Don’t Look Down.

Well, not always. Admittedly, UltraMAP’s focus is normally downwards. To the ocean floor.

That’s where the hundreds of thousands of miles of mission critical subsea cables in our care reside.

However occasionally, we don’t look down.

We look ahead.

Looking Ahead.

When we’re out patrolling cables in our vessels, we sometimes get involved with helping other seafarers.

One such vessel is called the SG Integrity.

SG Integrity is currently involved in patrolling our customer GTT’s cables in the Irish Sea.

And one day, whilst on patrol just South of the Isle of Man, the following story unfolded.

Friends At Sea.

As we approached ‘Nearing Wpt 1 South’ cable, one warm and still afternoon in late May we noticed a white cabin cruiser coming towards us.

At about 200 metres from us they stopped.

A man stood on the cabin roof.

Waving.

We slowed and headed over.

With the weather being calm we were able to get alongside easily.

It turned out there were two men onboard and they were delivering a boat from Liverpool to Portaferry.

The cabin cruiser was 38 feet long and had two engines.

The gearbox of one of them had a leak.

The men wanted to borrow spanners to put oil in the gearbox so, of course, we obliged.

Unfortunately, all attempts failed as the nut was damaged.

So after a while they returned the spanners, thanked us for our help and set off again for Portaferry under one engine.

Happy Ever After?

Happily, they reached their destination and yet another cable patrol passed by smoothly.

And whilst our story is not worthy of an Indiana Jones script, we did our best.

(We didn’t unearth the treasure as Indiana Jones might.

But they did return our spanners.

And – yet again – no cable was harmed in the production of this story.

So we all sailed way – happily ever after).