For drilling rig crews in the 1960s, the storm-tossed North Sea seemed like the edge of the world. Hurricane-force winds snapped the anchor lines of one rig and sent waves crashing over the decks of others. Wildcatting off Norway was the act of desperados or visionaries – who knew which? More than 16 billion barrels of oil later, we can safely call them visionaries. And what lies before those searching for the next big Norwegian field now is the mystical Barents Sea.