pair of shoes, but if they've been shelved in the house for any length of time the heat and humidity has knackered the glue and they fall apart. These trainers have hardly been worn but were left in our laundry room for months... and are now falling apart. I've got the ROV boys on to it and they're mixing up some strong glue, but the trainers ain't gonna last another five weeks. I'll save them just for the gym when we have bad weather.
In the meantime I've been wearing my Merrell sandals that I usually wear just on shift. I have to go for the socks with sandals look, but these are desperate times!
These sandals have rock hard soles and I'm hoping they'll last a while.
And as I look at that pic I realise I've got a shit encrusted seagull feather stuck to the sole!
I could maybe get the ROV boys to knock me up a set of those things! Problem is we've got bad weather forecast and they tend to string a net across the helideck once that happens... could be a real problem wearing those blades then!
Last edited by Mendip; 06-08-2020 at 08:51 AM.
You could also take an extra spring and end up doing a 350 meter arc into the Arctic ocean.
Thanks for the continued updates, Mendip, a real education for a landlubber like myself.
How long will you be at sea?
The lack of a frosty lager or two of an evening is the standout negative for me - otherwise it looks like a decent gig (which no doubt pays a decent wage).
^^^^
Yuup lost two pair of adidas Trimm Trabs that way
impossible to replace
had one crumble on me at the airport, spent a week in brogues
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