Irony:
1. The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
2.An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.

Our new man in the room here tries hard but my chest is beginning to feel constricted from all the polite "heh-heh's" that I give him. Why don't yanks have a concept or grasp of irony. Now I am not saying that we as Europeans have a better grasp of it, but in the multicultural melting pot that is the Western Neptune, we do use it better and it makes sense. Myself and Stef exchange quips and comments all the time, but then Mr. T's contribution is just like uh, ok, eh, yeah. Either get it right or don't.

The main problem of course is not just how it is used but when and how often. I have asked questions and nearly everytime he answers it's with "irony". Now I know he's trying, he's trying to be funny, I'm wanting a proper seismic/geophysical answer. I pretend to take him seriously and ask him when this last was seen by him and of course there is nothing worse than having to say "No, I'm just joking/being ironic. I don't actually know or have never seen that." Not that my time is precious but continuous arsing is a bit much. Am I too cynical?

Maybe he is just a dry (and in his own words) white-trash Texan....or maybe that's Texan style. Look at Bush. Do people laugh at his jokes or do they just laugh at Bush trying to be funny?

Which brings me on to another point. Myself and Stef have decided that tomorrow the 24th December 2005 is a "Lent Day" which shall also be known as "No Bitching Day". We're not sure how we will handle this. It could/will be as hard as giving up cigarrettes. Certainly if you heard the amount that's been said of the other crew over the past few days you would realise this. I have put up a sign to remind me (Oh God he's done it again......not funny) about this. Pray for us. We are the master bitchers and need all the help we can get.

Welcome back Mike! Back on board again and boy was it a short break.

We eventually got off after the whole crew change debacle last time on the Wednesday, not the planned Saturday. I still managed to get my guitars though. Oh boy were they lovely. Jaime was well pleased with his. Home then to Spain for just under 5 weeks. And that was supposed to be our long 6 weeker! And now here for Christmas!! Lets not go there. I feel a rant coming on and I have work to do.

So I did some painting at home, got the van fixed, drank some fine wine, got the usual case of gippy-tummy before coming back and came back on a shite Northwest Airlines. Boy are American carriers the worst airlines in the world. They are. They have no class. They must never have flown Air France or KLM.

Then we get back and I find that we are a day early for a startup. SURPRISE!! But at least we had a talk and an exam and I won an iPod Shuffle for my efforts. Hooray! 90 bucks worth. I think the company has gone mad. A year ago they would have said you have to do the exam and thats that. This was optional and with a prize for passing. Are they on drugs? Speaking of, there was word of a D&A test bandied about by the onshore guy that seniors would be doing one as soon as we got on. Haven't heard anything since and I haven't had a drink in days I swear.

So here we are now and we're finding all sorts of problems with the flows and the other crews "good to go" stuff. Good to go to the crapper.....

I have a cold which I got as soon as I got on and am having shivers and chills and savage sweats at night. Much more of that and I'll have to hang out my mattress to dry I tell you. Now it's turning to a nasty cough and sweats. I hate being sick onboard and the medic is going as sparingly on the Ibuprofen as though it were morphine!

So there now. Oh and we're back in the Gulf. Tomorrow I'll write a bit about New Orleans and how it was.

Well there's a welcome back to seismic......delayed crew change. After management said that going alongside in the case of bad weather was an option, this was an off the cuff statement. It is not an option. We wait for good weather to allow choppers out. Tomorrow we try again and have 4 choppers planned. Whether thats four physical, air beating birds or 4 runs by the same we don't know. If this doesn't happen, we can have one on Monday, none on Tuesday, mutiny on Wednesday.....

Apart from that, we are deploying streamer, it's cold, windy, there's a big ass swell coming from the North and to cap it all off it's snowing!! The mood is as jolly on board as a cable tangle on Christmas day. Seemingly this crew always gets stiffed onboard by weather.

And as for my plans to buy 2 guitars, well they'll hold them till Monday and then we'll have to see. If this goes on any longer, I'll get one of the boys ashore money for a deposit.

So you can see know why I came back to my job. Arsing around in the cold, management arsing around with crew change, and my boss ordering his bird pictures whilst I freeze outside and he hasn't even looked at my training modules to sign them off! Long live the seismic dream..........

