"No worries there"... The rise, and (hopefully) eventual fall of that dreadful word, 'Newfie'

Recently, there have been all these polls, asking Newfoundlanders whether or not they are offended by the term "Newfie". It absolutely stuns me to learn that about two-thirds of us think it's just dandy. Well, that's really just two-thirds of people who agree to participate in polls on NTV News, or take the time to answer pollsters on the telephone. I'm hoping that's a tiny minority of us.

Me? It makes my fingers twitch just having to type the word, let alone what it does to me on those rare occasions when I am actually forced to say it.

This is a topic that I've wanted to write about since the inception of this blog. It is the one topic, so close to my heart, to which I know that I can never do justice in expressing why that word is so wrong and so insulting and so hurtful to me, and should be thought of as wrong in the minds of my fellow Newfoundlanders.

When I was very young, I remember going to Dominion on Elizabeth Avenue to get groceries with Mom. While I was there, I asked for and got a small blue book of Newfie jokes. I thought this was GREAT!! Keep in mind - this was the 60s. Newfoundland was a small (population-wise), insular, oil-free island, hardly ever mentioned on the national news broadcasts, and when we were, they invariably pronounced it wrong. New-FOUND-lund. Still gives me the creeps. But, yes, I thought my little book of Newfie jokes was great! "Wow, Mom, someone wrote a book about us!!" I read the jokes, and I laughed at them. I was eight. Give me a break.

But then I grew up. My eight-year-old pride, which was happy with a book of bad, insulting jokes, grew out of that and grew into a patriotic pride, that saw the damage that such words can do. Other people changed and saw that damage, too. Sadly, the polls are saying that about two-thirds of us did not change, and they still just don't get it.

Newfoundland grew up too, at least it did politically and socio-economically. As the years went by, Newfoundland gained prominence not only on the national stage, but internationally as well.

There are so many things to be proud of, as Newfoundlanders:

 - We are the only country in the world that paid its war debt from WWI.

 - We lost over 700 men in the Battle of Beaumont Hamel, of whom it was said, "It was a magnificent display of trained and disciplined valour, and its assault only failed of success because dead men can advance no further." Major-General Sir Beauvoir De Lisle

 - Our men, particularly from the area of Harbour Main, are world-renowned as some of the best 'high steel' workers in the world, contributing to the construction of the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge, among others. Their fearless ability to work at great heights was, and is, legendary.

 - Ralph Klein, late premier of Alberta, rather than opine about building a fence to keep the Newfoundlanders out, should have thanked each and every one for building his oil sands empire from, literally, the ground up.

 - For 500 years, we had a thriving fishery. It wasn't until it was used as a pawn by the Federal Government that our fishing heritage was decimated to the edge of extinction, as we sat on the shore, watching European freezer trawlers hauling it all away.

 - We have a unique culture that other provinces, particularly Quebec, do not have.

 - We have endured tragedies - the 1914 SS Newfoundland Sealing Disaster, the USS Truxton and USS Pollux disaster, the Ocean Ranger disaster, the sinking of countless ships along our shores - with a resilience of character you just won't find anywhere else.

 - Speaking of tragedies, on September 11th, 2001, Newfoundlanders offered comfort, support, food, clothes, a roof and a bed to thousands and thousands of people from all over the globe, who suddenly found themselves here in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

 - We have the unique distinction of having remarkable, beautiful and elegant dogs named after both parts of our province; the storied Newfoundland dog, and the affectionate Labrador in all its varied hues.

 - We're probably the only place on earth that has a carnivorous plant as its honored flower.

 

 - And, have you actually gone outside and looked around? This is the most beautiful land God created, in all its harsh ruggedness. Stunning, really.

 - The Arts. We had an artistic community here in Newfoundland long before the LSPU Hall was used as anything other than a union hall. Mary and Christopher Pratt, world caliber artists. EJ Pratt, who gave us poetry...

Erosion

 

It took the sea a thousand years,

A thousand years to trace

The granite features of this cliff,

In crag and scarp and base.

 

It took the sea an hour one night,

An hour of storm to place

The sculpture of those granite seams

Upon a woman's face.

...Writers and musicians. Actors and producers. A cultural potpourri of which we can be very proud.

And the list could go on. And on and on and on.

Sadly, despite everything we have to be intensely proud of, that word followed us, with its images of square rolling pins, and drunk fishermen, all those images that are so unfair and unrepresentative and insulting and offensive and belittling. WHY don't people get that?

Here's another word that underscores my point. One word. "Snook". Enough said.

Nope, I've changed my mind. Enough has NOT been said. It appalls me that our provincial newcaster will give this person a platform to spout his personal politics while standing there like an idiot, personifying every horrible "Newfie" stereotype out there. It absolutely appalls me. I equate it to a broadcaster in an African-American community having someone come on in blackface, ridiculing that community. Is there a difference? If so, I don't see it.

No one behaves like Snook here. No one speaks like that. But NTV, "Canada's Superstation", wants all its worldwide satellite viewers to believe otherwise, or else why would they give him that exposure?

I understand that Pete Soucy, who portrays "Snook", is very vocal about his intense dislike of the word "Newfie", too, and has discussed it on television. My initial reaction when I first heard this was, "What a bloody hypocrite!!!!" If that's the case, Pete, you might want to rethink the whole "Snook" thing. The character may not use the word, but he personifies it to a tee. Just awful, embarrassing and depressing.

