Aw that is sweet of you. What a cute little bird.
Anyway, I'm late on this comment, but I liked your pics of the Bridges in Istanbul. I've been to Istanbul and took a cruise along the Bosphorus back in 2010.
I recognize the bridges, but I had never seen them up close at night... great pics. I also talk to a lot of Turkish people these days on my online teaching, and recently a lady showed me a vid from her balcony and I guess there is a cruise ship docked for three or more days there. It is all lit up at night too. So, was wondering if that was your ship lol. I doubt it as this was as recent as last night. Anyway, good luck with everything.
He’s not on a cruise ship, though he does appear to act like it swanning around all day, no work.
No updates? Mendip must be keeping busy.
MIA!
Mendip hows it going?
^^^ Yes... very busy.
This is most certainly not a cruise ship and the reason I may seem to 'swan around all day' is because I'm doing a very busy night shift! We're at least two men down due to Covid and that has put an awful lot of extra work on us if we're to keep up with acquisition and not have a huge backlog at the end of the job to take into the next project. Although, when I say "we're" I'm not including myself as I'll be long gone. This project will probably continue until the first week of December.
But... mustn't grumble of course!
If you've ever wondered what the seabed looks like at the bottom of the Black Sea...
This is 150km from shore and over 2km down, and the seabed is covered with plastic crap. It's incredibly depressing but I guess the only good thing is that there's nothing living at the bottom of the Black Sea to be effected by it. It's also no-where near as bad as the seabed in the Mediterranean.
On Wednesday we had a crew change in a place called Karadeniz Ereğli on the southern coast of the Black Sea. During this crew change we went from being one man down to two men under-strength, but the good thing was that this now means that the next crew change in less than four weeks will be mine! I could have quite happily got off this damn boat this week but I guess I'll be glad of an extra 28 day's money once I get back home.
BB will be pleased to know that Karadeniz Ereğli used to be a Greek city called Heraclea Pontica after the Greek mythical hero Heracles.
It was a pleasant looking place.
The town was nestled in a valley on the left. The clear blue morning skies were deceiving... it's very chilly here now and I'm certainly not getting any more deckchair time on the helideck.
Another port... another pilot. The Norwegian skippers can only enter Norwegian ports without a pilot and have to hand over control to someone with local knowledge when overseas.
Then we could head on in. The town was on the left but we were headed onto the industrial port area to the right.
Straight into the morning sun.
I've always been fascinated by docks and they make for some great scenery. Apparently Karadeniz Ereğli is the home of Erdemir, one of the largest steel producers in the world.
I'm not sure, but I guess this ship has been unloading iron ore to the dockyard. The conveyor belts were still while we were alongside.
As usual I accidentally pressed some damn filter on my phone when taking this pic but I think it actually came out OK... by chance.
A big difference to the view back towards the town.
And the small mouth to the harbour back out to the open sea. This was the last crew change that won't involve me... I still haven't stepped foot on Turkish soil. My turn will come in 4 weeks time in Samsun, along the coast to the east. Maybe one day I'll come back and visit this place. I've been reading a lot about Turkey since working here and have developed a real interest in returning for a look around. It'd be nice to get some food similar to the stuff Hal's been showing off in the Dinner thread as well.
After a brief period alongside we headed back out to sea to take up where we broke off 24 hours earlier. We're due at the Russian landfall on November 1st and this date is set in stone as we have an appointment with the Russian customs to allow us to complete the 12nm territorial water work. It we're not going to make it in time we'll have to break off work and steam on across but fingers crossed we can complete one pipeline, do the coastal work, and then return on the second pipeline. The only way to make money on these contracts is to have no delays.
So...
Next stop Russia!
In fact, the next stop wasn't Russia. The ROV reached the seabed but developed an earth fault and then had to be returned to deck. We're in nearly 2.2km of water here and it takes an hour to get the ROV to the seabed... and an hour to return it back to the surface. The OM was none too pleased.
But anyway, enough boring stuff. I try to keep these threads on topic and a few days ago I spotted this...
Yes!!! An empty tin of SPAM, 180km from shore and 2.2km down on the seabed.
