I hope everyone has had a great Christmas and the hangovers aren’t to severe, I’m posting today because I’m off to work tomorrow and don’t know when I’ll be back, I hope you all have a great new year eve. I’ll post again in the new year.
Archive for December 2013
Merry Christmas 13 comments
Medina 22 comments
This will probably be my last post until after Christmas as I have loads to do, I must even get out and do some xmas shopping at some point, I was trying to think of what to post about when I looked next to me and saw a rug I purchased in Tangier a while back, A mate and I had hired a local guide and were walking around the old Medina in Tangier, he took us to a carpet shop, I’m pretty sure it was owned by his uncle. As you can see by the next few shots there was plenty to choose from.
And More.
Still More.
Even on the roof.
And you may well asks what we were doing on the roof, as part of the sales pitch the owner took us up there to show us the view.
I think it was worth it.
And it worked because I can see the rug from where I’m sitting now.
Have a great Christmas.
More Bruges 11 comments
Yeah I know, but my hands are tied at the moment, I was going to do ‘Bars in Bruges’ but didn’t think the server would be able to cope with that, and they were just the ones I went into!
So just a mixture today, here is one tourist attraction most people like, although he can be a bit noisy at times.
The Belfry tower is no less than 83 metres high, that is 366 steps! Your athletic efforts will be rewarded with a breath-taking view of Bruges and its surrounding countryside.
Although the safety grills on the windows are not designed with large lens cameras in mind.
Bruges Doors 14 comments
Still in Bruges, but this time with doors, I don’t know what it is about doors but they tend to capture my eye a lot, saying that, the doors are normally the entrance to a pub. However the next few doors are not leading into any bars, and the first two I would definitely not like to exit when leaving a bar.
Have a great weekend.
Bruges Bridges 6 comments
And there are a lot of them, which of course makes this such a wonderful city to walk around, you are never short of a great view and without the bridges you would get wet feet.
I’m not going to go on about Bruges, you can check it out here it is a beautiful city, easy to get to from London via Eurostar and only take a couple of hours, plenty of Lace for the ladies and Beer for the boys.
This is the oldest bridge in Bruges according to our tour guide, however if you do a search you will get others saying it’s a different bridge.
This is another old bridge in Bruges.
Ice Tow 16 comments
I’ve been asked how we go about towing icebergs, or to post about ‘Ice Age Continental Drift’ the Movie, but as I haven’t got permission to post about the movie, you are stuck with more of my iceberg stories.
So first of all, we either get asked by the rig to checkout a likely suspect they have seen on their radar, or we see one ourselves that is posing a risk to the safety of the rig. Once the ice candidate is confirmed we go in for a closer look.
Here the captain is checking out the berg to make sure it is possible to tow.
Once confirmed its go for tow the guys on deck get to work.
This is the end of the rope, we use a dyneema rope which is very strong and designed to float (right of shot) with 3 large buoys attached.
The dyneema rope with the buoys attached is dropped into the water, we then pay out this rope as we sail past the berg.
Once far enough past the berg we come back on ourselves. Here we are rounding the berg, you can see the buoys in the distance.
Now around the berg we make our way to the buoys, when close enough the guys on deck grapple them and pull them on deck.
With both ends on deck and secure we now slowly move ahead and tighten the rope around the berg, to fast and the rope may slip right off.
Let the tow begin, we will tow this miles away from the rig to a safe place and release it, sometimes bits of the berg will brake off the bottom as we tow and the berg will become top heavy and roll over, on more then one occasion after coming back from lunch I thought we had replaced on berg with another.
There are some icebergs that cannot be towed.
Ones with sharp pointy sides where the rope would just slide off.
And ones shaped like dogs!
Scotland from the Air 13 comments
A few more shots of the Scottish coast, it’s the first sight of land for most north sea workers after weeks at sea and although I can only speak for myself it’s always great to see, whether its like these shots or completely covered in snow it’s always a welcome sight.
My thoughts go out to the people of Glasgow after the police helicopter crash on Friday which sadly killed 9.
