My ship recently went through what is called Deperm. Which is the process of removing the magnetic signature of a ship so that it wont attract mines quite as much. To do this the crew wraps the ship in thick copper cables which are heavy, slimy, muddy and generally just nasty. Once the ship is wrapped LOTS of current is passed through them. First one way and then the other. Sort of like making a magnet out of a nail and some wire like we did in grade school science class only on a much larger scale.
This sucks not just because of all of the heavy lifting involved, but because it's not a good idea to bring any magnetic devices with you when doing this sort of thing. In other words no laptop for Jim on this trip. The hard drive would have been scrambled by the end of the day. It's amazing how reliant we become on technology. Reading about .Net isn't quite the same as reading about it and then coding it. I actually had to play Solitaire, etc. with real cards. No technology makes Jim a bored guy.
At least my SPOT watch worked. ;-)