Hey Guys, I am off the boat! Here are some pictures!

As you might have noticed, I am back in the land of more orthodox internets :) I have a ton of stuff to share, but I will try to break it into bite-sized chunks.

First, let's go back to the time when I was still on the boat.

As I mentioned, the boat was super duper nice this time. Here is the conference room:

The meeting is a 10, not 9:30.

Note that the boat is big enough to have a conference room!! Also, check out the wood paneling and the flat screen television, those are not standard features. Also not a standard feature is Kwanchai, our safety dude. He was nice and easy to work with and was also a definite perk.

 Here is the bridge. There were two areas for driving the boat, one looked over the bow in case the boat was going somewhere, and other looked over the back deck so that people driving the crane/ROV/the boat when it was time to use the dynamic positioning system could see what was going on if we were going that way. You can see the fancy chairs in which one sits to drive the boat and also the sitting area and the snacks. We only had access to company e-mail and folders on one computer on the bridge, and that very important computer is making a guest appearance here.

Shhhh, I'm taking a picture, don't tell or the realism will be ruined!

Other guests in this photo are Nick (far right) who was driving the crane, Gunter, who was driving the boat (but who didn't have anything to at this particular time because we were just maintaining our position, and the Captain. The captain name was Nelson, so everyone called him Admiral Nelson. Now that I think of it, I'm not actually sure if it was his first name or his last name or was related to his name at all...

Anywhoozle, at 640cm Nick happened to be THE tallest person I have ever met. A lot of the crew were Norwegian and very tall. About once a day I forgot how to work the cappuccino maker. It didn't have pictorial or English instructions, just Norwegian instructions and there was some pressing of one button whilst holding another button and then adding a third button while holding the first button (or maybe the second? and did you press first and then hold???). It was complicated. So Nick would come over to help make sure I didn't break it and then I would feel like a dwarf. Also the bridge crew bet on horse racing a lot, so I should be more helpful at those random horse racing questions at trivia.

How about some palate cleansing seascapes:

Evening!

Afternoon!

There were a lot of nationalities represented on the boat. The ROV (robot) dudes were largely Scottish and Welsh, the contracting engineers were largely Australian, the people who ran the boat were mostly Norwegian, the deck crew were largely Thai, and I think I was the only American. Also in the mix were a couple of people from China, a Frenchman, and a smattering of New Zealanders. With all of these cultures, there were a lot of different food preferences to be accomodated, something which really showed itself in the number of sauces and spices which had to be kept on the table at all times. Check this out:

Look at all the spices and sauces!

Not. Kidding. There were sooo many!

It was a pretty cool working environment to be around so many people from so many different backgrounds. At one point there were even THREE women!! This was out of about 100 people, so it was pretty clear that everybody was going to have to stop working and start knitting and watching Passions any second. We joked about how the next thing anyone knew we would have re-named the vessel some thing like the "Rose Blossom" rather than the "Hercules."

 That sounds like a joke, but my friend Stephanie and I once named our college robot "Buttercup" (so that our t-shirts could be a pun on "Build Me Up, Buttercup," one has to have priorities in life...) so pretty much anything was possible.

In general I was pretty lucky to have such a great place to get things done from!