We were dragged into this country in 1949. Your average Canadian didn't want us. Your average St. John's-man didn't want any part of it, either, but the Baby Bonus won the day. Our fate, and that of this island, was sealed.

Precision

According to the elemental proposition
the island
should not have been there;
but it withstood the assault
from all compass points
of unpunctilious waves
that struck out blindly
taking only
the weakest parts of the rocks:

And the men
were not broken by the sea.

But other
horn-rimmed, vertically moving
half-men
knowing nothing of the taste of tears
drew neat, symmetrical
paradigms
and did
on some leisurely afternoons
what the sea could not do
in a thousand years.

Enos Watts, Long Pond, Nfld., (1939 -  )

Yes, nature couldn't do it, but Joey could.

The Canadians didn't know what to make of us. For God's sake, they weren't even interested enough to learn how to pronounce our name correctly. All they knew was that there weren't very many of us, we had a kind of Irish-ish accent, and fishing was our thing. Not high finance. Not maple syrup producers. Not wheat farmers. Fishermen. That was us, as far as they knew. So, the stereotyping began.

Have you ever seen a caricature of a Newfoundlander in a suit and tie? In a pair of work coveralls? In a nurse's uniform? No, you have not. The sou'wester and oilskins were our 'uniform'. And stupid things coming out of our mouths with a quaint dialect was our schtick. Enter "Snook".

They got around the issue of our unpronouncable (to them!) name by shortening it up to something that their forked tongues could handle. Newfie. But never once was it said in a tone of respect or politeness. It was always an insult, trivializing our proud name, the rich city mouse putting the poor country mouse in its place.

All of which is what makes me want to scream out at the top of my lungs - WHY DO NEWFOUNDLANDERS PERPETUATE THIS WORD?? WHY DO SO MANY THINK THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH IT?? WHY CAN'T NEWFOUNDLANDERS SEE THIS WORD FOR THE INSULT IT IS???

I will concede this much. Not every time it is used is it used as an insult. That IS the way it was conceived, but times have changed, if only a very little bit. I have met many people from both Canada and the USA who have used the term - ignorantly - as a term of endearment. This is because some idiot Newfoundlander in their past told them it was, and told them "That's fine!! Nuttin' wrong wit it, b'y!! We loves dat!!!"

Yeah, well, that idiot Newfoundlander was NOT speaking for ME, because there is EVERYTHING wrong with it. As I even state in the "About Me" section on the home page of this blog, I hate "...the other 'N' word...", because that is exactly the comparison I use. I would love to live long enough to see the day that Newfoundlanders would clue in, and decide, as African Americans did, that the 'N' word is off limits. The blacks in the States still have some internal education to do on that score, but they've made headway in the larger picture. We, on the other hand, are still encouraging the use of our own 'N' word, so the chances of me living to see that day are essentially nil.

Rest assured, I have taken it on as a personal mission to educate my fellow global citizens that "Newfie" is no term of endearment, and I'll continue to enlighten them, one-by-one-by-one if I have to, until the day I die.

I said that not every time it is used, is it used as an insult. However, one thing I know, from personal experience, is that it MOST DEFINITELY IS used as an insult more often than not. Don't let my little concession there lead you to believe that I'm softening on the issue. Will. Never. Happen.

Let me tell you just one of my tales of when it was no "term of endearment"...

I lived in Fort McMurray, Alberta for eight years, back in the late 80's / early 90's. I knew nothing about the town before I went there, but soon learned that it was populated by a large faction of Newfoundlanders, there to work in the oil sands. Admirable. Where there's work, you'll find us. No surprise there.

There were a lot of non-Newfoundlanders there too, of course, from all over Canada and the rest of the world, as well.

One woman I met there, I'll call her Karen (because that was her name), she and I became friends. She was from Alberta. She had a husband and two daughters, the youngest being around the age of eight at the time of this tale.

Karen and I were going out on the town one night, a girls night out. I went to her house to pick her up, and sat in the living room with her husband while she finished getting ready. Her daughter came in and sat by her Dad. Ken (because that was his name) asked me where I was from. I answered, "Newfoundland." Without pausing for breath, the little girl started in a singsong voice, "Goofy Newfie, goofy Newfie, goofy Newfie..." and would not stop until her father demanded that she stop.

I sat there in wide-eyed shock. It was stunningly awful on the face of it, but I had to ask myself, WHERE ON EARTH does an eight year old child learn this, and know enough to use it as an insult? Was it her parents? Was it in school? I have to say that I never thought the same of Karen & Ken after that. He made her stop, but he did not apologize, and did not look embarrassed, as parents generally tend to do when their children insult guests.

Maybe she learned it on the radio. After all, Stompin' Tom Connors (may he rot in the pits of Hell) made a fortune singing that despicable song, that I will not quote here, thereby giving a certain validity to the bigotry.

So, all I can say with 100% certainty is that there is no context where that word is anything but an insult. Even if some unknowing mainlander THINKS he's being endearing, the insult goes deeper than his or her ignorance. That word was conceived in hatred and disdain, even if it is trying to morph into something acceptable. It hasn't, it can't and it never will.

