Surveying Down South

Had an e-mail today from a friend who is a surveyor with Launceston City Council in Tasmania. He's just got a job with Otago University which got me internet searching. You can study surveying here. It looks very land orientated but they must do hydro as Ross was (is - I hope!) a droggie.

Galileo Funding

Hurrah! Now, where did I put that €2.4b shortfall....?

Ship Ahoy!

Went to Plymouth yesterday to meet the students on the MSc Hydrography course. As an external examiner I need to meet them to find out how the course is going. I deliberately visited them during their field week.

I spent the morning on Catfish, the university's catamaran.

There are 13 students on the course and they were split into 3 groups, two shore-side and one afloat at any one time. The aim is to give all students experience of the tasks involved in a small, simple hydro survey. They've only been on the course 6 weeks and are on a very steep learning curve. I witnessed the bar check

and sounding lines (only single echo beam this time round). I may go back in the Spring, though, when they install multibeam for a session.

Great excitement on my part was spotting my favourite ship, HMS ENDURANCE . I spent 7 weeks on her in 1995 including a 3 week stint on South Georgia. I thought she'd already gone south for the season but obviously not. Mind you, she only appeared, passed the break water, dropped someone off (?) and disappeared again. It is unusual to see her at sea with her lynxes on. They are usually at RNAS Yeovilton....or in her hanger.

Catfish dropped me off, I met a lecturer for lunch, and then caught up with a group of students using RTK GPS for coastlining. Their first time so there was lots of explaining to do.

I felt really sorry for them. They'd been out in the rain since 0930 whilst I'd been on the (dry) boat and just had a hot lunch and copious amounts of steaming tea in a cafe. Ah, the perks of external examiners!

Tech RICS

Spent Friday up in London at the RICS Headquarters in Great George Street. Had a profitable hour chatting to someone about the pros and cons of technical membership, in particular how it related to other membership classes in the RICS. We explored the routes to entry for Tech RICS, what it should be called (hey, I like 'Tech RICS' to be honest), bridges from Tech to full membership etc.

I then had a couple of hours with James, RICS staff, who will be one of my main points of contact when I take over Geomatics Chair next month. I want to ensure that I hit the ground running. I'm pretty up to speed with the meeting side of things but I'm sure the RICS politics will floor me pretty quickly!

New Road Sign

Well, I suppose until most vehicle satnav systems are intelligent enough to know the width and length of your vehicle these signs will serve a purpose?

Trig Pillar Revisited

It was such a glorious day in the South West today I decided the girls needed a wee stroll to a trig pillar. Walked up from Budleigh Salterton to TP6804 which I last visited in May. Gorgeous views and just the spot to sit and eat a Sainsburys knickerbocker glory.

Musical Geodesy

Thanks to James for today's whacky geo site. Check out Mark Burbridge's site at http://www.geodroid.com/. Unlike this blog which is pretty basic Mark's comes with the choice of three tunes. Check out the buttons at the bottom right hand side of the screen.