We could be anywhere! This little pinpricked steel can that I am currently sailing on could be chugging away in some backwater lake off the St Lawrence Seaway, still be in Australia (whence the boats last chugging around occurred) or lolling happily around the Caspian Sea with bottles of Vodka being the daily dream!

By simply looking out of one of the numerous aluminium portholes, that have "toughened glass" ominously stamped upon them, a picture starts to form. There is no land hanging around; simply a vast stretch of sea that is on a typical day as smooth as glass and on every other day choppy and unsure! Over towards the bow a smaller boat can be seen that looks like a cross between an over crewed and undersized coaster and a Taiwanese fishing boat; faithfully keeping pace with us this anomaly turned Chase Boat is all that there is. (There are about five chase boats hanging around, all suitably positioned around us so that the forward path of the Pacific Sword can be cleared of any debris and others vessels and to prevent wayward ships crossing our stern or interfering with the Seismic gear strung out back!)

Should one then step outside of the accommodation the Caspian Sea can be immediately crossed off the list as the hot air hits and by looking from all four quarters it becomes instantly obvious that "land ahoy" is not going to be shouted from the crows nest any time soon! This vessel is in actual fact chugging 4 knot lines up and down a chosen block off the coast of Vung Tau in Vietnam and the Chase Boats are in actual fact alternatively employed Vietnamese fishing boats that cannot keep up with us when the weather gets bad!

I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of Seismic work, it bores the hell out of me so ….. This work is in effect the forerunner of oil exploration. A seismic boat is hired to run lines in a certain area and if the results come back favourable then an exploration oil rig will soon appear over the horizon to start drilling holes whilst the seismic vessel will leave for greener pastures. An area of the ocean is chosen, the seismic boats comes in, deploys its gear and starts running up and down sending bursts of noise (produced by high compressed air) down to the bottom of the sea and beyond. By recording the returned echoes a picture can then be built-up of what lies under the sea-bed, rock, oil or King Neptune's Palace! The work is in short monotonous, deadly boring and irritating as the firing guns not only do the necessary out back but also tend to keep one on edge all night long. A bit like 'slamming' during rough weather but every eight seconds!

As one seasoned surveyor pointed out "you get used to the banging, in fact you only notice it when it stops"! Wow, time to get back on land!

Forty people reside on this tiny little Japanese built boat that was once crewed by a mere ten at the most. This colander was once a supply boat but was later converted to survey work with a much needed extension to her accommodation, the removal of her cement tanks to make way for the compressors (to make the noise) and an enclosed back deck to keep the guns dry when they are not being used (and the surveyors comfortable in their hammocks)!

To describe life on-board is not possible with few words, compounded by the fact that each and every person will have different views and opinions on how the world turns for them on a daily basis! Imagine for a minute; an American gung ho' plumber, a potential suicide bomber, one very pregnant lady from Brazil, the prime minister of the Ukraine, a Japanese executive and a Tibetan Monk all stuck in a lift for six hours! I am not in anyway suggesting that this fine vessel has any pregnant ladies on-board or for that matter a Ukrainian Politician (the others I would not know about) but the atmosphere in the lift would be drastic! On-board we are slightly better off, most of us are here for a career, the money or to escape from life back home but it is a choice that we have made none-the-less! But the differences are vast, not only by nationality and ideology but background and lifestyle as well. The seafaring side is easy, the fourteen crew members on-board have been sailing the high seas for decades (or one)! We have a couple of Brits, many Filipinos and an Indonesian and we muddle along in usual style. There are though 24 others souls, the scientists, the compressor mechanics, the surveyors, the party chiefs, a medic, some translators and a dash or two of unknowns and they all have their own agendas and thoughts on which way the water flows down the plug hole! They themselves come from all walks of life and countries, some with engineering backgrounds, others with degrees in 'waffality' and a few who just fell from the sky and ended up on a seismic boat in the middle of the South China Sea!

I came up to the bridge the other day with sweat dripping from every pore, covered in a horrible grey sludge and smelling like I had just spent a week exploring the London sewerage system! There I was trying to explain clearly between taking large gulps of fresh air that I needed to shut down an engine as it was in danger of melting the A-frame only to find that I was being constantly interrupted by this computer boffin! This guy (dressed incongruously in a pair of Bermuda shorts, white socks and trainers with a pink pinstriped shirt) kept on telling me that the little light on his cabin table was not working and as I became more insistent in my demands to get the engine off-line, he became more enthusiastic in his demands to have his light bulb changed immediately! The other day I was informed that the seat on the rowing machine was too hard - this was during a safety meeting!

People muddle along though! The mess room gets a little crowded at lunch time but leave it too late and old mother Hubbard went to the cupboard and found that it was ……………..! Toilets get blocked, surveyors fall like autumn leaves when the weather gets a little bit choppy and of course there are too many Chiefs and not enough Indians! It is though quite apparent that the only way to survive in this type of circumstance is to pull the head in, buckle down and talk little and if there is somebody who seems to be on the same wavelength (whether sailor, surveyor, boffin or weirdo he be) just natter to pass the time but at the end withdraw back inside and batten down! It's a long trip to nowhere!

The idea of setting sail, taking bearings, looking forward to stepping ashore, a woman in every port and taking the great circle route are not part of seismic work! This boat just plods on, day in day out and when the end of the line is reached we turn around and start the next! And after 260 lines have been run, and after nine weeks have passed this area will have been surveyed, the vessel will go somewhere else, the drilling rigs will move in here and life will go on as before! I thankfully won't be here to see the end; it is time for me to leave this overcrowded sieve, it is time for me to go home on leave and to have at last a 'bang-less' night!