Back in July, 2012, I had a brief but very satisfying Twitter conversation with Allan Hawco, star of "Republic of Doyle". His initial tweet was concerning an Op-ed piece from the New York Times about the history of Newfoundland, and how if things had gone differently, July 22, 1948 would have been Newfoundland's Independence Day.

It was a very interesting article, full of historical references that every Newfoundlander should have been taught in school, but of course, wasn't. The only downside to the article was that the writer felt compelled to use that word. Dammit.

So, Allan Hawco tweeted the above, and I responded...

Couldn't fit all I wanted to say in one 140-character tweet, so I had to do Part 2.

And then I got a reply... three words that made me ecstatically happy, so happy that I used them in the title of this blog post.

So, to you Newfie-word lovers, I have a question or two to ask that you may or may not be able or willing to answer, but you may want to think about as you carry on, blissfully insulting at least one-third of your fellow Countrymen...

WHY, when you know that a significant portion of society finds this word offensive, do you continue to use it? (You probably think it's cool and edgy to say "retarded" nearly every second word, too, but that's another rant for another day...)

WHY, when any entertainer worth his or her salt (and also Pete Soucy), refuses to be associated with it, do you continue to think it's cool to use?

WHY, have you ever wondered, do you never hear the word used by anyone in the media, news, radio, or by any politician?

WHY do you think that being associated with square rolling pins, and mugs with the handles inside and all the rest of that abhorrent nonsense is anything other than insulting? Were YOUR ancestors that stupid that they used things like that? Where the hell did all that even come from?

So, all of you who think "Newfie" is cute, or funny, or represents who we are, consider this - Yes, we speak differently than those from Canada. Ridicule us for it? Not a chance. Those who care about our image in the world promote it, proudly...

If we are all "Newfies", why, then, do none of these tourism ads use the word? Consider that. If it was such a great, renowned "term of endearment", as its defenders like to call it, then why hasn't the Department of Tourism taken it and run with it? Because it's not.
It. Is. NOT.

It's very PC these days to pronounce oneself nonjudgemental. We're all brothers and sisters of Mother Earth, no matter our differences, isn't that the way it's supposed to be? Well, let me tell you this... you use That Word, I judge you. Harshly.

Long may your big jib draw.

.

Bell Aliant strikes again!!!

It's not like this came as a surprise.

Last Monday, I was home, surfing the Internet from time to time, having to reboot from time to time because of increasingly frequent loss of my connection. While this might bother / annoy / enrage / bewilder some folk, to me, it was business as usual. I have become so inured to the vagaries of Bell Aliant and their products and service that it hardly flickered on my radar...

...until...

I (actually, it was my nephew) could no longer reconnect. Now, I was in a pickle. I was going to have to actually TALK to someone at Bell, and that tends to go well so rarely that I dread it worse than needles in my eyes.

However!!! I had one last ace up my sleeve that just might save the day....

This situation was not new to me. On average, I lose my Internet connection approximately every 3 - 6 months. When it first started happening, I would call Bell, go through the interminable menues, and finally speak to someone who would direct me to connect the ethernet cable between the laptop and modem, type in this and that, and voila, my connection would be restored - for another 3 - 6 months. I've had this friendly chat with their call-center personnel approximately 15 times. The reason that number is so low, when one considers every 3 - 6 months x I-don't-know-how-many-years, is because in the meantime, I learned to type, and managed to type up the steps and passwords and magic while on the phone with the tech, asking discreet but valuable questions, and was therefore able to do it ALL BY MYSELF!! I felt like I had the keys to the kingdom!

It didn't always work out so neatly, though. Sometimes, it was bigger than the both of us, so the tech would have to ship me a new modem. So, for 3 - 5 business days, I'd be S.O.L. and living off the grid.

I asked the tech one time if it was typical for every Bell Aliant customer to have to call in at a rate of once every 3 - 6 months to get their modems reset. He said "yes". Big-fat-stupid-ugly-stinky liar.

I asked one of the more recent techs if this was the same level of service experienced by Stephen Harper, or by persons with home businesses. That tech just laughed. At least he didn't lie to me.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Here is the story of the latest Bell Aliant saga.

That day last week, I was using my 5th modem. Meet "Five of Six"...

I get a new one of those sent to me on average about every 1 - 1 1/2 years. So now, here I was, Five was starting to act up. GMAFB.

Five resided on a wall in my downstairs mud room.

Why that is, only a Bell Aliant Technician can tell you. It used to reside in my living room, on my desk, but for some reason, it was felt that the mud room was THE-E-E place for it to be. Looking at it now, just hanging there upside down... I wonder if all the blood rushed to its feet, and THAT'S why they kept crapping out? Food for thought.

You may notice, near the right upper corner of the moden, a hat pin stuck into the wall.

On the back of the modem is a little wee hole, that I would have to stick a pin into, in order to reset it. Instead of having to hunt one down time after time, I found it much more convenient to just drive one into the wall, to have it handy when I needed it because, by God, I was definitely going to need it. Again, and again, and again.

So, this night of nights last week, when I found myself banished to the Information Wilderness, I tucked my trusty laptop under my wing and set off for the mud room. My nephew had already attempted resuscitation, unsuccessfully, but I was not without hope. I had gotten the damnable thing going in the past, using the aforementioned ace up my sleeve, after having been told by a Bell Aliant Tech (or BAT for short, and for truth) that all hope was lost.

