Sunday 11 March 2012

Barnacles ahoy

Well its been another, lets see how best to phrase this...."interesting" week in Seismic, or as the French would say eloquently, "merde". The main issue being not the Fishing Boats, but the fact that we have been, what is fondly refered to, as barnacled.
Balanus balanoides, or Barnacle to you and me, is a very successful little Beastie, often found in surf zones on Rocks and sea cliffs, and on the bottom of Boats, where it attaches with something akin to superglue, and then starts filter feeding, growing and reproducing madly (Not a bad life, come to think of it). The upshot of this, is that it creates a lot of drag and weight on whatever its attached to, which if its a rock is neither here nor there, but if its on our damn streamers....well that's a different story all together.

Insane Noggie
 If you let the little Buggers keep growing, then you will find that the tension on the streamer increases pretty dramatically, the upshot of which, is that you could find that you start the day towing 10 streamers and finish with, lets say 3 dangling behind you, and at 1.5 million dollars a streamer, that's an awful lot of money to have dropping off the end of your Boat, and heading deep six.
Seismic companies throughout the years have invested in many ideas on how to tackle these little rogues and prevent them from pulling off our streamers. Some of the ideas they have come up with, are more amusing than effective ie covering our streamer in a stocking type of material (kinky, and completely ineffective), slapping an anti barnacle gel on the streamer (fairly kinky, but it proved to be a barnacle attractant), and painting the streamers red !! I mean which bright spark came up with that last idea ? Barnacles have colour vision, and are warned off by the all things red ? That's got to be clutching at a fairly large straw to think that that's going to work.

Trainee !
 The previous company I worked with, came up with a power washing contraption which you put in a small boat, the idea being that you would lift the streamer with its offending barnacles to the surface, drape the streamer into a box with these power washing heads on the Boat, and then drive along the streamer happily washing away the barnacles to your hearts content. Great idea in theory, and absolutely bloody useless in practise. Firstly, even with headphones on you would be practically deafened by the sound of the power washer on its full wash cycle, and secondly bits of barnacle would be blasted everywhere, to such a point that for 2 or 3 days following a sortie, and with every shower you took you would look down at your feet and still see barnacle parts floating around the shower tray, and wonder to Yourself where the hell they had come from !

Fishing Boat at Mancora
 Anyway, to cut a long and dreary story short, we had to bring in all our streamer and basically scrape them clean by hand....not a quick job by any means, and after a few days an extremely smelly job as they all began to rot in the heat, no matter how often you washed down the decks and the Reels upon which our streamers are retrieved and deployed.
Right.... on to the Photos, and i should say I have an apology to make for the first 2. These were taken on a previous boat, with a Previous Company, and are included purely as a reference as to what these damn creatures look like in reality. The quality is not great, as naturally i was in a hurry to take the photo and then vamoose as fast as possible ! I also have to apologise for the quality of the Models that were used, but i don't have the big bucks of Mario Testino, and therefore Beggars can't be choosers. I can however assure you that the Model in the first picture really isn't insane, he's just Norwegian. I would however question the sanity of the Model in the 2nd picture. The T on his hard hat is to signify he is actually a Trainee, and not a Tit as you were probably all thinking.
The 3rd more normal photo is of one of the Fishing boats that are currently sharing the sea with us these days.

Till the next time....

19 comments:

  1. I was just talking about barnacles after seeing them on the humpback whales in Hawaii and wondering how they got there on their noses etc. Guess they have to learn how to live with them as nobody is planning 'whale WASHing' just 'whale WATCHing', HA! HA!

    Interesting, smelly story here P. Take care out there in the depths. Thanks for stopping by and commenting as always. We're off again next week - and will be on one of the larger ships sailing the seas - more later!!!

    Best, Mary

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    1. I have enjoyed reading about your travels in Hawaii Mary, so I'm looking forward to a few Boat stories now, starting from next week !!

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  2. Wonderful! Your blog is truly entertaining...love the photos and stories. I will travel vicariously through your posts!

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    1. Thank you for the kind words Helene, the macro photography on your blog is astonishing, so consider me a follower.

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  3. Very interesting. I guess a guy could get pretty rich if he actually found a workable and successful solution to the problem.

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    1. Hi Scott, yup you are right about that. Mind you we could always sell our "product" to the Spanish, as they apparently eat them.....no further comment needed me thinks !

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  4. I come from a small fishing village in Florida, Apalachicola. Barnacles everywhere there too, no solution that I know of! Interesting blog... connected with you via Al from Bayfield Bunch!

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    1. I so loved the name Apalachicola, that i had to google it, and what a great place it looks, no sign of barnacles mind you ! Thanks for visiting and following.

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  5. I have seen barnacles before, but nor quite like this. I think I'll stay with fish ...

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    1. Wise choice Rune. Love your photography by the way.

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  6. Nice pictures, good story! It's a joy to read it!

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  7. Thanks for following Message in a Milk Bottle. In a bit of a rush but a quick glance through 'Life Ordinary' suggests it's a very interesting blog with some extraordinary photos. Will return for a longer browse.

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  8. Thank you Lucy, I'm glad you enjoy the pics. I love the composition of your photos in your Blog. Rain on a tent is a cracker.

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  9. those shellfish are edible right, as i'm guessing he's putting one in his mouth. but they do, they're the same ones you get at the supermarket?

    i could just imagine the fishy smell you are describing.

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    1. Edible....hmmmm, I think not, although the Spanish eat them apparently. Good luck to them eh !

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  10. Well now I know something of life and work at sea. Those buggers look they would take forever to remove.

    Love that last image. I've been living amongst the cornfields too long!

    Thanks for your visit and comment on my photoblog.

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    1. Thanks for commenting Linda, and yes they do take forever to remove.

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  11. Takes me back to working on a survey boat in the North Sea. Except I never saw any dolphins!

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