erk

I finally made it home after 32h of transit, most of which I'd like to forget...

After my shift, at 6am Saturday, I packed my stuff and went to the mandatory viewing of the safety dvd on boat transfer, than waited in the tv room for the Chancellor to arrive.

Got in the frog at 2pm, that's a frog -->
left the field 30 minutes later and went to bed at 3:30pm. Since I was the only female passenger and couldn't share a room with anybody, I ended up in an empty crewman's cabin, right on the top floor of the boat where things move, pitch and roll quite a lot more than in the gallows....

Woke up at 8pm thinking I'd catch the Habs game on my laptop there was WIFI internet on that boat! got some food, watched part of the game but got too tired so went back to bed... that's where the fun began... we hit a storm and 12m waves... and I got seasick! First time in my life and I soooo hope the last!!!
I usually know when it's time to take it easy, there's a ringing in my ears that says "go lie down for 10 minutes"... but this time I was already lying down! :S it got worse and worse and I nearly puked a couple of times, so I figured it was time to call on the medic for some gravols...

The phone in my room wasn't working >:( so I went down to find her, bumping in walls, holding on for dear life in the 4 staircases... she had gone to bed and didn't answer the door when I knocked. I was really dizzy by then so I went back to bed but I just kept getting worse. At some point a bunch of cleaning supplies fell down in the hallway, so when a crewmate came to pick it up I scrambled to the door and asked him to find me some pills :P

He had more success in waking up the medic and she gave me a shot I was beyond the gravols stage apparently... which kept me nauseous but gave me back my will to live. For the next 8 hours I just held on to the bunk so I wouldn't fall off it, and listened to the sound of objects falling all around while being rocked side to side and lifted off the mattress every 2min or so...
At 5am we finally entered the calm waters of St.John's Narrow, and I was instantly better. Half of the guys traveling with me and on another boat that followed us, got sick. The guys who didn't get sick were the wise and lucky one who were on the lower level, gobbed 4 gravols as soon as they got on board, then went to sleep for the whole trip... I'll remember that pearl of wisdom next time I'm stuck doing boat transfer :S

*Those of you who've never experienced seasickness, imagine the worst hangover or stomach flu you've ever had... every movement like turning your head, sitting up, rolling your eyes... makes you want to throw up... and everything around you is moving!!! But the real kicker is that every time you puke, instead of feeling better for a while you feel just as bad or worse...*

La-di-da

The Chancellor is picking me up and taking me on a cruise at 11am today...
that sounds so much better than what it is :P

I'll be in St.John's Sunday morning and should be flying home straight away I better, otherwise I'm gonna start destroying stuff

So see ya soon Montreal! I can't wait to be there!!!!!!!!!! XD

Flight 441's curse

18 days!!! …. 18 days of sunshine in a row... no fog, no freezing rain, all choppers on time, no backlog, NOTHING!

When does it stop? … M*****F***IN' TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My flight is cursed.. somebody on it must have been a real a-h*** in a past life to get a karma like that! I can’t see no other explanation for it we're waaaaay beyond random luck now.. it's a conspiracy! … 18 DAYS of 6+miles visibility and today, ONLY TODAY, does it go down the crapper to 0-1/2 mile of viz, AND only from 9am to 6pm!!! then it gets nice again…

I just can’t f***** believe it!!!

Ho look!! it's snowing!

Ho wow!! it's really coming down!
Hooo!! the 2nd ROV is turning into a snowbank!

shoot me

:/

Bubble watch

We’ve been on bubble watch for a few days now… the main scope of work is fixing a sonar going round and round and round and round and round and round for the whole of our 12h shift, hoping nothing strange will appear on the screen.. if something does appear.. well… we’re f****d.. maybe..

Why bubble watch you say?
The rig is starting a new well, so until the BOP blowout preventer.. there to stop gas to free flow to surface is down on the seabed, if the drill hits a pocket of gas, there’s nothing to stop the bubbles to come right up under us and flip the rig upside down this thing floats.. if you remove water.. well.. oops…

Why not put the BOP first then drill?
I have no idea! :P all I know is that they need to drill to a certain depth, then run big pipes in the hole, then put a base on the sea bed, connect all that together, THEN they can put the BOP...

What can we do if there is a massive pocket of gas heading our way?
Sling shot the rig! for real... :P people are on standby, with a finger by the button, to make all the anchors in front pull us and all the anchors in the back go slack, so if need be the place could jump a bunch of feet forward in a split second... and the bubbles would miss us

so far we haven’t seen anything yay
let's hope it stays this way...

#&@%$* anchors!

We are moving to a new location, meaning they have to pull the anchors. It started at 6am sharp making sure they don’t wake up the day people of course… and kept on all night or day whichever way you look at it, day time, but MY night.

The anchors are not though, more like massive chains that lie on the sea bed; their weight keep the rig from moving. So when they pull them up it's not subtle… one link must be about 100lbs and there’s a billion of them, coming up and banging inside the rig.

There are 12 anchors, 3 on each corner of the rig…. Guess what else is also right on the corner of the rig… my room :S

So I tried to sleep through an earthquake of 5.6 magnitude and a rumble that would put jet engines to shame…

I’m still trying to figure out the procedure for anchors, because all night it went: 30 minutes of rumbling, 5 min stop, 10 minutes of rumbling, 30 sec stop, 20 min of rumbling, 1-2h of distant to lesser rumbling (coming from the 3 other rig’s corners) and the pattern starts over.

