Norway Part 1 of .....

I'm knackered to be honest. I am sitting here having just come off the running machine (Don't get too impressed, it was more of a stumble on the damned thing), drinking a glass of water, whilst eyeing up a bottle of Vino, and thinking why the heck do I feel so bad ! I am sure I saw some kind of news item the other day saying that Scientists have invented some kind of pill that allows you to get fit while you sit in front of the Telly or something.....bring it on I say, and make it snappy before I injure Myself.

Look Right

Anyway, to get to the Title of this little piece of drivel..... Some of you who do actually follow this rubbish, understand that I work in the whacky world of Seismic exploration. In April last year I went up to visit the "zit" of Norway, a little  town called Malloy, somewhere North of Bergen.  A Town that consists of about 200 wooden houses of different colours, 2 (nasty) eating establishments, one Garage, One jokingly named Best Comfort Hotel, One Bar and finally a Bowling Alley.....I kid you not ! Its obviously the 10 pin Bowling centre for Norway. The reason for me travelling to this mecca of debauched living, was to take over my New Boat, that was just finishing up on an extensive upgrade of works that were being done to it.

Look Ahead

To get to Malloy you have to take a Ferry, which takes about 4 to 5 hours, and calls in on a ton of small Quays all over the various Fjords it travels through. It would be a really scenic ride, except for the fact that in April it rains non stop in that part of the World, so any thought of Photo opportunities happening, just go up in smoke, or in this case, in Sea Fog. So a quick travel tip for all you Folk thinking of going to Norway, or Bergen in particular...Don't, unless you like the rain and wind in April, and eye watering prices for basic, and necessary items such as beer and food. On the subject of Food, its fairly obvious that the National dish of Norway is a toss up between a Pizza slice, or a Hot Dog, both of which can be found in the charmingly named 7/11 outlets, which can be found everywhere, and at a price where a 2nd Mortgage would have to be considered. As for the beer....If you want to pay $15 for 0.2 litres of piss coloured fizzy water, then go ahead and knock Yourself out. Basically, Norway is good for those of you who wish to go on a diet, and lose some weight......Top tip !

Look Left

I transgress (of course), as the reason for telling you all this in the first place was to write a couple of articles about the Norway visit last year, and describe the taking out of the Boat from the Shipyard, with some photos thrown in for good measure, as and when it stopped damn raining. The other reason I am writing about something I did last year, is that since I have been Home, I have not yet ventured out to take any worthwhile photos, as the weather here right now varies from Cold, Cold and Wet, Cold, Wet and Windy to Cold, Wet, Windy with some Sleet thrown in for good measure..... An Independent Scotland ? Go right ahead and have it I say, and keep the damn weather as well.

So thats my feeble excuse for writing about Norway this time, and any time in the next week or two.

Right; back to the Boat and the Photos.....Like a lot of small Shipyards in Norway, they are actually located in some quite photogenic areas, and with great light ..... occasionally, so this set of pictures gives you a feel for the location, and the sight that greeted us most Mornings as we took our first Coffee of the day, and waited for the Yard Workers to start banging around, and do what Yard workers do all over the World....not a lot.

The Beast

Because of the steepness of the Fjord sides you have huge light contrasts as the sun rises, so the exposure across the whole picture is quite difficult to achieve, and for me, is best tweaked a little in Post processing to help bring out the picture a little more, which is certainly the case in the first three photos. Although the skies in the first 3 photos are clear, most of the time it was like the Final photo, where there were very flat light conditions, so I then went to Black and White photography, which will be my subject when I get round to part 2 of this Norwegian Odyssey......thats when I can be bothered to of course.

No Mores....

Its the last weekend of this trip, so in offshore parlance its generally referred to as "No Mores" ie no more Fridays left, no more Saturdays left and so on and so forth until you get off, which in my case happens to be next Thursday 19th January.....reminder to Myself,  "Must tell the Wife I am on my way Home".
The words "get off", sound pretty damn innocuous to most people, unless of course you are an acne laden Teenager, who thinks your lucks in, after you've made the target of your affection drink 10 Vodka Red Bulls, whils't clubbing to the deafening sound of Chase and Status going through that vacuum held between your ears by your skull.

Dawn over Biscay

However, to us normal sane folks offshore, instead of a bus ride, train ride or car journey to and from work, we utillise a unique form of transport called a Helicopter, to "get off".
Now to actually get to the stage where you are thought of by your Company, worthy, deserving and damn well grown up enough to be able to use one of these wretched things, you have to do a Helicopter Underwater Escape Training course somewhere nice and cold like Aberdeen or St Johns in Newfoundland, preferably between the months of November and March.

Entrance to Las Palmas Port

 The HUET is a fairly basic drowning type of exercise, where you are strapped on a plastic chair (no luxuries for the condemned), in a metal tube with a window beside you half the size of a postage stamp, through which you are jokingly meant to extricate Yourselves, while the aforementioned Tube is chucked into the deep end of a water filled Tank, after first cracking through the layer of ice on its surface.
To complicate things further, and increase the pucker value of the exercise, they sometimes give you a bag to laughably blow into, as they turn you upside down, underwater, and strapped down in a seat inside this metal Tube. This Bag, allegedly give's you more time to get yourself out of your teeny window, as you (allegedly)can suck frantically on the diminishing atoms of Oxygen that you are frantically breathing in and out of this bag.
Now believe, and trust me on this, the last damn thing you want to do when you go underwater is to breath out, I am sorry, but there are a few rules in life which must be obeyed, and keeping your mouth shut under water, and not breathing out is pretty high up on my list of these.
They say by using this Rebreather apparatus bag, it can give you 5 minutes more time, or hope underwater....They are a fecking bunch of lying twats; as I emptied my bag in 10 seconds flat !

Early morning Ferry leaving Las Palmas

Anyway...to the Photos. The first is of a pretty dramatically coloured dawn over an absolutely flat Bay of Biscay, on our transit to Las Palmas, I didn't do anything to this picture except straighten it. The colours were amazing.
The 2nd two photos were taken in the early morning light, on the day of our entry into Las Palmas Port. There was a delicate pink hue to the sky which i tried to capture, not particularly successfully unfortunately, as all you get in the pictures is just a hint of the pinkness in the clouds. Again I had to raise the ISO a few notches as it really was an early dawn.