'Twas like a Siege of Ennis (an Irish dance) at dinner today. First of all I entered the mess and all over people were getting the floor all greased up for the dance with soup, water and dinners. Then as we all seated ourselves, a big roller comes through and all the folks on one side of the table grab their plates and cutlery and.....slide on backwards.....slide on forwards and place your plate on the table whilst your partner on the other side slides backwards carrying what he can grab. This happened a few times. Of course there was music to accompany this bizarre version of the popular ceili dance. As the song goes "All Gods people have a place inthe choir, some sing low, some sing higher, some sing out loud like a telephone wyer, and some just clap there hands, or bang pots and pans, or anything at all......" Okay, so just the pots and pans and anything at all bit was going, and going everywhere too. Such crashing can hardly be called music, and certainly not what the cookies were saying was musical. Needless to say the floor was even more greased up and more dancing went on.

My chili was delicious...........

Y'all ready?

I WANNA KNOOOOWWW WHAT LUVISS.....
I WANT YOU TO SHO-O-W ME.....
I WANNA FEEL WHAT LOVE IS.....
(I wanna feel it, I wanna feel it, YEAAAAHHH)
I KNOW YOU CAN SHOO-O-W ME
(wanna know wanna know)

Right, daggers ready?

One of the great things about working in the offshore environment is the multicultural nature of the job. We have Canadian, American, Brazilian/French, Mexican, Irish, Scottish, English, German, Australian, Philipino, Iraqi, Geordie, Norwegian, Danish, Polish, Argentinian

So far this trip, the best conversation was with the Iraqi. We had a great interchange of ideas.

The worst thing about all this though is that my colleague likes listening to Foreigner and Eddie Money. I don't want to be a 'jukebox hero' or see the 'soul doctor' or listen to their 'hot blooded'ness. It is a problem. And yet I'm asked when the Beasties are on, "Is this rap?"

When Lennon wanted to unite the world through music, he hadn't figured on this job...

We were having one of those marvellous conversations we have out here. They get deep, metaphysical and about various aspects of life, fatherhood (for those who are in it) and other things. So we're on about Steve's kid who wins a cross-country race by turning up late, unprepared and with a banana for lunch.

Steve has always tried to teach them life is not easy and yet this kid is breezing through things thginking, "Shit this is easy!" and Steve is doing his nut.

Anyway, the kid is like always saying but it worked the way I did it and Steve tells him otherwise. You'll fall on yer arse someday and stuff like that.

He's also teaching him how to behave, but not to take example from him. He's not to look up to him as an idol, rolemodel or anything else. You'd have to know a bit about Steve to realise this is good advice. So we're discussing this, and the whole "Do as I say, not as I do" parental philosophy, and Steve mentions that he says this on a regular basis as well as "And DON'T upset yer muther!!" to which he follows up (slightly muttering) with:

"It also upsets the fathers chances of getting laid! Do you know how difficult it is to maintain a stiffy when all she wants to do is talk about the kids?"

Well the ping pong tournie didn't quite work out the way I wanted. As in we got knocked out. It was me and the Party Chief agin the woild ma! And the gawdamn Filipinos, who are just sport demons beat us, and then we beat the Canuck AB team, and then we got wooped by the whale watcher and the bloody gun chief. Them mechanics are always good at these things. Misspent childhoods......

Billy Bathgate was watched last night. Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman and Bruce Willis (for a bit). Not sure what the story was supposed to be. We all came to the conclusion it was just another chance for NK to get her kit off and give 2 full frontals for all of 2 fleeting seconds in total. Not even a good reason to watch it, even from a sailors point of view....

Well the mood is tense here today. However I cannot say anymore. All top secret what what. Let's just say that personally, I'm just a processor, not a make or break decision maker. Mine not to reason why, mine but to do or die. No point jumping around.

Now to the serious stuff. The Church. Why is it in my dreams twice in the last 3 nights.

Dream 1:
Myself and Rose got an invite to Gavin Kelly's wedding. Now Gavin is married 5 years at least and with children (I think). Anyway, the boats locker was in the crypt, so I changed my overalls and met Rose in the church. Massive 'twas with all these arches at the side leading to various chapels the size of say, a small church or large chapel. Anyway, the priest got to the "...or forever hold your peace" business and up jumps his sister calling her a trollop and slut and all sorts. Gavin turns around and starts giving out then the parents join in, and only then do I realise that we are the only friends of Gavins there, the only ones who don't know the girl, and don't have a clue whats going on. Now Gavin is wearing a light blue Del-Boy shirt and loadsa chains and chest hair. Anyway, to cut a long story short he storms off and myself and Rose, totally confused go back to my locker room to discuss it and I go back to work (in my overalls).

