AFTER a few days at sea, time aboard the oil and gas exploration ship offshore the south coast becomes a blur. The days are filled with work, the nights with cards, some conversation, and perhaps a movie, then enough rest to recharge the body to get back to work again.

That’s more or less the routine on the Akademik Shatskiy, the Russian vessel from which Fugro’s team of scientists and engineers are conducting a seismic survey, collecting geo-physical data in the hunt for oil some 8 to 10 kilometres offshore Jamaica’s waters.

Fugro, a Dutch company said to be one of the world’s largest seismic survey companies, has been hired by Australians Finder Exploration PTY of Australia to survey the coast in search of fossil fuel.

Finder, which is financing the surveys under licence from Jamaica, is essentially taking a US$3 million bet that its assigned exploration blocks – 7, 10, 11 and 12 off the Pedro Banks- will show strong repositories of ‘black gold’ and natural gas.

Fugro plans to be at sea for six weeks, extending into March. But will have about six months to analyse the data collected.

The Sunday Observer is along for the ride for five days of the first week, arriving onboard Shatskiy Friday, February 17, to see close up how the process works.

Already, the crew expects that the initial plan may have to be readjusted.

“In this business, you have to expect the unexpected, because everyday something new may come up,” says Scott McPherson an independent consultant who represents Fugro on the vessel.

“It can be the weather, equipment – you never know when you have to change your plans like that,” he added, snapping his fingers for emphasis.

The Shatskiy has two ‘crews’: the crew navigating the ship and maintaining its equipment; and a seismic team of scientists, the client representatives and independent observers, none of them Jamaicans whose agencies are yet to name their representatives.

Altogether, there are 45 persons onboard, only two of them women – some collecting data, others monitoring the collectors, and some watching over the marine animals for their protection.

The ship’s crew is overwhelmingly Russian – the vessel is registered in Murmansk, one of Russia’s most northerly ports.

But the seismic crew is an international blend, comprising members from other parts of Europe, including the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, and the United States.

The ship is on 24-hour watch. The crew does 12-hour shifts, but the seismic team works only when a survey is underway, leaving its members with a good deal of down time.

“I’ve been on ships where you have internet access, where the quarters are palatial, where you even have satellite TV and a spa. So compared to others I suppose this ship is kind of dated, but all things considered it’s okay,” says Greg Kummery, a member of the seismic crew.

“I mean, the Shatskiy’s got email and a satellite phone, so you can keep in touch, and if you travel with your movies and DVDs you can keep yourself occupied when you’re not working.”

Work is technically defined as a 2-D seismic, gravity and magnetic survey, the results of which will reveal a two-dimensional view of the ocean sub-strata.

Basically, the survey ship sails along a straight line, towing a ‘streamer’ – an 8-kilometre long fibre optic cable containing hundreds of ultra-sensitive listening devices called hydrophones.

The cable, which is unwound from a massive reel in the ship’s hold, is floated 6 metres below the water surface, and kept on a straight line course by ‘birds’, a series of sensors that prevent it from swaying too much with the ocean currents.

“We sail along straight lines in a grid pattern to get a continuous view of what’s beneath, because we need a precise record of where the various anomalies are so that when the data is processed, if we come across anything that looks interesting we can know exactly where that spot is,” said McPherson.

The data acquisition process actually starts with measures to mitigate any effect the operations will have on marine life, particularly on marine mammals.

If the survey is being started during the day, either of the ship’s two independent Marine Mammal Observers (MMOs) – the only persons onboard other than the captain who can call a halt to operations – climb to the crow’s nest, the highest point on the ship, and peer for hours through binoculars to see if they can spot sea turtles, whales or dolphins.

“It’s low-tech, but effective, because whales and dolphins have to come to the water’s surface for air, and when they do, they stay there long enough for us to see them,” explains Nick Roterman, who is contracted by ECOS, an environmental consulting firm based in Florida.

If the survey begins at night, the MMOs lower a Passive Acoustic Monitoring device into the water half-hour before operations begin, and compare the sounds they record in the sea with files of recorded whale ‘songs’ to tell if there are any of the mammals in the area.

The MMOs say they’re not so worried about dolphins as they are whales, since dolphins, which communicate using high frequency pitches, don’t seem to be too troubled by the sound.

