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(My) Photo of the day, Or Bak skyene er himmelen alltid blå


Yes, it is another ship! Drawn to the water yet again, I got a new one for my collection.

This one is the MV Oceanic Viking, an armed patrol vessel of the Australian Customs Service. However, it is owned by a Norwegian shipping company and contracted to the Australian Customs Service through P & O Marine Services. A convoluted arrangement, to be sure.

It was originally built as an offshore supply vessel, then converted into a vessel used for laying optic fiber cables between Europe and North America, then in 2004 it was converted to an armed patrol vessel and chartered to the Australian Customs Service. With two deck-mounted machine guns, it became the first civilian ship in Australia to carry mounted weapons in peacetime. It is Australian flagged and operated by a civilian crew, carrying armed Customs officers.

It seems to get about, chasing illegal Indonesian fishing vessels off the Northern Territory and responding to distress signals as far away as the Kerguelen Islands (as close to the middle of nowhere as you might find). Most recently, it has been shadowing Japanese whaling vessels in the Southern Ocean. You might have seen it in the news.

Comments

Dina said…
Wow, that's one formidable ship!
Great that she was sitting there waiting for your "capture."
OK, what does the post title mean?

Hey Kris, I answered your query about Jerusalem stone. You'd better read it because no one else will have the patience to read that long an answer.
The trouble with your inquiring mind is that you look for logic and rational answers, something foreign to the Middle East and the Holy Land. LOL
I had fun researching the post, though. Thanks for the homework.
Kris McCracken said…
The title is a nifty little Norwegian proverb that goes something like: "Behind the clouds the sky is always blue". A nice and positive one, I feel/

Thanks for doing the research, I figured that it must be something like that. Unfortunately, it isn't just the Middle East that sometimes lacks in logic and rationality!
freefalling said…
Does seeing this on Cocky (Ch7 Sunrise)this morning, count as seeing it one the news?
Kris McCracken said…
In our house we don't call him 'cocky', we call him 'Cockhead'.

In fact, we call it the 'Cockhead and Bird-brain show'.

We are not fans.

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