Dream 2:
My Uncle (who is a priest) is saying mass. Fair enough. In our local church. All normal so far. It's Sunday. Of course. It's Formula One day. Oookaaayyy....there are tellies all over the church....whyyyy.....BUT THEIR NOT SHOWING THE FORMULA ONE!! Now. For anyone who has ever wet the bed (I didn't by the way) they probably know that "mmm thats relaxing but there's something wrong here" feeling. Well thats what it was like with the TVs. There were TVs there to watch it, which was good, but they were in the church, which was bad. Conscience problem. Worse than that was the fact that they had the other channel on which was a Paramount movie. Why Paramount? Cos I had noticed that evening the clouds behind the mountain move for the first time and wondered when they put that bit in, but I digress. Now I also have the conscience problem of wanting to change the channel. All of a sudden it's communion time. We go up, but as people receive it they go out a side door and gather outside until everyone is there and then come in the back door again. I only realise this when I'm at my seat again and the only person in the place and trying not to pay attention to the TV! Aaagh. Then mass is over and Uncle Ed asks me to help him close a window at the back of the church. A really small one. And the stone was all crumbling and dusty, then there were workmen and then it gets blurry....ladders....sheets.....lightbulb.

What's it all about? In between I was in Harrods with one of the guys here, picking up every fish they had to check it out, and couldn't find a tissue to wipe my hands. Then Robert, my brother, showed up and said we'd go to a pub. Cool, but I told him none of his artsy fartsy pre-theatre drinks types. And guess what? It was. I'm scared.........

I've come up with a safety reason as to why alcohol should be allowed (in small quantities at least) on board the ship. To stop me dreaming. It's like a 14 screen Mega-Cinema every night. And the dreams are so mad I'm sure I'm not sleeping properly. I wake up knackered. I've been doing all sorts of things. Most of which I can't remember beyond 10 secs after I get up. But I feel like I have been driving, fighting, swimming, etc all night. Just a glass or two of wine would close the theatre I think.........

Today I put on a broad (to say the least) spectrum of music to suit all 3 peoples tastes. Stuff we hadn't listened to before (as opposed to reruns of 'Eddie Money') and just a while ago the Beasties came on. Marcus asked me "Is that rap?" DEPRIVED CHILDHOOD I said. He said who was deprived? Or did he mean depraved. Aussies don't have much taste in music. OK so AC bloody DC came from there. BIG deal.

Had a monster vel session today. Got it all nice and sweet. Should be good. Apart from that Marcus got a bit anal about tape labels. I told him, OK you wanna go into the Access programming and change it all so that you can put a P after a 1 then fine, but buggered if I will. WHY? 'Cos I can't thats why. You ever disected the guts of an Access database? Worse than a mad cow riddled with worms. Makes me go all squirmy inside.

Now. Back to music. We're listening to some guy who sounds like Elvis singing covers of Nirvana, Joy Division etc. Ahhhh. And I get asked "Is this rap?" Question is, is this music?

Bit slack on the updates these past two days eh? OK briefly....

- Picking velocities
- Went out on back deck and froze my fingers changing sections. Quite amazing in that it was the first time that obbies asked for processing help!! What a change from twat-brained Masham (not mentioning names)
-Today.....picking vels.

Right, back to vels and shift change.

Imagine Daddy has boundless amounts of energy and he sits you on the swing at 12 o'clock at night and gives you gentle pushes until 0300.

Then you sleep on the swing until 1100 the next day whilst he pushes a bit harder and varying the force his pushes.

You spend the next day on this swing where he varies the strength of the pushes with a really strong 3 every now and again, the third being the biggest. This goes on all day.

Now do this sitting down, working, walking, climbing stairs, eating, sleeping, going to the toilet (1 &2), having a shower brushing your teeth, watching Ireland fall out of the running for Germany 2006, watching a movie........need I go on?

My stomach muscles are sore, my brain is sore, my eyes are sore. One minute your heavy, then your light. You're either stuck to the stairs or lifted off it.

It's all well and good being cavalier about "Oh I've seen worse" which is true in this case.

What you do remember is the view from the bridge of the green, foam flecked sea, the bow digging in, the spray lashing the windows, the wind howling around the bridge wings, wathcing the big greenies 500m's away wondering will it be that big when it gets to us?

What you forget is the constant clenching of muscles, the occasional grabs for the table, keeping an eye on your tea, walking uphill and walking downhill, walking uphill and walking downhill, walking sideways along the hill. Whens bedtime?