Dolphins actually seem to like it, and the Sunday Observer witnesses a small school frolicking about the ship’s bow while the survey is in progress.

Whales, on the other hand, use low-frequency sounds, and no one knows definitively if or how the sounds from the survey affect them.

To protect any whales that may be present, the ship uses a ‘soft ramp up’ process, graduating slowly from small to large blasts over a 40-minute period.

During that time, they say, any whales that find the sound unbearable will vacate the area to escape the noise.

When it’s time to begin acquiring the data, Fugro scientists send sound pulses into the seabed using an air source array – several ‘guns’ that release bolts of compressed air at exactly the same time.

It’s important, says McPherson, that the guns fire at exactly the same time, because even a milli-second out of sync can taint the data completely, nullifying the survey.

The guns look like air compressors and are strung by large metal chains to a floating buoy.

For this survey, the Shatskiy will use 20 guns, arranged in a four-six-six-four formation and hung in the water one metre above the streamer, about five metres below the water’s surface.

The guns are launched from the back of the ship by the deck hands, and the whole process of putting the equipment into the water, takes hours, but is fascinating to watch.

Within the ship’s hold, a steamy factory-like space where hard hats, overalls and safety boots are standard issue, the deck hands literally shove the heavy equipment into the water behind the ship, which is constantly moving forward at several knots.

Warning lights are flashing everywhere, and at times the hands have to harness themselves to the ship to avoid being tossed out into the ominous waters.

It’s a dangerous job that requires skill, sharp wits and sheer brute force, and at times, when the sea swells rise and the ship is tossed among the waves, the danger of the job becomes terrifyingly apparent.

That, however, doesn’t seem to be a problem for the Shatskiy’s crew.

“These guys, they don’t worry about the danger. They’ve got all the safety equipment… life vests, safety boots with the steel toes, and whenever they have to work close to the edge they put on the harness,” explains the Shatskiy’s party chief, D’mitry Suglobov.

It helps, too, that they’re brave, to the point of insanity.

“They don’t care at all … they’re Russian,” offered Suglobov by way of explanation.

The ‘guns’ direct the blasts of compressed air straight downwards, and although up to 2,000 pounds per square inch are released every 20 or so seconds, the same sound that causes major sound pulses through the rocks can barely be heard above the waterline.

In fact, from above, the only indication of activity below water is a swath of air bubbles rising behind the ship’s stern.

The sound pulses, which are powerful enough to penetrate up to 10 km below the sea floor, are reflected by the various rock layers beneath the seabed.

The rate at which the sound pulses are reflected indicates the type of rock present – harder rocks reflect the sound sharply, while soft material such as sand or mud tends to absorb most of the energy, and by studying the reflections, scientists can determine where there is likely to be deposits of fuels.

The reflections are recorded by the 636 hydrophones in the ‘streamer’ and transmitted to the ship’s instrument room, where a gaggle of geologists oversee dozens of brightly-lit computer screens.

There, charted on huge reams of paper, the sound reflections are printed, each ‘boom’ recorded in a graph that to the untrained eye looks only like waves and squiggly lines.

Major processing of data does not happen onboard, but rather takes place back at the onshore seismic centre, in this case one of the Fugro processing centres in either Texas or Australia.

But back to down time.

On sunny afternoons, sunbathers straggle onto the ship’s helipad, sporting hairy, bright white bellies and Speedo trunks.

Some walk or jog circles around the helicopter landing pad for exercise, eschewing the ship’s outdated gym equipment in favour of tropical air.

At night, its cards, board games, or DVDs.

Meals are served promptly at 7:30 am, 11:30 am and 5:30 pm, and all routines are strictly enforced.

On a ship at sea for weeks, explained one member of the seismic crew, there’s no room for ego or slackers, and everyone has to be responsible for making sure his work gets done, and done right.

That means being on time, and following all the rules for work and safety, including mandatory participation in drills.

On board the Shatskiy, there is a total ban on drugs and alcohol, so until the ship pulls into port, O’Douls non-alcoholic beer and fruit juice is the closest anyone comes to anything with fermentation.

“We take safety seriously, and these rules are necessary to make sure that operations run smoothly,” said McPherson.

“Some people say it’s better to have drills at random times, but here, we figure if we have the drill at the same time each week, when an alarm does go off at any other time everyone will know its the real deal.”

campbello@jamaicaobserver.com