Been a long time and a lot has changed

It's been a number of years since I last posted anything here.. this has largely been due to life taking more of a front seat of late. After a reasonable stint working in the Caspian Sea, I'm now home and looking for new oceans to challenge me.

Done

SO finally the email came out...

I handed in my notice to my present employer some 2 weeks ago and have been biting my tounge for months now, since I was first approached about the new job.

We found someone internally who is suitable and willing to take over from me. It's going to be tough for a time. but he is very good.

As with all these sorts of anouncements, the email came out after the normal work finishing time which means most will read it monday morning. A few have already been told and mixed responces from suprise, congratulation and shock. only a few have disagreed with my choice. That gives me greater confidence in the decision too.

Now just the 6 weeks till finish date and then the new start as a contractor to an oil company

Travelling things

I recently read a very good blog:
http://www.vagabondlara.com/2010/05/my-packing-list-around-world-with-one.html#comments

It was describing a packing list for a trip to India and it got me thinking about what practical advice I would give.

so here it goes:

1. dress well.
In the developing world the people dress as smart as they can afford to. by all means travelling clothes which are lightweight, easy to clean and cool to wear are very useful. But when out there is a point when you say.. I am NOT travelling now. I am settled here for some days and I want to wear normal clothes. Jeans t-Shirt maybe even a shirt and a pair of smart shoes. These are needed to feel comfortable when all the people who suround you are apparently dressed up to the nines. I now generally pack the same as I would do at home with only a light weight travel version for the journey.

Bags
I have a vast experience and delight in bags. My wife moans and every new bag must force another one out the pile apparently. So I have become bag clever. One thing is that rutsacks are great for getting things around on foot. however. they are crap for living out of and even worse for leaving space in for new items or splitting. I take with me a super lightweight waterproof 150L bag I found at REI some years ago. It absolutely kicks ass! I have other duffel type bags which have pull out shoulder straps when I really need the space. One way to see it is the only time you will ever be able to pack properly are when your at your own home so once your 5 - 6 hours away from home.. it suddenly will spill out unless you have the space left or space to expand to.

Toiletries
Dont underestimate the medicenes you take without even thinking about it. simple parasetamol, antiseptic cream, plasters these things are not always easy to get hold of and should be kept and looked after. I normally take a collection of pills etc in my toiletries. on top of this I normally only take a small amount of normal toiletries soap, shower jel, toothpaste.. because most cleaning products are more than avaliable in the developing world or atleast a cheaper version which works just as well. and well for an extended stay, your more than likley to run out of anything you take anyway.

Batteries
Anything you take that needs batteries will invaribly need a battery or recharge during your trip.. take spares. preferably take the things which use the same size of battery to minimise the ones you take. remember humidity is a huge problem so take sealable boxes or bags to keep electronics in where possible.

Phones.
Make sure your cell phone will work where your going. it is useful to have your phone cracked so you can use a local sim card easily.

document bag.
I have found it vital to keep a document bag. about the size of an A5 document and seethough sides to hold documents and keep them dry and also able to fit into a small bag. Make copies of everything and keep these separate too.

Books
NEVER underestimate the worth of taking normal physical paper books.. there are numerous times you would NOT want to show a digital version and they are tradable and they are useful to read when bored which can happen often. Take at least 1 large one and 3 in total!

I recoemend the following vaccinations:
Typhoid, Polio, tetnus, yellow fever, diptheria, HepA, HepB, Chollera and some long term anti malarial. it may seem like overkill but you see someone having a malarial relapse and you understand why. be cautious of some of the antimalarial.. they have been known to cause depression.

Deepwater Horizon and Oil Spill

Okay. I’ve wanted to write about the Oil Spill that happened in the Gulf of Mexico for days now, but haven’t had the time or energy to write it well. So here it goes:

Firstly, I have worked in the Gulf of Mexico as an oceanographer and specifically worked installing and maintaining a current measurement system for the Deepwater Horizon rig when it was pretty much at the location where it exploded and sank. So I’ve spent some weeks on the DH and also some time in Venice Louisiana where the oil is striking land presently.

Incident
The actual incidence is fairly well understood now that the rig had pretty much finished the well and was in the process of recovering the drill tool and getting ready to fill the well hole with concrete to plug it for the months or years till it was to be used by BP as a production well. A pocket of Methane or possibly H2S gas escaped from the well and rose through the riser drill pipe. This would normally have been stopped by the lubricating drill mud which fills the riser, but this was either removed or at low pressure because the drilling had stopped. All oil rigs have different zones which define what type of electrical devices can be used these are (simplified) save zone and hazardous zone. Where the hazardous zones are where such gasses can expect to accumulate from time to time and thus the equipment there are designed to avoid electrical or mechanical sparks, heat sources or spaces where gas can collect. However with this incident, the gas bubble was so large that it engulfed the whole rig including the safe zones where equipment is normal as we would have in our homes maybe. At some point there was a spark which ignited the gas which apparently blew up all the gas in the drill pipe which acted like a bomb and took out the rig structure and also the pontoon floats which keep the rig on the surface. It was at this point the rig started to list and people were evacuated. I would have expected the whole team who were working the drill floor to have lost their lives in the initial explosion, while I am relived that the majority of people were saved!

The BOP
The Blow Out Preventor sits on the seabed and is often around the size of 2 x Hummer cars on top of one another. They are basically a funnel which the drill pipe enters to start to drill in the seabed. It has the benefits of having a shut off failsafe which would stop any of the above gas pockets or a sudden push of oil from rising up the drill pipe to the rig drill deck. However, in this case the BOP failsafe did not trigger and the gas escaped. There is discussion that the unit did not have an accoustic trigger too. I can't comment on that, however I hear that it was well maintained and was owned by Transocean and supplied by Cameron. This is very likley to be the issue when the whole issue comes to court..