Even with all their fancy kebabs the Turks obviously still enjoy a treat once in a while!
Last edited by Mendip; 22-10-2021 at 08:02 AM.
Great update Mendip ... nice to see things coming along.
Always love the pics and the stories behind them ... stuff I'll never get to do.
Mendip good to hear from you, only 4 weeks til you can see your mum.
I should imagine your stock has risen with the company, with bailing them out somewhat.
Its staggering to note on the first pic above that in the early days of the pipeline they had Thais working on it, clearly it didn't last but you can see where Somchai the village handyman has improvised with the ubiquitous blue PVC pipe, bless im.
It is depressing seeing all that plastic everywhere, you can only imagine how much is in all the seas, and you can only hope things improve but it'll be there for centuries and in the food chain.
Looking at the shots of the pipeline, you can see it is getting buried and soonish it'll be completely under a layer of silt.
SW
I don't know for sure but I would guess that line indicates the location of the cross section of data being logged at that point in time.
If there is a fault or defect found you would need to know exactly where it is located so you could repair it or do whatever was necessary to rectify the situation.
Wow... some pertinent on-topic discussion! Not a mention of passport renewals or SPAM to be seen.
You have pretty well nailed it Ootai. We use the laser for two main reasons.
During pipeline inspection we always collect video simultaneously from three cameras; port, centre and starboard to cover both sides and the top of the pipeline. The laser helps to keep all three cameras aligned to the same point.
As Ootai says, the laser allows any visual features to be synchronised with other data.
Everything we do relies on good navigation. The only constant there is, is time, so all data is time stamped. That is our constant and once a good position has been established, we know where the ROV was at a point in time therefore we can reduce any other time-stamped data to that same position in time.
All survey sensors are bolted on to the ROV at different locations, so in order to synchronise all data we measure the offsets of each sensor to a Common Reference Point (CRP). Time stamped depth data, sonar data, multibeam echosounder data, sub-bottom profiler data, pipetracker data etc etc is all reduced to the CRP position by use of the measured offsets and then everything is associated to the positional data for that point in time. The features along a pipeline observed visually are no different to any other data and a field joint on a pipeline (for example) will be logged at a certain time when the laser passes across it, and then the offset from the CRP to laser gives us the reduced position of the field joint in conjunction with all other data for that position. If that makes sense.
Anyway, progress has been slow and we are still 580 km from the Russian coast and are achieving around 50km a day. It is doubtful we will complete the inspection of one pipeline in time for our November 1st appointment with Russian customs without breaking off to transit there at some point.
A couple of nights ago we came across a small cluster of activity during the night shift.
Ships passing in the night...
There were a couple of Turkish drill ships with an attendant safety boat hard at work. We passed by around 4km to the north of the activity.
It seems strange to me having two ships drilling wells right next to each other.
With a bit of research I discovered that the Turks have been finding gas in the Black Sea and are carrying out a campaign of drilling in the hopes of establishing a hydrocarbon industry. I had no idea... I guess they want to reduce their reliance on Russian gas imports.
We continued on and left them to it...
But the big news for me is that the Norwegians finally posted my proof of Pfizer certificate and I've been sent a scan from home. Hopefully I can use this as proof of my first jab to the NHS once I get back to the UK in a few weeks and can then start planning my eventual return to Thailand once I obtain fully vaccinated status.
I deliberately left my Date of Birth visible in case anyone wants to send me a Birthday present next year!
Last edited by Mendip; 25-10-2021 at 09:55 AM.
I was rather hoping it would jog Nidhogg's memory so that he could send me this long-promised steak that's never turned up!
The 21st March is in fact quite an auspicious date... the Spring equinox and first day of Spring, and the first day of Aries the Ram!
Anyone else thinking of popping down to Bangkok to get a new passport?...
A spare one by using the big dippers name, address d.o.b, job title, medical history, hobbies, eating habits, sexual orientation, umderpant size and dog penis photos?
It's all on here.
...And a new pick up on the never never?
Last edited by Reg Dingle; 25-10-2021 at 03:04 PM.
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