I know it has been forever since my last post, chalk it up to me being lazy.  I am back at work again and this time I am working of the Belgian Coast installing a Wind farm.  I suppose to be more accurate we are installing the power cables that run between the wind turbine towers.

So far things are plodding along nicely.  We have a couple of Turbines connected to each other and now we just need to get the job finished. I have set up a gallery and over the next few weeks I will post some more pictures of what we are doing out here.

Watch this space.

While taking my stroll around Montrose, I came across a statue of a great big St. Bernard called Bamse.  According to his write up, when the war broke he went to sea with his master and was registered as a crew member of  Norwegian navy minesweeper called the Thorodd.  By all accounts this dog was hero, during action he would stand guard up in the foremost gun tower and would not leave until all the fighting was over.  There are also stories of Bamse breaking up bar brawls by standing with his hind legs and placing his feet on the brawlers shoulders.  Quickly ending the dispute.

There is another account of Bamse saving the life of Lt.Commander Olaf Nielsen.  Apparently the officer was walking along the docks in Dundee when a would be robber attacked him with a knife.  Bamse, who had been following some distance behind the officer, raced forward and standing on his hind legs used his momentum and great weight to push the would be robber away from the officer.  He continued to push and eventually steered the attacker off the edge of the jetty into the water below.  There are a great deal more stories to read and I am sure that I wouldn’t do them justice so I have placed a link at the bottom of this article which opens up the Bamse website for you all to read.

Just Nuisance never actually went to sea but would regularly follow the sailors into Cape Town.  For those of you who know the Cape Town/ Simonstown area this is a long way so the train had to be used.  Just Nuisance would jump on the train and ride it through to Cape Town.  This, however, was not popular with the ticket collectors and once discovered he would be turfed off at the next station.  Naturally, being a dog of some cunning Just Nuisance would simply wait for the next train to come along and then hop on that.  Eventually such a fuss was made by the rail operators that letters were written to the owner and said that the dog would be put down if the freeloading continued.  Enter the Navy.  They enlisted the dog in the Royal Navy and in those days all volunteer servicemen got free train travel.  Thus the dog was saved and the Navy got themselves a new poster boy.

Naturally there is a lot more to the story than I have just written here, Just Nuisance would also round up all the sailors from the different bars prior to curfew time and make sure that they all got back to their bunks safe and sound.  There are even tales of Just Nuisance “Helping” some drunken sailors back to the base in Simonstown that weren’t even stationed there.

For a full write up on Just Nuisance and Bamse see the following links:

Able Seaman Just Nuisance, R.N.

Bamse

]]> http://www.peteandlauren.com/2010/08/10/the-dogs-of-war/feed/ 1 -34.1893845 18.4254150 http://www.peteandlauren.com/2010/08/08/montrose-scotland/ http://www.peteandlauren.com/2010/08/08/montrose-scotland/#comments Sun, 08 Aug 2010 16:22:10 +0000 The Clan http://www.peteandlauren.com/?p=1423 Hi All

We have left the dramatic coastline of the Orkneys behind us now and are in a port called Montrose on the East Coast of Scotland.  Today I had a chance to take a walk around the town and managed to snap a few pictures along the way too.

One thing I loved about the place was that everywhere was spotless.   There is no litter lying around, gardens for the most part are immaculate albeit it a little sparse and public areas like parks and things are very well maintained.

The town itself is small.  I walked pretty much everywhere today and it was probably only a 10 to 15 kilometer stroll.

So, Scotland, I take back all those terrible terrible things I said about you.  Montrose has lifted my opinion of your land greatly.

For the pictures of my walk look in the gallery under Montrose or click HERE.

Pete

P.S.  It hasn’t even rained since I have been here so that is some more brownie points for you.

I am now back at work and we are up in the Orkney Islands.  The ship I am on is called the Sovereign and we are installing some enormous power cables.

There are two different areas in which we are working, the first is off an island called Eday and we were installing cables for a Tidal power generating system that utilise the strong tides in the area.  While on this site we notice rates of up to 6 knots at times.  So they certainly picked the right spot for it.  The second  site we worked on is a wave site off the west coast of the mainland in a place called Billia Croo, were wave power pushes against another contraption and also generates power.

For more info on how the projects work and what is being done check out the European Marine Energy Centre website.  There is loads of information here and a couple of really interesting videos showing the work being done and the area we are working in.

Our work started by running a cable to the shore.  We call this installing a shore-end.  For pictures of the process have a look at the gallery under work and then the Orkney Islands folder or click HERE.  Once the cable was floated safely ashore all the buoys were cut off and we moved the ship off laying the cable as we go.

More to follow on this topic.

Pete

As a PS to this story an article was run in the local paper featuring the Sovereign and our exploits.  Click here for the link.

I have been adding pictures to the Photo Gallery recently.  The Sunrise and Sunset folder is filling up quite rapidly, so I figured I would give that a break for a while.  Last night we laid our first repeater on the Midday -Midnight shift. 

I have included a few pics of this in the Work album.

Cheers

Pete