I balanced my laptop on top of my golf clubs, then took the pin and reset the modem. I turned it off, counted to ten, then powered up again. I reset it with the pin again. No go. I connected the yellow ethernet cable, and typed in the 192.XXX.X.X number I had written down, but nothing happened. No blue screen, the doorway to nirvana, no nothing. I was sad. I feared I was backing into the corner of defeat, which was exactly where I found myself. I was going to have to talk to a BAT.

*sob*

So I called. In actual fact, I asked my nephew to call, because I was so afraid that I was going to rant and rave at this poor sod who didn't deserve my wrath. (For those who wonder, I DO know the difference...)

Dear Nephew went down over the stairs, and confirmed it... the power light was RED, not GREEN. The modem was dead. No Code Blue, no nuthin' was going to save it. No aces up my sleeve, no workarounds, not even bashing it against the wall, which I did. (What did I have to lose?)

The BAT told my nephew those dreaded words, "Three to five business days", and bid him a good night.

This was a Monday night. I could be looking at being offline for a week, if the "five business days" is on the table. I picked up the phone and called back the BAT. I told her my life history with Bell Aliant, and asked if a service technician could come to my home to see what the ongoing, malignant problems were with a system that is SO FREAKIN' UNRELIABLE. She said she tried to "put in a ticket" but the system wouldn't allow her to do that. All she could offer me was a phone-in system check once the new modem arrived, but no one was able to come to my home. Wow.

I asked if it was possible to pay for an overnight courier. Bell Aliant is the single most expensive utility I pay - even higher than my mortgage - so I thought they might cut me some slack, or at the very least offer that possibility. NOPE. Was there somewhere in the St. John's metropolitan region where I could pick one up? NOPE. Had to come from the mainland. Bell Aliant has NO EXTRA MODEMS IN NEWFOUNDLAND FOR THEIR CUSTOMERS. Very impressive fact to learn. The BAT reassured me, though, that seeing as how I was in a city, it would likely be closer to the three days than the five. Oh, joy.

So I sit, and I wait. I was in the middle of posting a series of posts on my blog about my transatlantic journey in 2006, and now that series was going to be interrupted. I pay my bills and do all of my banking online, but not that week. I truly believe Bell thinks everyone uses the Internet for nothing but porn, hence their total lack of any sense of urgency to provide uninterrupted, or even MINIMALLY interrupted service to their paying-through-the-nose clients.

Here I sat, with a crapped out modem. What to do, what to do, what to do??? So, I came up with a couple of ideas for what a Bell Aliant Modem COULD be good for, and seeing as how I had three to five days to test my theories, that's just what I did. SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS!!!!!!!

It made a butt-ugly and rather dangerous doorstop. FAIL.

 It was effective as a paperweight, but the aesthetics were less than pleasing. FAIL.

 The potential for smell and goopy plastic-y sludge made the modem an inadquate source of kindling. FAIL.

There was a moment where I liked the idea of a tech-y looking coaster, but... 

...the top curvature of it made the risk of red wine stains more of a detriment than a benefit. FAIL.

My scientific experiments were for naught.

So, I waited and waited and waited. I even made sure that I put a "broken" sign on the doorbell (which is, indeed, broken), so that I wouldn't miss the delivery, should it come to my home. The last several modem packages were about the size of a laptop box, so I wasn't expecting it to be left in my mailbox.

However, I did check my mailbox, and lo and behold, on Friday, there was a package!!! A wee tiny package, but a package nonetheless!!! Woo hoo!!!!

 

 

"They're making these modems very high-tech if they're so small nowadays", I thought as I anxiously drove home, the aroma of the vast world wide web permeating my consciousness, or maybe it was a dead bug from my mailbox. Whatever. I was soon going to be back online, where the American NSA can find me if they want me, no sweat.

The "from" address was one I knew well. It was like getting a package from an old friend, a senile one who sends me crappy stuff, but a package all the same.

I got home, and ripped open the packaging!! A little white box emerged!!! This is so cool!!!!

When I say "little", I mean "little"!! There's a teacup for comparison... What a cool modem THIS is going to be!!!!

Then I opened the box.

The first seeds of doubt took root. I took the device out of the box. The seeds of doubt grew like muscles on 'roids.

I am not the most technically savvy person in the world (which would qualify me to be a top-notch BAT), but I know a standard, run-of-the-mill, nondescript power adapter when I see one, and that's exactly what I saw. No nifty teeny weeny modem, no magic in a little package, none of the above. It was an adapter. I had a smidge of trouble "adapting" to that reality.

But, it wasn't the adapter's fault that it had nothing to adapt. It looked as forlorn as I did, just lying there, a plug with nothing to power up. It was sad, in a Bell-Aliant-incompetance kind of way.

I mopped up my tears, gave the adapter a AAA battery to play with, hoping it would cheer him up, and then I took on the latest BAT.

The lady, her name was Sharon, should be working for someone else, someone who appreciates her competance and ability to think on her feet, make decisions, and right wrongs. No, I am not being sarcastic. If anyone knows a BAT named Sharon who lives in Moncton, please give her a job worthy of her skills. She is lost in the underworld subculture of Bell Aliant.