I thought they’d pull one anchor on each corner and just keep on going until they are all up… apparently not :/

It should be finished by tomorrow morning… I f***** hope so cause 2 nights of this racket will make me very cranky…

*update: they have stopped pulling anchors at 6pm... because of bad weather conditions... the pulling of anchors will resume at 6am... because weather will be ok again at 6am sharp... strange how these things happen... perfectly timed like that so the day crew won't lose any sleep... very strange indeed...

Time to be green!

Even though I wont be drinking any green beer this year... keep one on ice for me for when I land in Mtl please... :)

...and those Guiness chocolate mousse will be on the menu as soon as I reach a suitable kitchen!

Hump day

Today is hump day... meaning it's my 11th day offshore, so I have only 10 left before going home providing the helicopter gods keep on smiling. Time goes at an upward crawl for the first 10 days, then hump day is at a stand still, then it's down hill from there until home is in sight :P

It's fairly relax these days, no big emergency or catastrophic failure always a good thing :), we're filling the days with maintenance and regular dives. The pace should pick up this week, when we start getting ready to move to another location... there'll be more diving, less tinkering. :)

:P

same ol' same ol'

I made it to the rig Sunday afternoon, after a boomerang flight >:( that's when we get to the rig, the chopper can't land because of low visibility and we go back to St.John's arg. The second try was a winner, but I ended up doing a 24h day... again... check in at 6am, at the heliport/in the air all day, on the rig at 4:30pm, work at 6pm, bed at 6:15am :S

Nothing much is going on here, we did one dive for bullseyes but otherwise it's been maintenance and inventory... f.a.s.c.i.n.a.t.i.n.g. *yaaawn* The most exciting thing has been 2 days going on 3 now without rain or fog or snow or wind! It's dry, calm and not even that cold... mom nature must be smokin' to be that mellow on us! now let's see if it lasts! :P

Rumors are flying about when the rig is gonna go in to get re-fit god knows it NEEDS it! it could be next week or in April or in May or in June and last 30 days or 45 or 60 or 120 days, we Oceaneering people might stay on board to fix our own stuff, but could be pulled out of there or not... as usual, information is very clear and precise...
Anyway, on board or on standby in the shop, since the rig will be right by the Newfoundland shore, it means at least one hitch where we'll get home on the day we're suppose to! yippee!

A day at Cougar

When weather is s*** and we're waiting to go offshore, here's what the day looks like

05:00am, Wake up
05:45am, Go to heliport
06:00am, Check in
06:30am, Watch safety video
07:00am, Sit in lounge and wait to be called
07:15am, Look outside, realize that visibility stops right outside window
07:30am, Hear rumor that we're not going anywhere
08:00am, Get a pager but still have to call the hotline every half hour in case pager does not work :S and voucher for breakfast and lunch, dinner + hotel room if you're on night shift
08:30am, Go to Comfort Inn for breakfast
09:30am, Go back to room to sleep or sit in lobby if you're on day shift
10:00am, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
10:30am, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
11:00am, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
11:30am, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
12:00pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
12:30pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
01:00pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
01:30pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
02:00pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
02:30pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
03:00pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, hear that all flights have been canceled for the day
03:30pm, Go back to Cougar to get luggage,
04:00pm, Go back to hotel

End of day

Repeat until the choppers fly...

the wonders of nature

After freezing rain and freezing drizzles, please welcome this Newfoundland gem : freezing fog!

I'm in a hotel by the airport, waiting to go offshore... the last 2 days have been very creative in finding ways to ground the helicopters... First time in my life I see ice specks hovering still in the air... like walking in a shining 3D futuristic animation... freezing fog... go figure makes the landscape all white and sparkly though... very pretty... :S

Pics are in!

You can see them in the Photo Albums section...
They include Sonia's birthday party at LaTulipe Friday night, La Nuit Blanche a Montreal on Saturday (the all night party I was talking about in a previous post) and Sunday afternoon at a friend's place to watch the final game Canada-USA for the GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD!!!!! we SO won!!!!!

a very full weekend... :)

Here's my favorite pic, click on the album for the rest

Skaters in old Montreal, on a background of city lights, Bonsecour Market and Ferris wheel... love the colors of that one :)

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD!!!

AND WHAT A GAME!!!!

I can't remember the last time I got so worked up over a sports event ok, the Saints victory was something, but it didn't have any national pride edge for me :P and damn I love that kid Crosby!!! Stupidly talented, humble, good looking.... He knows kids look up to him and always act accordingly unlike whatsisname Ovech*cough*

After 2 weeks of fast, high quality play, it's gonna be hard to go back to NHL standards...

This image is my favorite of all the games! both gloves and mouth piece flying in 3 different directions after his winning goal in overtime! A gear firework! :P


I've never been that patriotic or so happy to hear our National Anthem :P in my life than in the last 2 weeks...


You were all great... I loved you all... now come play for the Habs so I can love you still!!!

They are so freakin beautiful!!!! anybody selling one on ebay?! :P