These moments are not related, nor are they presented here chronologically or in any order of 'hairyness'. I begin with the first for no other reason than it was the first, the remainder are simply in the order they are in because that is the order they are in. They are just ten moments in my life, sometimes no more than fleeting seconds, when I was convinced I was going to die. I begin here with the first two and will be adding others over the next few months, so if you're interested, come back.
As some of these moments occurred during my "Doodlebugger" days I am indebted to "Honesty Lefty" for allowing me to share them with you on his fine site.
Just before I begin however, it occurs to me that some folk, those who have just accidentally stumbled into this site for example, may be unfamiliar with the term "Doodlebugger". In fact some may find it a little disconcerting if not alarming, even to the extent perhaps of wondering whether they should surf any deeper. To put your minds at rest, and with apologies to those who do understand the subject, I would like to explain briefly just what exactly a "Doodlebugger" is and, perhaps more pertinently, what he does. For when I first joined their ranks thirty odd years ago I remember my mother being more than a little concerned as to the true nature of their activities.
To put you instantly at ease a "Doodlebugger" is simply a member (and in my day they were almost always male, or at least passed themselves off as such) of a Seismic Oil Exploration Field Crew. Any Seismic Oil Exploration Field Crew, it doesn't matter which. What does matter however is the 'field crew' bit. There are untold thousands of administrative bods, geophysical boffins and computer brats swarming about Seismic Company Offices around the globe, who like to think they're "Doodlebuggers" but the real McCoy, the genuine article were the men who got their hands dirty. Men who hacked through the jungles, trudged across the deserts and wallowed through the swamps of virtually every nation on earth in the never ending search for the precious "Black gold" "Texas Tea". Men who thought 'air conditioning' was some sort of oxygen enhanced aerobic exercise.
It is true that apart form one or two members of the crew the educational standards required were not high, the nature of the work not intellectually demanding. Thus it was not always easy for seismic companies to fill these positions with what you might call 'normal human beings'. In fact often they had to resort to employing men of, well, lets just say 'indeterminate parentage'. However it was precisely those qualities of abnormality that were the Doodlebuggers greatest asset. They needed to be men who could survive outside the social norms of society. Loners, men who were able to put up with their own intolerable personalities for weeks on end, men who could live rough, eat rough, sleep rough and look rough and, most importantly, not have the sensitivity to care. As you shall see in some of my following moments it was also enormously beneficial to him if he were able to drink, a lot.
Having gathered these men together they were then organised into small groups, perhaps ten or so, to form the nucleus, the leaders of "The Crew". This crew then being hired out as a unit by the Seismic Company to an Oil Company. Usually for a great deal more than the Seismic Company was paying the crewmembers!
In the seismic heydays of the fities, sixties and seventies Oil Companies might have forty to fifty such crews under contract. Dispatched to the Four Corners of the globe, invariably to the most disagreeable regions of it, to seek out the best places to drill for oil. Once in situ the bulk of the crew, i.e.the workers, would then be recruited, culled from the indigenous population of whatever country the crew happened to be in. Unlike their crew leaders however, it was absolutely crucial that these indigenous workers did have certain skills. Namely the ability to work inordinately long hours, under incredibly unpleasant conditions for indecently small rewards. Together this band of merry men would set out on their quest, which could, depending on their cock-up ratios, take many months. When their task was complete the desk jockeys back in the offices would attempt to decipher the information, culminating in the production of a map, upon which somewhere would be drawn a large X. This map was then handed over to the Oil Company who would assemble their rig over the X and commence drilling. Meanwhile the crew would long since have been disbanded, their members lying low, usually on the floors of far-flung seedy bars, safe in the knowledge they would be hangovers away by the time the Oil Company discovered, at vast expense, that the X had been in the wrong place.
So there you have it, a "Doodlebugger" is nothing more sinister than a member of a Seismic Oil Exploration Field Crew. So now you can safely continue your journey through this site, secure in the knowledge that you will not come across anything sensible… I mean offensive.
Happy surfing.
Nick Thomas
August 2001