His n los

So once we did get to the Bass Strait, it was time for deploying the gear :(. Yes, which is why I have stayed away from posting, and in fact from most other things associated with the internet, including checking mail, which landed me in some trouble when I called up my mum recently :|. But now that it seems (not sure, might have to land up again tomorrow, but hopefully) backdeck work is kinda over for a bit, here are some of the high and low lights from the past few days. (Let's keep the actual gruelling work and bitching about it out of this, shall we?)

So, highs:

Saw seals!!!! Yes!! It was awesome!! Saw them almost every morning, playing around the stern of the ship, apparently attracted by the brightly coloured streamers :).

This area has fairly dense oilfield activity, with rigs all around. And of course tons of Sikorsky's keep buzzing around picking up/dropping off people to and from these. For the first few days, every single sighting would have a whole bunch going hysterical, waving and hollering at them. The gist of their efforts being, please come and take us away from here :P.

Then there was the really cool stuff!! One morning, this really ominous looking fleet of ships lined themselves up around the horizon. And I mean, all around! I knew they looked funny! No cargo vessels ply these waters, and these had that military gray colour and the funny looking radars on top that mean only one thing: Navy!! Now why was the Australian Navy surrounding us with at least 4-5 guided weapons destroyers and a some more frigate class warships?!! (The details I found from the bridge later.) No one knew! In fact even the bridge had not been given any response. Except of course the curt assurance that they'll stay off our cables and try and avoid cutting them in half or running over them and stuff.

And then there was the rain :). Its not often that I've seen it raining at sea. (Having, thankfully, never been too close to any sort of cyclonic activity :D.) And I've definitely never seen it rain this hard! The whole sheets of water being blown almost horizontal by the wild wind kind of rain I'm always raving about :).

And lows:

The clouds managed to botch all but one of the sunrises. Which is usually the high point of my day on the back-deck :-<. And the nights were awfully cold! Well, more chilly and windy than cold actually. And after having laughed my head off at some of those who sought out some hideous looking fluorescent yellow jackets (that had been meant for East Russia close to winter, not Australia in spring :|) I couldn't even go get myself one of those. I don't think anyone noticed me shivering furtively a few times :P.

And of course, I was too busy to take any pictures, not of the seals, not of the one spectacular sunrise, not of the brilliant sunlight-bursting-out-through-the-clouds mid mornings.
But I did make it out on the workboat today!! Yes, no more generalised 'small boat'. The two work-boats are now the only small boats on board :(. I miss the CMV. With it's twin impellers, and high speeds, and almost water-skiing experiences. And most of all of course, I regret the fact that I never got to drive it, even though I did make it to coxswain trainee :-<. Just one of those things. . .

Currently: dead tired
Listening to: Vertical Horizon - Give you back