Well things aren't too bad here. I slept like a baby last night until 9:52 when there was a mighty boom that was noted throughout the boat. You get one of those every now and again. It's just a breaker hitting the boat at an innopportune moment. I went to the toilet and back to sleep.

I was up the bridge today and it's not that bad. I've seen far worse. It's 7-10 metres at best (worst?). Some nice big green waves though. So ye need not worry. The tummy is still good enough to have breakfast and I just had a shrimp sandwich. It is getting tiresome though so I may take a tablet. All this hanging on is tiring.

Apart from that, I'm slightly frustrated with my co-worker who just babbles on at a rate of knots in stops and starts and then contradicts himself if he ever made sense in the first place.

I'm also frustrated that Ireland are drawing with the Swiss whilst the froggies are romping home 3-0 against Cyprus. Will they ever get a goal....pleeeeeaaase!

Well here it comes. We are now 2 hours away and heading straight on into it. We're expecting 10-12m swells but you can feel it picking up already. Luckily we're off the prospect area where swells are now 18m!!

The Chief Mate has just told us that the barometer has dropped 11 millibars in the last 4 hours and wind is at 35kn. For those of you who are not well up on meteorological terms this is off the scale for the baro. 4 mbar in 4 hours says 'Hurricane coming!' 11 screams 'HANG ON!!'

So now for you, I'm off to make sure my cabin is secure, the shelves are ready and that only light stuff is going to fly. That reminds me. Lets get the plotter off the table. I'll let you know how it goes as it happens although I doubt that we'll have VSAT connectivity, so the next update may well be after the "Perfect?" storm.

Weather warning!! It's coming from the North and gonna blow hard. We're shooting just this one more line and running away. Well, hardly running. With all this gear out the back and not retrieving it we'll make 4.5kn. A brisk walk away you could say. Still though, we gotta go. The skippers talkin' 60-70kn winds and 12m seas. 12m!! Thats uh....lemme sea......39.3696 ft!! 4 floors/storeys or not far off. We just spent about an hour after dinner (Happy Thanksgiving Canada) taping down monitors that are already bolted and bungy corded, stowing loose stuff and general tidy up. Should hit us tomorrow arvy, so lunch tomorrow could be the last proper meal a lot of us eat for a while. At least 24 hours anyway. It'll be toast and rice even if the cookies do manage get something together.

Apart from that all's well. Had a fince Thanksgiving Canada meal today. Roast beef for breakfast (prime rib roast mmmmmm.....) and pork and plaice for dinner with pumpkin pie. Mmmmmmmmm....

Have I mentioned it's cold out? Stefan has spent about as much time as I have outside....9 minutes in the past week. What are rickets like, must look it up again.....

Bit of an odd one today. We had a phone call phone the office saying that our ships were being targeted by terrorists and that the 'Tune in particular was to be targeted. Of course we all mustered and went to our Security stations. First we checked our cabins in pairs. Nobody was hiding in my wardrobe, nor under my quilt. There was no bomb in my shampoo bottle nor down my toilet. No suspicious devices to be found in Steve's cabin either, despite rigourously searching his laundry basket which would seem an obvious place for something to go boom.

Then myself and Franck searched the instrument room and under the floor tiles. I got to go through all the chief nav and obbies' drawers. Found the blank DVDs and CDs. Franck said we shouldn't really be going through these drawers! We're looking for bombs Franck. Just cos they have "classified material" in them doesn't mean there might not be a bomb there. Jeez. However no stowaways, IRA separatists, UDA in-fighters, white supremacists, little Osamas or black packages with wires and clocks going tick-tick-tick.

Over the radio it was announced that they had cordoned off the portside liferaft. Suspicious device found. Hmmmm. Then they found another in the steering gear compartment (good place for a bomb I thought) and the nasty terrorist, complete with 2 plaits and a bandana around her face to disguise her. Very dangerous characters these Canadian bridge cadets. Don't know what their problem is. Maybe she's a Quebecois separatist. Then we all went to the bridge for the debrief. Brilliant. Only one wee problem.

There was ANOTHER bomb in the starboard lifeboat that wasn't discovered but it was classed as a good drill. Mighty. What does this tell me? You don't have to find all the bombs as long as you have a second lifeboat.

Well I went outside again. About a minute this time. And I had my first (albeit brief) introduction with this Newfoundland 'tik faag'. And boy is it thick, and of course needless to say cold.

