So heres some pics:-
              

- In a pan, melt 150g white sugar, but not too much heat. You wanna see glassy bubbles.

- Chuck in a hot red chilli (3 inches long - make it up with smaller chillies if you can’t find a biggun), 1 large clove garlic and triple the amount of ginger, all finely chopped.

- Stir for a minute, keeping the heat low.

- Chuck in half a mango, sliced into thin strips. Stir for a minute.

- Then 2 Tbsp Thai fish sauce and 2 Tbsp rice vinegar and a pinch of salt.

- Stir for 1 more minute. Take off the heat. Cool and serve fresh.

- Beat 6 egg whites, 1 cup of castor sugar (a bit at a time), and beat in 1/2 tsp salt and vanilla essence at the end, when it’s peaking.

- Combine 1 cup of castor sugar with 4 tbsp plain flour + 3 cups of dessicated coconut - then fold it all in to the egg white mixture.

- Pipe onto a greased tray and bake at a steady 180deg for 5-10 mins (without opening the oven door!)

Consume.

  

We finished the work a day early, due to being so amazingly efficient hard working sorts, so set off on an hours drive to a national park. Spent a few hours gorge walking which was great. It was stunning so thought I’d share some pictures.

Hi peeps,

Having been in my new job now for almost 2 months I thought I put up some pics so you have a bit more of an idea of what I do.        

As most of you know, I am working for an environmental consulting company where i am involved in monitoring and surveying invertebrates.  I spend time working out in the deserts on mining sites, putting down and collecting traps which are designed to capture insects, spiders, scorpions and things like this that live underground.  Its pretty interesting and now I’ve settled in Im really enjoying it and have made some good friends there already.  Im also getting to see some parts of Oz that not many people get to see which is pretty cool.

Website is www.ecologia.com.au for those who are interested.

xxx

I’m a hydrographic surveyor. Land surveyors have to find the exact height and position of things on land, but at sea this is much more difficult, because of tides, waves, no points of reference and changing sound velocities in the water column making it difficult to know if the depths your measuring with an echosounder are correct.
To get good data, you need 2 gps systems on the boat, receiving corrections from differential base stations and giving you a precise position. You also need a gyroscope to give you heading data, and motion sensors to record the heave, pitch and roll of the vessel to compensate for waves (otherwise your seabed would show as a wobbly line). You also need an echosounder, usually of multibeam type, to enable you to make up a 3D image of the seabed by recording parallel strips of bathymetry data. A tide gauge nearby is necessary to that you can correct for tidal variation at the time of your data collection. Regular recordings using a conductivity probe give you sound velocity curves down to the seabed.
All this data is input into several p.c.’s with loads of monitors to check data quality, and linked via network to data processing p.c.’s and a helmsman p.c. at the bridge so that the master can navigate to where we need him.
On a normal survey of a potential site for a rig, installation or pipe route, I would normally have to fully install and calibrate all this gear on a vessel, test its accuracy, make sure its all equipment is working, all computers are communicating, and the data is good, while making sure that we have full coverage of the area, and liaising with the master about potential navigation hazards.
We also do pipe as-laid surveys, engineering jobs, ROV work and rig moves, which all require different skills.
Soon, I’ll be doing lots of rig moves, where you have to chopper in, calibrate the rig heading using the sun,  install gps receivers, pull up the anchors, move the rig, then put down the rig in exactly the right position, put down the anchors, ballast down the rig, then chopper out. They’re usually much faster jobs.
When I’m home, I make things like book cases. And I cook odd things like chickens feet, and eat lots of Asian food. I also kit out the house and buy new watches.
Hope to hear from you all soon. xx

It was my birthday last week and I just wanted to say thanks for all the cards. I had a lovely birthday this year. Oli arrived back from offshore the day before so we spent my bday together, shopping, going out for lunch, drinking champagne then Oli cooked me a lovely meal. At the weekend we got together with friends and went for a champagne lunch which carried on throughout the afternoon into the evening and then the small hours of the following day.

We have spent the past 4 days down south in Margaret River. We had a fantastic time and loved it down there. The weather was a lot cooler and there was lots of beautiful countryside, wineries, quaint towns, galleries etc. We even went horse riding round the bush for an hour and went to an underground cave that was pretty magnificant. We drank far too much wine and now need a few days to recouperate before i begin my new job as an inverterbrate zoologist. First week of my new job and they are sending me out in the field for 6 days! Should be interesting and very hot as its outback in the middle of nowhere.

Lots of love

Nicki & Oli xxx

I am really sad to be leaving the fisheries though cos its a cool place to work. For those interested I’ve put up some photos below. Its very therapeutic working here as any time I get stressed or bored I just go for a wander round the marine discovery centre and look at all the fish tanks.

Bye for now

Nix xxx