The Norwegian

A life less ordinary

(To Be Published/Released Late 2025)

“Some books are by necessity extra heavy as they contain an honest, factual, whole unabridged lifetime, void of censure.”

This website is meant to be viewed in conjunction with the three-volume autobiography “The Norwegian – A Life Less Ordinary.”

The Norwegian – A Life Less Ordinary.

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Welcome to my autobiography, The Norwegian, A Life Less Ordinary.

My personal story is not a lamentable one. I reveal the honest story of an authentic but untypical life, from earliest childhood to a ripe mature age. It is a story closely interconnected with the lives of my friends and colleagues, particularly those who have worked in diving and subsea construction. Along the way, I share essential technical and historical details of North Sea oil and gas exploration, hands-on experience from deep below and from deck level, and personal thoughts and feelings.

While some readers may find these less captivating, they are still a part of my journey. Nevertheless, they are included because it is my autobiography. The intermissions appear both in shorter chapters and intermingled into others. I have genuinely been charmed by a life jam-packed with wondrous people, unforgettable experiences, excitement, and adventure, and blessedly emerged relatively unscathed.

The story is not a novel but rather an epic, comprehensive, wide-ranging, detailed factual account of a lifetime of adventure and toil. Fishing, violence, naval inshore and offshore diving, nightclub and hotel trades, extreme sports, relationships, offshore pipelaying and construction, subsea intervention, business ventures, farming, and more are all included. These three volumes’ foundations rest on in-depth research, numerous interviews, a prodigious amount of reading, and long walks down memory lane.

In 2018, while contemplating retiring from a life on the high seas, a life that was enthralling and, at times dangerous, at long last, I seriously began pondering upon the opportunity to take time to write an extensive work, ignorantly perceiving that being an author was an undemanding occupation signified by wine, cigars, and bliss with an added dash of boredom.

However, time and memories are not always the perfect cohabitation partners. I am a hoarder by nature and have, throughout the years, saved pictures, newspaper clippings, notebooks, dive logs, timesheets, payslips, tax forms, bank documents, company accounts, diaries, and much more. This habit has alleviated the thousands of hours spent writing, reminiscing, interviewing, reading, and researching.

By 2024, six years hence, the ever-evolving autobiography has grown to well over two thousand pages. I now sometimes wonder if the opportunity was a blessing or a curse. Writing is, to put it mildly, painstakingly hard work, however driven one’s personality is, especially so when you have slight dyslexia and enter into an entirely new occupation and acquire knowledge on how to delineate one’s thoughts and memories onto paper. A personal library with over eight thousand books has undoubtedly alleviated the monumental task.

The extensive sections in these volumes on offshore oil and gas fields are respectfully dedicated to the brave oil-field and offshore workers—sailors, drillers, helicopter pilots, engineers, technicians, marine crew, support staff, and others before them—who lost their lives while confronting unknown and inhospitable skies, lands, and seas with the limitations of early-generation inferior equipment.

The diving-related chapters are dedicated respectfully to the memory of those brave aquanaut pioneers who struggled through hell and deep water, many succumbing to the dangers therein. They broke barriers, pioneered equipment development, and, through trial and error, developed safety procedures and protocols so that my generation blessedly could reap the benefits. Thus, they laid the foundations and paved the way for those of us who took up their mantle. Without their ultimate sacrifices, this extensive biography would not have been possible. If you desire to understand the actual, factual inner workings and details of deep diving, flexible/rigid pipelay, and subsea construction, you will find much enlightening information on these pages.

Lest anyone think I have exploited my friends and colleagues on these pages, I want it known that except for all those who are incognito or deceased (several died during the book’s writing). Because I didn’t want to lose friends, all the good people interviewed proofread and approved their profiles, histories, and stories and signed off on accuracy, enabling and ensuring the facts recorded were as accurate as possible.

The vast majority of the hundreds interviewed returned with detailed corrections after reading the submitted drafts; many of these unique people were in their seventies and eighties, just years away from their stories, if untold, forever being lost to the sands and seas of time. They wanted to share their stories—not out of braggadocio, though ego always lurks in the shadows—but because they firmly believed their experiences during the perilous era of pioneering deep-sea diving, with all its facets, should be recorded for posterity. Remarkably, many, especially the old guard, were pleased by the memories that resurfaced during our conversations.

With optimism, I hope you find reading about my journey enjoyable. I found great satisfaction in living. Documenting this vast, all-encompassing fifty-eight years in the making jigsaw puzzle of many pieces has been daunting. My wish to pen my story is now coming to fruition. It’s a fantastic journey I found myself on, and I am pleased to say the book is becoming ever more enriched and explicit than I possibly could have anticipated. Hopefully, you will enjoy reading these three volumes, and trust me, they are indeed volumes. With a hand on my heart, I pledge the first-hand reminisces from hundreds of great people recorded, extensively and objectively researched therein are honestly and accurately penned.                            

Social media and the internet have many unpropitious sides; however, they are unique tools for reconnecting with friends and colleagues worldwide and prerequisites for conducting research, grammar corrections, and fact-checking using Newspapers.com, Ancestory.com, GPT-4o AI, and Grammarly premium.

Several said the pioneering frontier ‘The Good Old, Bad Old Days’ was where they found or reinvented themselves in large and small ways. There, to their pleasure and, on occasion, pain, they lived as men in a world separated from the Montone, hospitable, organised domiciles, permanently inhabited by those who know neither victory nor defeat.

 My sister Tanja Laura Dinessen kindly stepped into the void that materialised when Malcolm Charles Schaverien, aka Harlan Wolff, tragically passed away far too young in March of 2021. I am eternally indebted to Malcolm and owe him an ocean of gratitude. Before his saddening early demise from a heart attack, he assisted in writing the first two hundred pages and encouraged and motivated me to lay aside my offshore hat and don an author’s cap.

Daniel M. Dorothy, a friend, successful published author and editor, stepped in and joined the team in May 2023 to assist with the enormous task of editing and styling the penned chapters—an undertaking in itself.

Paul Cade, my webmaster, since 2018 has spent hundreds if not thousands of hours painstakingly developing the website and associated timelines—in Paul’s own words, the most extensive website he has ever constructed and expanded.

Karene Ivy Espiritu Casido-Bacang has since 2023 been working her magic on the book cover layouts and more.

I am humbly grateful to my family, close friends, naval and work colleagues, and numerous other great people who continue to assist through countless interviews, e-mails, and communications via social media platforms. Accessing their thoughts and memories is conjuring this decades-long dream into reality. What’s next? Only time will tell. I’m not fond of inactivity and believe I will only be happy if I am constantly active; perhaps becoming a full-time farmer?

Paal S. Dinessen – November 2024

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The Norwegian (3 Volume) Hardback Dust Covers

Click on the cover image to see a full-sized scaleable image

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