Just been watching the live soccer updates. Gawdamn Frenchies couldn't fry the Swiss cheesies with a 1 all draw, the ironfisted Israelis beat the 'ferocious' Faroese, we, the pointless Paddies beat the crappy Cypriots and it still looks like we won't get to go to Germany. I mean Gawdamn..................the frustration of being here in the North Atlantic and not being able to do anything. Poor Brian, Kerr will he end up now?

AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!

Bring on the next manager. Martin O'Neill for Chief!!

Vitamin D.....created by the action of sunlight on the skin. See here if you care:
http://www.healthmart.com/supplements/vitamin-d-deficiency.html

Seemingly Tiny Tim had rickets because of a lack of sunlight and Vit-D. Smoggy industrial Lundun eh? Not saying I have rickets or any other disorders but hey, seismic life in the North Atlantic doesn't lend itself to tanning or even getting outside much. I think I've spent 4 minutes outside today and it was freezing.

The sea looks just like Angola was....big lollopping swells lazily rolling along minding their own business looking for a surfer on some distant coast. Difference is the temperature. It's way down there and then there's the windchill. The poor gunners on the back deck are wrapped to the last and run for their warm hut after meals.

I tied my chair to the desk in my cabin today. It went flying last night about 5:50 across the room on one of these. It must be one of the first surveys I've been on where we are taking the sea beam on. Now she doesn't roll much but every now and again there is a bit of a heave. I had my legs on another chair in the telly room last night and both chairs and myself went for a wee slide. I thought it was the table and went to grab my tea, but then remembered the table is bolted. I just waited for the return slide to get back to my tea. Those moments are kinda fun ;-)

Brrrrrr. It's cold outside and breezy too. And there's a big side swell. I was just eating my roast pork, lyonnaise potatoes and mixed veg (all very delicious and second servings involved aswell) and whilst looking out the wundy (called a porthole) you could see sea, then skyyyyyyyy, then seaaaaaaaa, then skyyyyyyyy ad infinitum. Well not really cos it's supposed to go down tomorrow. Anyway, I haven't felt a roll like this (continuously) since we came across the Atlantic in 2002. Of course it sometimes gets like this on line change but thats only an hour or so at a time.

We're starting to move here in our department (workwise not chairwise) and I is learning the tools and tricks of the new beasty. Has its good bits and bad. Like all things I guess.

My book is drawing to a close now. All the heroes are gone. St. Patrick reckons they're in hell paying for their heathen sins, but Oisin reckons twould be better to be with the lads in hell than up here on his own. To be honest, the way those boys operated not even the devil himself would mess with them. In fact, if St. Patrick is right, then hell may not be such a bad place since they'd have cleaned out all the bad boys!

So here I am, sitting here at my screen again, running jobs and waiting for them to finish. Can't tell if the weather is going up or down. Needless to say though the ship is.

Been reading my book of Irish myths and legends by whats her face Yeats' bird. Getting sad again now. The Fianna just got their arses whipped and Goll died for no reason. Finn just squished Bran and Oisin has legged it with a blonde across the sea. Next thing you know the dark days of Catholic Ireland will come.

(My job is STILL sorting)

Sent a subtle slight snottogram asking why I haven't been paid for September and do I get my raise. They'll get on it tomorrow. Wahey, can't wait.

What else. SpagBog, Buffalo wings and salmon for dinner. I had the first two and a dozen ginger snaps for dessert. Was worried yesterday I was bunged up again but no probs anymore. Stress? Don't know the meaning of it. My attitude has changed out here. For now. I hope.

Spoke with Rose today. Good to know there is still a delay and echo on the phones. Modern technology eh?

Right, off to do some online training and shite. Yes sir, no sir, two bags full of shite sir. Thats the way we do things....the Scumburger way. HOO-Haa!

Well, the weather went down last night but my Lord its cold out there. Some guys went out in the workboat. I felt for them.

I had curry for breakfast and creole shrimp for dinner. Food is good here.

I do have a problem here now though. There is a gap in the floor tiles under my legs and a breeze blowing up. So instead of write about it I just (literally just) put tape on the cracks and hey presto, less breeze. Who's a clever boy then!

Been a while since I started this malarkey. But here I am again on the Neptune off the coast of Canada, near (300 km offshore) St. Johns, Newfyland.

Bit of a cultrure shock being offshore again after my 16 month absence. They speak a funny geophysical language here and talk about shares and stocks and pay and stuff.

Lousy weather too. We had a drill and it was FREEEEZING!

Food was good though. Annyway, back to reading manuals on the new beast of a system!