We follow, as if we were a strange sort if cult. This has been going on for a couple of days now, in between oil tanker demonstrations, ever since the ROV broke down. Rain comes in horizontally. It is not entirely silent, there is quite a bit of giggling going on, and pretty bad singing in French, Norwegian, Swedish and English, sometimes all of them at once. Up. Stop. Up. Stop. Down. Fairly simple. But someone has to keep an eye on the ship, the wind and the waves. Below is chief mate Mike's account of yesterday's near disaster:

The Esperanza floats above the edge of the continental shelf, twenty miles to the north west of Andenes, Norway. Below us the sea bed drops in a vicious decent from a depth of one hundred meters to over a thousand, within a horizontal distance of about three miles. We are here fishing for photos, images of soft cold water corals and sponges, to prove the existence of an environment worth saving.

The remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is normally used for this kind of work but it fell to the pressure of the deep and burst a seal last week at a depth of around 300 meters. All we have left is an uncontrollable long line with a camera at the mercy of the currents and ships drift. The camera is launched on the windward side so as to stop the ship being blown over the long yellow cables and fouling the propeller. We attach it to something that resembles a diving cage, then lower it down on a steel wire rope that runs off an electric winch. The long bright yellow cable of the camera follows, being fed by three pairs of deck hands.

The wind blows from the southwest and we drift sideways at 2,5 knots. I call down to the launching station, the ship is in position. By the time the cage with camera is in the water we have already drifted out over the drop off, we haul in the line and I reposition the ship. The idea is to start shooting at 100 meters and film the steep side of the canyon. The camera can go to a depth of 300 meters. Back in position, the camera is lowered away, the picture coming back is of a devastated ocean floor with deeply scoured marks from the heavy chains and gates-( 6 tonne steel doors to keep nets open), that are dragged along the bottom by trawler's. Again we are drifting too fast to get a good image.

This has been going on all day, picking up, dropping, picking up, re-positioning. This time I tried slowing the swift drift by gently going astern. Ships however have the tendency of their stern to seek the wind when going backwards, and that is exactly what we did. It did slow things down and the picture improved in quality, but then we swung too far and the wind caught us from the starboard side and started blowing the ship over the cable. I was running backwards and forwards onto the bridge this whole time watching the cable, watching the wind, the ship and the speed through the water compared to that over the ground.

Wheel hard over to port, I gave a good burst ahead on the starboard engine so as to swing the ship- to get the wind back onto the operating side. Of course an engine going ahead not only turns a ship but also causes it to go forward, the cable was beginning to angle dangerously towards the stern and the propellers. I rushed into the wheelhouse, let the phone to the engine control room ring three times then lifted the cover to the bright red button on the consol marked Emergency Stop Port Main Engine. I could hear the alarms starting to ring from somewhere deep within the ship as I pushed it. I imagined engineer's running off to find out what was happening.

The manoeuvre had worked however and the wind was back on the right side, we where once again being blown away from the cable, or where we. From the bridge I could see the wire rope of the cage leading out to sea off the beam, perfect but where was the camera cable, it was coming along with us? The long haired German camera man, Frank looked up from the deck, worry written into the lines of his face. The camera cable was tight against the side of the ship and leading in the direction of the propellers. My heart sank and I ran to call the captain. The team on deck continued to retrieve the cage with the winch and wire rope. All we could do now was watch as it slowly came up from the depths below, my only wish was that it was caught around the port propeller which I had stopped and not the starboard that was still running, I called the engine room asking them to check temperatures, and explained my worst fears. The cage came out of the water with camera still attached, but its bright three hundred meter yellow cable was still fast around the propeller, the launching team kept hauling now from the loose end of the camera. This had all happened over a short period of minutes, on my very first watch back on board the Esperanza. Home was a long way away now, I was back at sea in the thick of things and the salt tasted fine.

Then suddenly, a miracle, the line came fell away from the shipside and was all hauled onto the deck. The roar of the wind in our faces subsided and the sea became calm, for a moment I heard the sound of angels' voices. Then came the good news that the camera still worked, there had been no damage to the cable. I was off the hook and the cable off the propeller, we were ready to roll again.

- Mike, Chief Mate