Angola here we come...

Well how does one go about travelling to the lush pastures and golden beaches of Angola then ? The answer is, with some difficulty, although obviously not as difficult to get into as, lets say North Korea, but awkward enough without becoming too much of a Drama Queen.

First you need to apply for an STV.....pay attention at the back, its a V, not a D......that may come later, but its not relevant to this story. A Short Term Visa, when issued from your local friendly Embassy or Consul, allows you 72 hours from the time of issue, to get your Butt into the Country. 73 hours, and wahaay its jackpot time and you get a fine, the size of which very much depends on how well the Immigration Officers Date progressed the previous night. If you are really unlucky you could also face deportation on the next Plane to....well anywhere really, as long as its not Angola. Deportation can then begin to get really interesting if they fly you into another Country for which you have no Visa for (which is likely), as then the whole Immigration process is repeated in a rather Catch 22'esque manner with local added tweaks which invariably require money heading in the opposite direction to which you want it to go.

However, if only an STV was as easy to obtain as described above. Now you have to factor in the Individual Embassies and Consuls continually changing requirements for what they perceive they need from you; so as to give you in return, a valid 72 hour Visa. The first couple of times for all of us it was quite simple, too simple in fact. You supplied by Post a completed application form, a copy of your Yellow fever certificate, a letter of invitation (dont ask), and some Money, and then Bob's your Uncle an STV would appear in your passport about a week later, nicely timed to coincide with your pre booked flight to Luanda.

Then, the Angolan Embassy in Paris wanted fingerprints from our Colleagues across the Channel. Fair dues we Brits all smugly thought, they are French after all, so probably deserve the added inconvenience of turning up at the Embassy in their break, rather than using a postal application.

Anyway, next it was the Scandahooligans turn; they were all asked to attend the Embassy in person each time they wanted a visa on their way to Angola, a slight complication being that the only Angolan Embassy able to pass out these visas was in Copenhagen, which was all very useful for our predominantly Norwegian crew! However, this system is not quite as efficient (!) as you would expect, as so far they have been delayed for various amounts of time for the last 3 crew changes for a) The Person who stamps the Visa went on holiday with the Stamp (It must be a serious relationship?), b) They ran out of paper for the Visa printer (I kid you not), which gave a 3 day delay, and finally c) They decided to take a long unannounced weekends holiday (probably with the Stamp), so shut the Visa section down until the following Monday, by which time, the Guys should have been on the Boat.

We Brits are still smiling kind of smugly....for now, but rumours are rife that not to be outdone, the London Embassy is currently cooking up some devilish scheme of their own, so as to make our lives a little more awkward in the future...watch this space.

Now where was I ? ah, the Photo.....this was taken one very early morning last year in August, while the Vessel I was on, was seeking shelter from the inclement North Sea weather. We were in the Moray Firth, about 10 miles along the coast from Fraserburgh. The colours you see here, are what I saw, there has been no colour boosting of any description, it was just a magnificently menacing rolling sky, with a Seagull flying very conveniently through the picture, a question of being in the right place at the right time, but isn't that what a lot of Photography is about....timing ?

Till the next time...

Farewell Peru

Well it was finally time to take my leave of Peru, and what better way than the Airline that is the Pride of Holland - KLM.
If you are vertically challenged, or under 12 years of age, then this is the Airline for you, as they have tailored the seat size and knee room specifically for Persons under 4' tall and sylph like i.e. its non existent. It was to put it mildly, a pretty miserable flight. You first get a hint of what is to come, when you go onto their website a few days before your travel so as to "manage your flight". Here you will find an amazing amount of options for seating, all of which come at an extra cost, for example  a seat in a row of 2, that will be an extra 96 Euros Sir, thank you so very much, or maybe a seat at the emergency exit with some legroom, as opposed to no legroom ? certainly Sir, please stump up 125 Euros. If you don't fancy getting ripped off, then its just the standard seat for you, and you better show some gratitude for that as well.

Air France, who allegedly have KLM as a Partner, used exactly the same Aircraft ( a 777-300ER for those who are even slightly interested), on the way to Lima, which had a seating plan in Cattle class which reads 2+4+2, where the Budget Airline partner KLM has a seating plan 3+4+3, and has more rows....Hmmm, even with my rudimentary understanding of Maths that did not herald glad tidings for the journey to come !

Once onboard, and shoe horned into your Seat beside....now how can we delicately put this....a Fat, Sweaty, Smelly example of the Human Race, who promptly put the seat back to recline before we had even taken off, KLM then assaults you with their Food. I can honestly say, I have absolutely no idea what I was served with, in fact, I would have preferred sucking the little hand towelette that came with the meal, and in retrospect, maybe I should have, as a) it had more taste (lemon!), and b) certainly more nutritional and calorific content, than the crap that was hidden under the foil of the plastic tray, actually, come to think of it (and I really would rather not), whatever that offering was, was stuck more to the underside of the foil when I peeled that back, than in the tray itself....oh yummy !
Amsterdam Schipol Airport could not have arrived soon enough, even the obese Object beside me must have thought so, as immediately upon landing and the Aircraft turning off the Runway, he wanted to crush me, as he tried to get out of his seat and open the overhead locker as the Plane continued to head towards the Air Bridge. It took 2 cabin staff to wedge him back into his seat while trying to explain to him in words of no more than 2 syllables that the Plane still had 2 miles of taxi way to traverse before coming to a stop....Knob !

Taxi Coming

So the moral of the story, is don't travel by KLM unless there is no other option, they really are the Pits. I would probably prefer to stick pins in my eyes before experiencing the quality of their service again !