I explained my tale of woe to Sharon, apologizing right off the bat for my overabundance of frustration at what had just transpired. One of her first comments was to express frustration of her own that, based on my history, the Monday night BAT said she couldn't send someone to my home to fix this. Sharon felt that should have been do-able, no problem. But missus on Monday said no, so I had to wait a week while she sent me an adapter. What a friggin' joke.

Sharon made it happen. Arranged for a service technician to come to my house the very next morning. And what do you think happened?? YUP, a service technician showed up at my house the next morning, bearing a brand new shiny modem, "Six of Six", now situated in my living room, where it should have been all along.

I wonder where he got it? I thought they could only come from the mainland and it took three to five business days to get here!!! Imagine my shock!!! He must know somebody!!!!

Isn't it sweet? You can even see little glowing green lights. Not a red one to be seen. Awwww!!!!

So, the young man, who told me that those other gray modems were what they in the industry call "job security", went on his merry way. He was going to take the old modem and adapter with him, but I knew a blog post was in the making, and nothing enhances a blog post like a little 'show and tell'.

Allow me, then, to show and tell what happened to the old gray modem, once dude left the house...

 

 

It needed to die.

And once it did, I buried it, right alongside its four older siblings, who went the same way...

So there, boys and girls, is my latest saga involving Bell Aliant. IF ONLY I had ANY confidence that it would be my last!!!

On that note, here's a warning to you, Six, you shiny new little black modem - I swear to God Almighty that I'll rip those ear-like antennae off you in a New York minute if you should DARE give me 1/1,000,000th of the grief I suffered at the whim of your ancestors. I know where you live...

UPDATE - September 30, 2013

Well, I heard back from Bell Aliant, after posting my blog post on their Facebook page and on Twitter. Missus called this morning, "very concerned" about all the trouble I've been having. She said someone should have come out to inspect the situation. I told her the call center person said that could not happen. She said, and I quote, "*I* can make that happen." So, I gave her my availability, and she said she'd call back.

Four-thirty this afternoon, she calls back to say, ummm, ahhhhh, they're NOT sending anyone to my house. They are going to "monitor" my new modem, and if there's further trouble, they'll get back to me, or I can get back to them. Whatever. Oh yes, and I get $15 off my high-speed / month x 1 year.

I'm rarely this underwhelmed, but that's the only adjective I can come up with that even remotely describes my feelings on this. Underwhelmed, and not at all surprised.

Why is the federal government so danged set on blocking any real competition for Bell and Rogers? Verizon would have given both of them a run for their money, but the feds blocked that from happening. The feds are more interested in making Bell and Rogers very very rich, versus encouraging fair competition which would benefit their constituents. Pathetic.


.

The Sail Home Newsletter, 2006, Day 13 - The End of the Voyage

Monday, September 25th, 2006

Hello from the Terra Nova Field!

Well, we've finally arrived!!!!

According to the skipper, our official "EOSP", End of Sea Passage, was at 5.24 a.m. NDT. That's all well and good, but when I was outside around 8 a.m., we were still steaming along, passing by other rigs that normally aren't close by, so we WEREN'T at our location, despite what the Old Man says! The supply ship wasn't towing us anymore, we were making headway all by ourselves. Around noon-ish, they were telling me that we were "hove to" about 5 km downwind from the Henry Goodrich oil rig. I found it odd that we needed to be downwind, but apparently that was in case we blacked out again, and started drifting towards the Goodrich, and us without an anchor. Our reputation precedes us!! Bwahahahahaha!!!

Yup, it's all over but the cryin'. It was easy to tell that we're 'home' – nothing but R-D-F out here all day long. That's Rain, Drizzle and Fog, by the way, a staple of Newfoundland weather for you who have not yet had the pleasure. Why is it that London fog is "romantic" but ours is "dreary". Bad PR, I guess. Maybe we needed a Jack the Ripper to give our fog some mysterious ambience.

After that sky last night that could easily have been mistaken for the tropics, is was a drag to wake up to drizzly foggy yucky skies this morning. But we're HOME-HOME-HOME, and that's worth putting up with a bit of 'pea soup'.

The helicopters are now coming with a vengeance – two today, three coming tomorrow, most with new people who require an orientation, one of my many responsibilities. So, I was out and about a lot today. I don't mind giving the tours too much when I'm not busy. It's nice to meet new people and see their awe at the place. But, this past week, I've been flat out busy, and I'm never catching up! I had the highest patient visit count ever for one week this past week, since I've been working offshore (9 years). I had 94 patients cross my threshold, that represents roughly 61% of the population having one ailment or another in one week! I think a bit of it is a case of them not having enough to do, so they get bored, and come to see me to get attention. They are boys, after all. Attention is as necessary as oxygen…!

So, we're all getting back into our usual routines. Soon, it'll be like the big trip never happened, it'll just be a distant memory.

But I have the pictures.

And the video clips.

And the maps.

And all the newsletters, to remind me of my adventures on the High Seas!

I hope you've enjoyed coming along for the ride, both rides, actually, as much as I've enjoyed telling the tales! Throughout each day, something would happen, and I'd tell myself that I'd JUST HAVE to remember to write about that later that day. Most times, I did remember, too! I did forget to tell you, though, that not only did we run out of tea bags, but we also ran out of Sugar Twin, gherkins, bananas, grapes, we almost ran out of potatoes (they were being rationed) and we came perilously close to running out of toilet paper. Believe me, if THAT had happened, a Breaking News edition of "The Sail Home Newsletter" would have been winging it's way to you, hot off the press!!!