The Oil
The itself is a fairly light weight oil compared to the thicker crude which is found in the North Sea or Alaska for example. It would therefore be more mobile in the water and more effected by currents but also by detergents and biodegradation.

Oil would normally degrade going through numerous stages where the chemical components change. Other people know far more about this than me, however I am aware that the changes are good as the further down this process, the less oil there is which can cause damage and the closer to biologically usable oil the spill would become. The best place for these changes would be at sea where the action of waves, currents, wind and biological activity would speed this up. If the oil reaches beaches and coastline, it often attaches to the sediment found there where it stops or reduces the changes and you might get longer term pollution for example 10 – 20 years of damage is possible. It is therefore important to keep the oil from shore and at sea. It is also good news when bad weather or seas occur as these would aid the dissipation.

The currents and waves
The currents in the gulf are fairly small for the most part and often the sea can be totally flat with barely a ripple. Which is great for a fishing and pleasure sailing industry. However a major current is called the Loop Current which generally enters the gulf as an eddy from the Gulf Stream and moves anti clockwise around the gulf. It is a warm core eddy which rotates clockwise, if you can picture a clockwise rotating piece of water which is moving in an anticlockwise movement around the gulf.



So what this would mean for the oil is that it is being dragged generally towards the Western end of the gulf, but locally it is being spread along the north and eastern coastline too. This is pretty bad for the oil spill defence as more coastline will be effected and it is plausible that the entire coastline of the gulf will be covered. I think it is unlikely that the East Coast of the states outside of the gulf would actually be affected, but the oil really needs to be kept away from shore.

and on..

What was my job..?

I was measuring the water current in the water column near the rig to determine if the drilling riser could get damaged by shear.

we would steam for maybe an hour in a transect and deploy a sensor. This would measure the currents for 20 minutes and then we would recover the sensor. process the results, send a report to the client by email and then continue on our journey for an hour.

This meant I had about 30 minute breaks waiting to reach each stop point. I did various things in this time depending what was planned. I could have my meal. make an email to the office or home, watch part of a movie.. but most of all I liked to...

Watch the water at night as we steamed. I loved it.. the splash of water with light from the vessel being lit by the deck lights. I liked to sit on a piece of steelwork looking out to sea. The flying fish were the best thing of all. When a shole would pass by attracted to the light they could be seen to fly around the vessel for 20 - 30 yards and had such grace. I had never seen them in until that trip and it was amazing! One jumped onto the deck and I was able to look at it's shape. the "wings were just like birds wings crossed with a dragonfly wings.. strange and normal to look at all at once...

This process went on for 2 weeks.. In that time:

I got hit in the face with a 200kg weight. This gave me a small scar under my eye.. I was lucky it didn't give me more. (most friends say they don't notice a scar... but I do)

I caught a cold and sniffed and grumped for a few days.

I met a guy with a cooler job than mine.. he looked for whales.. that was it.. 2 weeks at a time.. offshore, looking for whales.. :^)

Anyway, The job finaly ended and I made the return journey only pausing to be given a baseball cap and watch by the rig people for a job well done.. *sigh*

Next installment, I'll be in Belem again waiting for 3 days for my flight.. I wonder what will happen.

The story went on...

We entered the "Heli Admin Room" signed our names and were dispatched to the canteen for a cup of coffee. The thing that amazes me about american rigs, is the amount of cake and sweets they have ALWAYS avaliable. I had a few cups of coffe and a slice of cake while waiting and eventually the crane was ready for my next journey.

I put on another life jacket and walked across the helideck again. This time a "basket" was there that I had to climb onto and be hoisted some 30m into the air and over the sea to a supply vessel that was now bobbing up and down near the rig.

I don't like using these things, they are banned in some parts of the world as they are erm.. somewhat unsafe.. infact do a search for the image..

Offshore Basket transfer

On the rig I met up with a guy who was to become a friend when I moved to Houston. He showed me around the vessel and our equipment. We were on 12 hour shifts me and him.. I was working from 12 o'clock lunch time until 12 o'clock midnight. He showed me the procedures for a few hours until 3 and then he went to bed to catch some zzzz's as I finished off my shift and added an hour for him to get a little extra sleep.

Right Right.. where was I.. :^)

So there I was in the jungle waiting for my helicopter.. The meal we ate was a little unsettling (spicy!) but all in all it was a gloriously exciting day. Eventually after a few hours of waiting a "thud thud thud" noise of helicopter blades cut into the air and we knew the next stage of the job was kicking off.

As a group we went back to the air strip which was looking brigher than ever.. We were still in shade at the edge of the air strip while the absence of trees makes the sunlight shine in and shows the ground as a dusty green.

The chopper had landed and we all climbed on board one after the other with our life jackets on around our necks.

The view on the way out was AMAZING.. I have been on well over 100 helicopter rides, but this one sticks out as one of the best. The rain forrest was below me and we were cruzing at around 100m. Terrific patches of grass and river as the jungle canopy openned every now and then. After 30 minutes of flight, we reached the coast and the great brown sea where the amazon chucks out all off the sedement. I know this area as a ROFI (Region Of Freshwater Influence). I worked out later that the water remained brown for around 70 km from the coast. Eventually we decended closer to water and we saw the rig we were headed for.

This was an old american rig, didn't look amazing.. But hell I was getting off it shortly anyway. The Chopper landed with a light judder and after a few moments we stepped outside, picked up our luggage, and decended into the bowels of the rig.