Travel

The companies that provide my work are quite used to receiving emails from me that go along the lines of, “might you have any projects coming up that are, perhaps, somewhere interesting?” I’m not saying that spending 6 weeks in the middle of the North Sea doesn’t tick that box, but there’s interesting and there’s interesting. Memorable projects have involved travelling to Gabon, Tanzania, French Guiana, Ecuador and the Far East of Russia. Often, I’ll see little more than the airport, a hotel and a port. Occasionally, though, things go horribly (by which I mean, brilliantly) wrong, and I get to spend some time onshore. I’m looking at you, Eyjafjallajökull.

I travel of my own accord, too. Part of the appeal of working offshore is the time off between projects. Every now and again, I’ll do a big trip. More often, I trundle around the UK in my (mostly) trusty van, Vlad. And cruise ship work helps soothe my wanderlust, although it’s not my usual style. This way, I’ve been part of the influx of visitors to the small towns of southeast Alaska, the ports of Hawaii and Baja, the islands of the South Pacific, and the snowy shores of Antarctica and the Falklands. In time, I will share these stories.

Some of these posts will be carefully researched articles that are hopefully helpful. Others will be accounts of last-minute, uninformed adventures driven entirely by circumstance. I’ll try to make clear which are which.