So, what happens out here now? Well, over the next week, they will prepare to re-connect to the spider buoy, which is the engineering marvel that connects us to all the subsea lines. All the lines that suck up the oil, and pump water and gas into the reservoir, all come up from the sea bed and connect to the spider buoy, which later this week they hope to re-connect to the bottom of the platform. Then, they have to check all the lines for leaks, and pressurize all the production systems on board to make sure they're operational, and so forth. Finishing all this preparatory work will take until close to the end of October, which is when they expect to bring oil on board. I'll probably be back here again by the time that happens. (Don is probably laughing his guts out at my totally un-knowledgable description of all that, but that's the best I can do, I'm afraid! If Don can explain to me the intricacies of managing 3^rd degree atrio-ventricular block, then I'll do a crash course on spider buoys!! So there!!)

Anyway, we're at the end of the journey, so it's time to drop the anchor on "The Sail Home Newsletter". Gotta love the metaphorical irony! Better to use the anchor analogy rather than to say we've run her aground, I think.

Thanks to you all for keeping me company!

I hope it's been fun for you, too.

All the best,

Love and kisses and hugs and cheek-pinches,

Margaret

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The Sail Home Newsletter, 2006, Day 12

Sunday, September 24th, 2006

Greetings all!

Let me start off by saying..

WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

Mr. Don Linfield is the lucky winner of the "What's different about these pictures?" contest! He was – UNBELIEVABLY – the only entrant, but fortunately he identified BOTH things that were different about the photos. The first thing is that one compass is indicating that we're going east, and the other one is indicating that we're heading west. Therefore, one was taken when we were heading to Rotterdam, and the other one was taken on the return trip home. Good eye, there, Don! The other difference is that they are two different compasses. The eastbound compass is on the starboard bridge wing, and the westbound compass is on the port bridge wing. (Port = left, starboard = right. Port & left have four letters so it makes it easy to remember!) The bridge wings are the small decks on either side of the bridge, where the Captain can see down to the water when docking. I'll send a photo of the starboard bridge wing that I took from up above it, when we were docking in Rotterdam. The man in the dark blue shirt and blue jeans is the Captain, Ed Cooper. He is standing in the exact spot where I was standing to take those sunset pix last night. The other man is one of the Rotterdam Harbour Pilots.

 

 

 

Speaking of those sunset photos… I realized that I got up to the bridge a little too late to get GREAT sunset pictures, so I went up earlier tonight, and shot FORTY-SEVEN!! " Yikes," I can hear all thirteen of you say in unison, "I hope she's not thinking of sending us FORTY-SEVEN pictures to look at!!" No, I'm not, you ungrateful wretches, but I should send 'em all for you thinking that, like it would be a bad thing!!! I really liked that chart table picture one, but you may have noticed it was a bit blurry, so I did it over, and now I got one that's sweet!!! So, more sunset pictures are heading your way. Not bad for an amateur, if I do say so myself.  

 

 

 

Well, we're not very far away now, only about 95 nautical miles (nm) from our destination as of 6.30 p.m. They expect we'll be on site early in the morning. Only one of my cartographers sent a map today. It was at 8 a.m., when we were still about 199 nm away, but we've been scurrying along at about 10 – 11 knots, so we've made great time today. (10 kt = 11.5 mph = 18.5 km/h) The seas are dead calm, it was warm, sunny and cloudless. I think we're actually off Bermuda, 'coz it CAN'T be the Grand Banks of Newfoundland!

Speaking of the Grand Banks, while I was on the bridge, I took a close-up of the chart, showing that we were right on top of the Flemish Cap at noon today. You can see "noon" penciled in.
 

Then I took another one, showing the Flemish Cap in relation to our final destination You can see where the pencil line ends at "Precautionary Area", and I framed "Hydrocarbon Exploration Area" with the calipers.

Then finally, I took one that shows Newfoundland, the calipers and the Flemish Cap, to put it all together.

If you enlarge the photo and see all those little numbers randomly printed on the chart, they all indicate the water depth in meters. What always amazes me is that one area shows depths of around 50 meters, then not that far away it's over a thousand meters. The continental shelf is a wondrous thing.

Trivia time – if this platform / ship were to sit upright on the sea bed on location, the top of the flare tower at the very back of her would protrude out of the water. Relatively speaking, it's not that deep. So, if she ever starts to sink, I'm making for the flare tower and starting to climb. She better stay upright, though!

Well, today we had our first helicopter land on our Heli-deck since June 22^nd. Twelve guys got to go home, and twelve got to come aboard for the last of the trip. Finally-finally-FINALLY, the fellas who had deaths in their families FINALLY got to go home. I can't imagine the week they've put in, and I hope I never know. The week *I* put in feeling bad for them was bad enough. (Tea bag jokes notwithstanding.)

