For every decision there is a timescale. When a helicopter crew moves from 15 to 45 minutes standby, during night hours, you don't want to delay. ...call the guys in to immediate readiness. You've lost no time. When they're driving in to the base you can make some calls.
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Maybe you find that the doctor who recommended urgent evacuation didn't realise that 4 additional lives would be at serious risk, airlifitng a patient from a heaving boat well out into the Atlantic. When you speak to him directly he says tomorrow will be OK. No-one is going to die so the four airmen can go back to their respective pits.
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Compared to these issues, this one was a small decision to make. By making it in good time, the crew have been able to hold together for some more days.
On the bus south. Working to document our experience in the hope that it's well worth sharing.
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Adrian is now back to 'life and death' operations. Niki spent a full day editing some of her recordings. Norman met me at Waverley Station to catch light. He had me place the charts taken from El Vigo on the bonnet of his car, stretched flat. He worked his digital magic again. This feeling of the team remaining intact is worth everything.
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 | | Tom Gardner and Ian Stephen |
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I'm seeing Norman again tomorrow - that's Thursday I think. Tom Gardner (and that's a grand name for a Scottish skipper) is taking us out aboard the 'Reaper'. The plan is to leave the Scottish Fisheries Museum berth at Anstruther and go on up to St Andrews. It's a pretty poor forecast for the weekend but we hope to be tucked up inside the new lock gates at St Andrews' harbour.
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The few day's grace has given time to work on the exhibitions. One will be sharing space in The Byre Theatre. The other will be on board the 'Reaper'. As usual, some of the pre-made works have been jettisoned. These provide security for the time it takes to make something new. But I've been splicing Niki's recording of paced Orcadian and Wick voices to slowed footage of our last few days. The mission is simply to share the poetry of meeting - we met a little water but we met a lot of people.
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Anstruther to St Andrew's Bay
Get that bonnet in your pocket,
you're on the east coast noo.
Green's nae a colour for luck.
A long black ship turns tight stone corners,
a postie's jig on sympathetic warps
and the full keel's clear, we're up the road.
Stornoway, aye, in for bait, on to Faroes.
A spoke or 2 roond 215'll dae's noo.
See that marker, if you're doon this way,
3 tides meetin, keep a clearance.
I'm seeing a shading in the tones of water,
The bounce of light from incidental land,
Double Suilven, Baltic Orkney and
the brim of a soft and stubborn haar,
the slide of the whole tune, easy as Tom
as he whistles her through St Andrew's lock,
a ba' hair margin
on one side only,
alternating
- like our breathing.
© Ian Stephen, 2004
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