Finding a volcano

So, I did a podcast with Danny Baker and Peps on Friday, where I described how it came to be I discovered a volcano.

An actual volcano.

A sub-sea volcano.

I left the RAF in September 2005, and for the best part of nine months I wasted my time, writing, editing pictures, looking after Molly and watching football.

I had no form of income.

So, it will come as no surprise to hear that I was in some serious financial problems, and defaulted on my mortgage.

Mum bailed me out, and I got a job as a class 2 driver delivering hazardous chemicals. I hated it.

It did, however, pay my bills.

So, for six months I did my best driving for this company that was dreadful at paying its bills, so we had to go further afield for raw materials. Their pattern was to sack people just before their two year work anniversary happened, otherwise there would be holiday and sick pay to pay.

I had been there six months, they had sacked their best worker because he was coming to the two year point, and instead of driving, I was roped in to help mix chemicals and stuff like that.

It was shit.

Last day they got a contract to make something really grim, a fluid that is used in the oil drilling industry to show leaks. It was very nasty stuff and took ages to make. I wasn't actually asked to stay to finish the job, but it was expected.

So, I sneaked out at my usual finish time as the others had a smoke break, and I was seen by the boss's son as I walked to my car.

Next morning I was let go.

Not working out, or something.

How dare they sack me from this shitty fucking job, was my reaction.

It was a Thursday in November, I gave myself a weekend off and then try to find a job on Monday.

I found a job on the Tuesday.

It was a mix up, so I fell into it. In digital survey, they have these arrays of compressed gas pistons, called guns. They would creat a bubble when "fired", and the collapse of the bubble caused a noise which was used by the digital streamer to receive and record data.

They wanted a gun mechanic.

I was a gun mechanic in the RAF. An actual rifle and pistol mechanic, so I applied.

Te company liked ex-military, and I was told by the agency if I got an interview I would be offered a job. So, I got an interview, and Kevin, the manager, talked for two hours and agreed I would start on Monday morning next week, but that would be at the maritime acadamy in Warsash doing courses.

I had Molly, my cat, and so with me being away four to eight weeks at a time, my girlfriend in Dover, Jools, said she would look after Molly to see if I could do the job and last, so if I failed, I still had Molly and we could return to our old life. So, I took Molly down the weekend, then drove to Hampshire afterwards for my training course for a life on the ocean wave.

On Friday after completing the course, I called back to see Jools and Molly, then back home to join a ship on Monday morning.

I received no actual training for the job, but was told there would be training aboard.

There was no training aboard. But we did sail and ended up in Den Helder in the Netherlands where we stayed several days, waiting on weather (WoW).

I worked 12 hours shifts, observing, and helping out when they remembered I was there. So, after a month away I asked to leave when the ship docked in Christiansand in Norway. I was supplied with an e-ticket, and a taxi picked me from the ship to take me to the airport for the flight to Stanstead.

I would now have four weeks off, as it was Janauary, and a delayed Christmas with Jools and her family.

Soon I got a call from Kevin: for my next trip would I like to go to Indonesia?

Yes. Yes I would.

So, e tickets were provided to transport me from London to Jakarta and then onto Borneo to meet the ship at Balikpapan.

It was an easy gig, just pinger and magnetometer, for me and the other guy, we would spend 12 hours a day on alternate shift watching the data come in, fill n paperwork and save data files then back them up. The survery lines were up to 250 miles long, and although the ship could survey at 8 knots, rather than the usual four, a line could take two days to complete before turning round and doing it again.

12 hours a day, seven days a week for four weeks.

We were to dock in Sulawesi for crew change, and I was to get off, on the way we continued surveying, and found trenches up to 9 miles deep beflow the ship.

Recovering the gear at night meant having the deck lights on, and these would attract flying fish. Tere I was, ankle deep in bright blue flapping flying fish in the Banda Sea, and six months back I had been unemployed.

How the world turns.

At one point on the pinger data, we saw a void, some 15m across and where it reached the surface, slighlty raiwed like a roof. This was clearly a lava tube, in cross-section, and the magnetometer picked up odd data, that when the geophysists looked at it had them declaring we had found a new volcano, and the magnetometer had picked up magma dispacement.

So, there we are.

I went from bum to discovering volcanoes in less than two months.

The client, the oil company, owned the data so they owned the evidence of the new volcano. So, got to name it, if every they did.