A guy I work with, Chris, was telling us yesterday how he explained to his six year old son why he was away and won't be home for Christmas. He made is sound so very exciting, so i thought I would use that to write this; of course it may not work and this be rubbish. Go figure.
Its our job to survey the sea bed, we have many ways of doing this depending on whether we want to look at the seabed or under it. Our work is split into two parts digital and analogue. Lets begin with the simple type; analogue. We lower a metal fish down to about 10 metres above the sebead, and broadcast a series of pings and tranducers along the side of the fish pick up the returns and a magic box makes a pretty scrolling picture of the seabed. Our other analogue system is the 'boomer'; and this as it sounds makes a loud noise, and once again a series of transducers pick up the retuens, and different layers below the seafloor make different sounds and another black box makes pictures of what is below the seafloor. It's our job t make sure these two systems work and that the data is good enough to use. We collect the data, label it and it is then interpreted by surveyors and geologists. In doing our survey, we do repeated lines in either direction making an ever larger picture of the survey site. We may be looking for oil, surveying for a new pipleline or just checking if the seabed is clear to park a rig there (honest).
The digital side is much more intersting and fun. It operates on the same principle, creae a sound and listen for the echoes. We have a 1 Km long streamer, which is a thick plastic tube; inside it has hydrophones, which listen to sound in water, suspended in kerosene. This is a bugger to get out, and best be described as wresting with a giant snake. THis is not fun, and can take two hours to finish deploying. Along the length of the streamer we attatch 'birds'; which are plastic streamlined things with wings which keep the streamer at the right height below the waves so to eliminate the sound of waves or swell. We hope that this works as it should otherwise we have to get it in, which is just have to get it back in; queue more wresting with the angry snake and then find and fix the fault. To make the noise we have what is called the guns; which is a series of compressed air, well, guns that together create a bubble of air which when it collpses makes a bang and that is the noise source. The gungs are on a large metal frmae which has to be winched over he side of the swaying ship, then dropped into the water and allowed to drift behind. All the time not getting the various cables tangled and wrestling with a thicker, more angry snake which has all the air inside it. In the lab we have video displays that we use to monitor the dta, and have to enter the right information; if we get it wrong the man with the blonde hair gets a red face and says many bad words.
If the weather gets really bad we head into port and make our way to the nearest bar where the landlord is forced to pour beer or spirits down our throats. I fact we, or I, get quickly bored with this, and is a sure fire way of spending all the money I am supposed to be earning. Which is why I got the laptop so to stop me spending money. It will have paid for itself in six months.
One of the perks is seeing the nearby rigs venting gas at night. Sometimes the plumes are so high the flame goes into a low cloud, lighting it up and being most spectacular. Other than that is is a passing ferry which will cause our mobile phones toburst into life for 10 minutes; normally at about three in the morning, which is good.
And that is what I do, or am doing on this trip. Once we have finished this site, we move onto another and begin again.
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