Tomorrow morning, then, I imagine, I will be getting the last of the maps. I expect it will show the FPSO in that big pile of ships, supply vessels and oil rigs that marks our spot on the map. We'll just be one more in the crowd. The supply ship that towed us and figured prominently in all my sunset photos, will be disconnected from us in the morning, and she'll go on her merry way. The end of the journey approaches…

(Thought to self – "I don't suppose Don is the only one who's actually reading these foolish things, is he? Hmmm…")

I can hear you all now – "Yes, I knew the compasses were pointing in different directions. Of course I knew it! That was easy!" To quote Judge Judy, "BALONEY!!" Easy to say that now, now that you know the answers! You get the lifetime subscription to my future newsletters, Don. You are truly blessed. ;-)

Anyway, all, I'm late getting this finished tonight. I was bound and determined to get those photos, and almost missed supper because of it. I had them put away a plate for me – Jigg's Dinner tonight. For my mainlander and American friends, Jigg's Dinner is a traditional Newfoundland meal of salt meat and cabbage and potatoes and turnip and carrots and pease pudding, typically all done in one pot. I believe a variation of it is well-known in the Boston states, if I'm not mistaken. Along with that was turkey, dressing, gravy and ham. A fine scoff, indeed. Burp.

It just occurred to me that you may be thinking, "The girl has been working out there for five years… why is getting a photo of a sunset at sea such a big deal?" Good question, if indeed you did ask it. The "thing" is, when we're producing oil, we are not allowed to have cameras on board. Even when I was traveling to the ship to start the sail back in June, the people at the Heli-port in St. John's weren't going to let me take my camera. That would have been a show-stopper, and a tantrum-starter, but fortunately it didn't come to that. Photography is extremely limited and controlled under normal operations, so this will be the only time I'll be allowed to have a camera out here. Gotta make hay while the sun shines!

On that note, I'll bid you all a fine evening. (Has anyone but me noticed that the Yankees have been sucking like a vacuum since they won the AL East? I'm hoping they're getting all of their losing games out of their system before the playoffs start.)

Nighty night, one and all. Until tomorrow…

Love and kisses,

Margaret

 

 

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The Sail Home Newsletter, 2006, Day 11

Saturday, September 23rd, 2006

Hi again!

I'm back!

Nicer than yesterday.

Not as nice as tomorrow…

I'm glad no one unsubscribed. I would have felt really bad about that!!

Well, we made tremendous progress yesterday, about 225 nautical miles in about 25 hours. That's 259 statute miles, or 416 kilometers, whichever language you happen to speak. I think that was one of our best days yet. They had all five thrusters going, flogging the hell out of 'er trying to make some headway. It worked.

We're a stone's throw from being in helicopter range. Our first one is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. We still won't be at our final destination, which is the Terra Nova field, until probably Monday night. The plan is to send a helicopter out Sunday afternoon, have it refuel on either Hibernia or the Henry Goodrich oil rig, and then have it fly on to meet us. Where our flights offshore usually take 1 ½ hours one way (on a good day with no head wind), this flight tomorrow will be 3 hours, one way. Hopefully it will work out, because the forecast for Monday is not good, and will only delay these guys even more from getting home.

I got a chance to get out today and take some more photos. I've got a fine collection going, let me tell you. All together, counting the photos taken when Alice was over in Holland with me for a holiday, I have 479 photographs and 58 little video clips taken from the start of this adventure up to today. I tell ya, my family and friends in the Greater St. John's region are going to be bored out of their minds one of these days. Maybe some of you a tad further afield one day, too!!! Hehehe… I remember threatening that before in one other newsletter on the way over, but for some reason, when we're all together, the subject never comes up. I wonder why? I'm just going to have to set up the TV and the popcorn one night, and THAT'LL remind them! I'm sure they just forget to ask to see them all. Yes, I'm sure that's what it is. Isn't it?

I'm going to attach two photos to this email, and I want y'all to figure out what is different about them. The first one to write back and tell me the correct answer wins a lifetime subscription to any future newsletters I may have the urge to produce. There are actually two things different about the photos. Let's see how nautical y'all are… I'll give the answers tomorrow.

Picture #1...

...and Picture #2...
 

We still don't have television service back yet. Normally we have TV, about 20 channels via satellite. We haven't been able to pick up the signal yet, because the satellite is still below the horizon in relation to our position. The Telecomms Technician is hoping tomorrow will be the day. They've been playing DVD movies on several channels from the Radio Room since we left, but you never know when they start, or if what's on is fit to watch, so it is less than satisfactory. They have a great DVD collection here, over 500 and growing. No porn, it's not allowed, though I'm sure some of the guys have their own private 'collections'. But, there are an awful lot of (what I consider to be) dumb movies among that 500. If there are 20 that an average woman would be bothered watching, that's the outside of it. Schwarzennegger, Jean Claude van Dam, The Trailer Park Boys (flinch-twitch-growl), every sci-fi movie ever made, and so on. Forget finding "Pride & Prejudice" (the Colin Firth version – the ONLY one fit to watch) or "Sleepless in Seattle" or "Pretty Woman", although I made such a racket about it one time that they did go buy "Under the Tuscan Sun" just for me! And I'm sure I'm the only one whose ever watched it. Sigh. Great movie if you haven't seen it. They DO have some good stuff, too, like a couple of seasons of Six Feet Under, and all the seasons of The Sopranos, the Godfather trilogy, everything with Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino in it. I really can't complain.

Well, that's all I've got for you today. Hope you're all having a grand weekend! It's steak night here tonight, so I'd better get going! Talk to you tomorrow!