As you can see from the photos, Crew change day was welcomed with a wonderful sunrise, smooth seas and baking hot sun, as we headed into La Cruz on our small Crew Change Boat. Once at La Cruz, it was a 2 hr bus journey to the airport at Talara, heading down the Coastal plain (see the last picture), before flying to Lima, and then back to Europe. Unfortunately as the day wore on, more and more haze became visible, so many of the Photos taken from the bus journey will need some post processing to make them reasonable.

Speaking of Post Processing, I use Capture NX2 for any touch ups I may do to my images, although I am now seriously tempted by this new version of Lightroom (4), as Capture NX2 is getting a bit long in the tooth. I am still struggling with Adobe products though, as I do not find them particularly user friendly, so I would be interested in anyone's opinion of LR4 before I waste any time and effort looking seriously at the 30 day trial on offer that Adobe currently do.
Have a good Easter for those of you who celebrate it, and for those of you who don't (Myself included), then have a great Holiday.

Flying Dolphins

Its been a little busy this week, as last Wednesday we did a partial Crew Change, where approximately half the crew got off on our Crew Boat, while the remaining crew looked daggers at them as they headed for Shore and onward freedom.
So for me, there were a few new faces, and names for me to promptly forget 10 seconds after being told.....a growing sign of "old timers" disease inexorably advancing through what passes as grey matter between my ears these days.

Dolphins

What was unexpected though was the send off they had from a pack of Dolphins, who seemed to take the opportunity to play around us, as the two Boats were together doing the actual passenger transfer. Unfortunately I had only bought my 35mm lens with me for this brief trip out here, so the two Photos you see, have been zoomed up 50% or so from the Original.

Flying Dolphin

I say "unexpected" in the above sentence, as its pretty well known on the Vessels that I work on, that I am always the last Person on board to actually see anything swimming. Its a running joke on board, that whenever I am called to the Bridge to see something interesting, it's invariably disappeared by the time I arrive, breathless and red faced on the Bridge, having climbed about 5 flights of stairs. Only to be then faced with the Smiling (leering ?) face, and helpful comment from the Officer on Watch, that "I have just missed the Shark, Whale, Seal, Turtle, and they were really close to the Boat as well",
However, on Wednesday I beat the odds, and it turned out a lucky, and privileged day for me, and hopefully the luck will continue for the remainder of the trip.

Peruvian Sunrise

I thought I would add a quick Sunrise photograph to the post as well, as its not often out here, that I have the opportunity to have some sight of land as a back drop for my Maritime Sunrises and Sunsets. I hope Scott at  Just Used Pixels will approve, as he does take some absolute stonkers of these over on his Blog.

Just as a footnote, thank you to those of you that have visited the Triple P Imaging page and emailed me, and yes I know the most recent photos are not included for sale yet; but the bandwidth and various firewalls that are in place while I am Offshore, prevent me from downloading the images to the portfolio. They should all be there within the next 2 weeks, when I finally get off this Floating Palace.

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.

What to photograph from a Boat in the middle of Nowhere.

Well what can i say, its certainly been an interesting few days exploring the blog, playing with the design, trying to understand the new buttons and gizmo's etc and basically catching up a little.....it all makes you feel a little inadequate. I thought frikking technology was meant to make your life easier for Christs sake; feck knows what would happen if i turned on one of these new "dynamic" templates they (Blogger), offer by mistake. There must be a heck of a lot of seriously clever people out there to design this shit is all I can say, or there's a lot of people with a fair amount of time on their hands.....nice work if you can get it, or in my case understand it.

So what have I been doing these last 2 years you may (or most probably not) ask yourselves, firstly, no I have not been spending time at Her Majesty's Pleasure, but thanks for asking anyway....I have however continued to sail around in this wonderful world of Seismic that I have unfortunately found Myself unable to escape from. But hey, who would, when you can travel to such exotic locations as Gabon (Corrupt and ruled by a Dictator) , Cabinda (Completely corrupt and ruled by who the Feck knows), Guinea Conakry (Trainee corrupt as the Officials still smile as they rob you blind), and finally Norway (Tax Thieving Bastards). Norway gets the special mention, as they consider Foreigners who have the misfortune of sailing in their waters, should for that privilege pay their Countries NI contributions, which are set at something like 130% of your salary. Remember that when you vote for the buggers at next years Eurovision Contest, that's if you rather sadly watch it of course.

Anyway, photography....You are on a Boat, you don't see land, there's not a lot of Wildlife, especially if you are in the North Sea....so what the hell do you photograph apart from the Muppets you work with. Sunsets and Sunrises thats what. For me its a bit of a challenge, as you are on a moving boat ,so shutter speed has to be quite fast (that's as technical as I get), there's no point having a tripod either as you are going up and down; and to try and get a half way decent shot of some spectacular clouds and light you normally are shooting at either end of the day and therefore the ISO is up, which can create a graininess, which sometimes adds to the feel of the Photo.

The 1st Photo should be titled "Polution can be pretty" and is of an FPSO at Sunset about 100 miles offshore Aberdeen, on a fairly rare calm day. The 2nd is an early morning shot in the Moray Firth when we were sheltering from some bad weather....Yup the Bird was a fluke, and No it wasn't added in later as I am not clever enough for that shite; and the final picture was taken at the end of some fairly heavy weather we had had, which made for a pretty dramatic skyscape....just a pity the Tanker is not on the left of the picture, as that would have helped the composition a little.