Back home...

Because potato got only eyes and no hands,
i will cut and paste the offline entries i wrote while at sea...

will throw in fotos and videos for better graphical explanation...

here we go:

17/01/07:
a fish trap got caught on our side-scan sonar fish(SSS in future entries i think).
4 big fishes inside.
and a waste of fresh-from-the-sea fish - they were fried.

and i discovered dat my left hand is now freckled. prob due to the
unforgiving blistering thai sun.
the weird thing is only my left hand is freckled. the right hand is ok.
i hope the freckles go away after some time.
dun like the sight of dots on my skin.

19/01/07:
been reading 'fast food nation' after watching the movie juz b4 leaving.
movie was quite confusing as there wasn't much of a story.
sypnosis in the papers or mags described the movie as one abt a manager
investigating a complaint abt shit in their burgers.

reading the book has been more insightful.
the movie had tried to put the different elements of the book together into
a movie which i felt didn't quite deliver the impact which the book had.

the book talks abt the history of the fast food industry in america and how
different events shaped the industry and how the industry has shaped the way
things are in today's america.

it also talks abt the so called dirty tricks employed by the large companies
responsible for bringing the burger to the consumer, us.
this does not only include the fast food chains, it also includes the meat
processing plants and how resilient the entire industry has been to bills
put up by the govts of the
times.

the book has really made me think twice abt ordering a burger...
at the moment at least... haha.

think wad the movie wanted to do was to generate some form of publicity for
the book... coz the movie isn't really all dat great, esp having to pay like
$10 on a monday to watch it at vivocity's gv europa cinema...
which by the way has sucky seats which gave me a bad headache coz u cant
slouch or sit relaxed in the seats... they force u to sit upright to fit the
seat nicely.

way to go, gv. after opening so many cinemas, they still cant get their seats
right. think the normal cinemas have better seats. *bleh*

the weather isn't being v kind to us at the moment.
boat is rocking quite a bit... was a challenge trying to stay balanced while
showering. but i managed in the end... haha...

feeling a little somewhat seasick... but not to the extent of throwing up and
all... thank god.

work was a little frustrating over the last 2 days coz our systems keep
failing us even tho we tested everything when we were setting them up in the
containers.

but everything is more or less fixed, so i hope our systems will work well...
and mother nature will show us her kind and merciful side.

20/01/07:
ok... mother nature is not feeling rather kind.
weather today is worse than yesterday. we're riding like 4m waves.
and the boat is rolling so much so that the side of the boat is almost level
w the sea surface. walking and showering have become great acts of balancing.
i'm sure jarrod will have died over and over again if he was here.

here's to feeling seasick w/o getting wet:


23/01/07:
tho i've only been on the vessel for a week, it feels as if i've onboard for
ages... kinda feel like going home... but it wun b the case for the next 3
more weeks... oh well... guess i've got to live w it...
unless i decide to go for a career change.

26/01/07:
janitor fish found clinging onto sss fish.
quite big abt as big as sss. also little baby ones.

so i decided to buy 4d on 2 numbers. one is the date, the other is the serial
number of the equipment which "caught" the fish.

28/01/07:
weather is quite bad today... waves are abt as tall as the side of the boat,
seemingly threatening to splash onto the deck. the boat was rolling so bad
that stuff in our container were falling over.

starting strapping everything down so nothing falls overboard or drops on
someone...

headed to koh samui to wait till the weather drops...
not very friendly weather out here at the moment...
it's a slow 13 hr journey to koh samui from wherever we are in the gulf of
thailand... could have been half dat time if not for the fact dat we cannot
get one of our equipment out of the water due to unfriendly waters.

even as i type this, i am sliding back and forth in my chair in the bridge.

hope things will improve by the time i have to get off...

29/01/07:
turns out we are not really going onshore to koh samui.
instead we are anchored off the coast of koh pangan, still within the
vicinity of koh samui... koh pangan is where the famous monthly "full moon
parties" are held. not sure if there's any party going on tonite... we're
abt 2km away from shore... cant heard or see anything...

i've got abt slightly over a week left b4 i head for home.
hope to b back onboard for the next job. so dat'll mean dat the m.o. gota
extend my mc from rt... i hope dat happens... coz if i have to go rt, i cant
go out to work... which means no money. which is not a good thing.

03/02/07:
it's another 2 more days before i leave the boat to grab a helicopter to
mainland thailand. in 2 minds about leaving...
on one hand i wana b home for cny, but on the other hand, i wana b out here
for a couple more weeks so dat i can earn a little bit more...
14 days x usd70 = usd980...dat's quite a decent bit... if u ask me...
but i've got no say in my going or staying...
so guess i've juz gota accept it.
gona have to see the camp m.o. when i get back... gona go for a run first to
see if the foot's all recovered... hope i've not...

07/02/07:
came home from camp.
m.o. gave me 2 months excuse from running until 7 april.
yay... but bloody thing is i might b going bangladesh next wed...
hope it's only for a week or something...

will only get more info when i go down the office tom...
no cny for me... *sobz*