Love and kisses,

Margaret

 

The Sail Home Newsletter, Day 11, Special Edition

Hi again!

Well, I got up from my desk to go for my steak supper like I said I was going to do, only to notice on the CCTV screen that we were having a particularly nice sunset. So instead of eating, I grabbed my camera and galloped up over 6 flights of stairs to the bridge to get a few snaps. It doesn't take all night for the sun to set (hehe) so I had to hurry. The things I do for my 'craft'...

 

That said, I went to have my steak before I came back here to send this. I'm not totally silly! If you don't get to the galley during meal times, you don't get fed, simple as that. I couldn't miss my steak tonight! It was accompanied by made-to-order Caesar Salad, sauteed jumbo shrimp, battered shrimp, brocolli, fried onions and mushrooms, grilled chicken breasts for those who don't want a steak, herb-roasted potatoes, and about 15 different cakes, pies, flans, cookies and squares. I finished it off with a chocolate ice cream cone. Haven't had one of those in years, but I was in the mood tonight!

Back to the pictures... (I didn't mean to write a second newsletter tonight!!!) I'll include the photos of the b'ys on watch tonight, too. The guy on the left is Dwayne Whitt, who is First Officer, the one on the right is Louis Pennell, Able-Bodied Seaman. Don't ask me... *I* didn't call him that, although Louis IS a fine specimen of a chap...! ;-)

The bridge is dark on nights, so the guys on watch can see outside. They only have a small lamp on. No wonder ships run aground, I'd be sound asleep in 10 minutes! So, although it looks lit up on some of the photos, that's just from my flash. One of the radar photos, plus the one of the chart table, were taken without the flash.

That's it from Annie Leibowitz tonight, straight from my latest gig snapping little Suri Cruise, daughter of Tom, for Vanity Fair. (They got the "vanity" part right!! I don't think they're referring to a bureau.).

Ta da!!

Maggie

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The Sail Home Newsletter, 2006, Day 10

Friday, September 22nd, 2006

Just as I was about to click "send" last night, we lost our phones and Internet link because of the thrusters again, so here it is, Saturday a.m., better late than never!

M.
______________________________________

Hello there!

Well, we're all back in the pink today and if it wasn't so hard to read, that's the color I'd use!! The green was hard enough on the eyes, so I won't do that to you.

The seas have settled down, the generators are all more-or-less generating, all five thrusters are thrusting, and we're making reasonable headway. Finally.

Well, in case any of you were doubting me and my assertions about bad stuff coming in threes, well, doubt no more.You naysayers can become yaysayers. The Lore lives on. I just wish it was limited to three. As you know, we had the one fellow whose sister passed away, and the other guy whose mother was quite sick. Well now, his mother had a heart attack last night and is in coronary care. Not only that, but another guy out here found out his father died last night after a long illness. Another guy out here is married to that guy's sister, so it's his father-in-law who passed away. And, that two-fatality car accident in Conception Bay North the other night killed the friends of another guy out here, one of them a particularly close friend. If I'm counting right, that's five, so I guess there's one more crisis to come to make it a multiple of three. This is certainly a different trip than the first sail was. Goodness gracious me.

If we can continue to make the time that we've made today, they estimate helicopters in another two to three days. Fingers crossed, everybody. But, as I predicted, once the stormy weather stopped, the fog started. It's so thick out there this afternoon you could lean up against it. (That's an Ed Smith line, I can't take credit for that one.) It's supposed to clear up soon, though. The forecast has changed again, so hopefully it'll be clear when we're in helicopter range.

A guy just stopped by for some lozenges. He asked me if I had been over in Rotterdam long before the ship left. I said no, I had come on the same flight he had, on the no-booze charter flight. He said, "Oh yes, where we stopped to see an oil truck in Iceland. Well, that's all we saw! That's what I tell everybody at home, we went to Iceland, and all we saw was an oil truck!" Sad but true!

I'll tell you what I only found out about yesterday. Apparently, the galley ran out of tea bags about three days into the sail. I didn't notice because I don't usually drink tea out here. It was only yesterday morning that I heard people talking about this. It has caused a bit of a stir. (I'm resisting using the words "tempest" and "teapots". It's just too easy.) Little did they know, though, that I had a small stash of about 20 tea bags in my cabin, that I had brought over to Holland with me, not knowing what facilities would be available. I figured it'd be easier to whip up tea than coffee if all we had was a kettle. So, I pondered how much I would sell each tea bag for, or would I put them up on auction to the highest bidder. As I was pondering this and calculating potential profits, the guy who lost his sister came in for a chat. He was talking a bit, then he said, "Well, it's all bad enough, but I can't even have a bloody cup of tea." Need I say more? He went for the $50 price tag, and left with the baggie of tea bags. I'M KIDDING – I'M KIDDING ALREADY!!! Probably in VERY bad taste, but I'm kidding!!!!!! Gimme a break, it's been a bummer of a week!!! He took them, FREE OF CHARGE, and I was happy to part with them to a deserving soul. At least the poor bugger could have a cup of tea now and then.

I'm probably going to have people unsubscribe from my newsletter on the strength of that.

I'm really a nice person most times… really.

On that note, I'll go away and try to be nicer tomorrow.

No guarantees.

Love and kisses,

Margaret

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