Day 3 - Sunday/Monday

Sunday, started off so well, then went so wrong, and ended with high spirits. 

Every week the rig has a fire drill and an abandon rig drill. This occurs every Sunday afternoon at 12:30. This kind of stinks for those of us who work 18:00 to 6:00, but it must be done. The sirens wake me up, well I guess half way wake me up. More in a half conscious state I slip into my coveralls, pull on my boots, grab my hard hat and safety glasses, and pull my life jacket out of the closet and put it on. The muster point is by the forward lifeboats. There is a card there I must grab with my room and bunk number which is assigned to me. This is a way that those in charge of ensuring a full muster can quickly tell who is and is not present. In my half conscious state, I convince myself that I am in bunk 2 and grab the appropriate card. Now I take my place milling about the forward deck seeking out a spot near the railing that offers both a little shade and breeze off the water. I like this spot, you can stand here and gaze out to the southern horizon. To the left on a clear day you can see the continental coastline, to the front and the right is the boundless ocean. Antarctica lays many thousands of miles to the south and South America thousands of miles to the west. It boggles the mind, at least my mind, when I try to comprehend how vast this world is. I can spit out facts to describe it such as mass, diameter, surface area of land or sea, density, but to just realize what those facts mean. This is an incredible plant, no matter how it lines up with other potentially habitual plants in the universe. 

About five minutes later they call out my name and I go forward only to realize that I made a mistake. My bunk number is in fact number 1, so I swap out cards. I am subsequently counted as ‘missing’ for the fire drill, but present for the abandon rig drill. This is dumb/irresponsible mistake number one. Oh, I should mention that my cabin mate is the day MWD so he called in and was not required to be present at the drill. A rig operates 24hrs a day and those vital to making sure it stays fully operational can call in for the drill and are not required to be physically present. 

After the drills conclude there is a weekly safety meeting in the rec room. This meeting is different from the pre-tour safety meeting in that they cover a particular safety item to cover. Today we learned about heat related hazards, and how to mitigate the risk of heat related incidents. As I struggled to keep my eyelids open, I start to question how much water I drink and then I start to experience the phenomena of feeling the symptoms of what was being talked about. Haha, head ache, dizziness, nausea, unclear thinking or actions, ect… oh, and heat rashes. I don’t pay attention to heat rashes when here in Africa though because I have easily gotten heat rashes since I was a little kid. Finally, the meeting is over. I go to the galley to get a water bottle, and head back to bed. I set my alarms for 17:00 and 17:05 and easily drift into what will prove to be a very deep sleep. 

19:20:

I wake up as Purdue, the day MWD, opens the cabin door and calls out, “Hey Andrew, are you awake?”  Me, “Nope, but I am now. I am really, really sorry!” Talk about majorly irresponsible. Sleeping though ones alarm and being late to work is something I hate and to my mind is the mark of being non trust worthy, irresponsible, and in general a bad employee. This is the classic no-no. As I quickly throw on my work clothes and head out to the work unit, I know I won’t hear the end of this for a while, and I deserve it. It is now 19:25 and I am explaining that I have no excuse for my actions. I have earned myself a nick name now with the company man (the man who is essentially in charge of the rig). I am Rip Van Winkle. Nicknames are a tricky thing, you hope to get a cool nickname, but those generally take time to earn. The potential embarrassing or un-cool nick names come from stupidity, and are earn instantly. Rip Van Winkle, it has a massive stigma of being a sleepy head and therefore is the later kind of nickname. I mildly redeem myself with my fellow night shift companions by keeping the coffee pot flowing. 

We aren’t going to be drilling until past midnight, so fortunately I didn’t over sleep on anything critically important. The evening starts out slow as we are doing a wiper trip, which is where you circulate, bring the bit back up the hole a ways, circulate, run the bit back to the bottom, and circulate again. I think about calling people, but it is a Sunday morning/early afternoon and the sates, and an hour later in Germany. So I settle on reading, listening to music, writing a little, and chatting with other SLB friends around the world.

Fun fact of the post, with EQG being almost smack dab on the equator, the difference in daylight from winter to summer is 4 minutes. Sunrise is at 6:45 and sunset is at 18:45. Therefore, we don’t have daylight savings time. Half the year we are in time with the British Isles, and half the year with the continental Europe. 

Once we start drilling again around 2 in the morning things go smoothly. I check my depth sensor, and record pressure readings, as well as send out my reports, logs, and excel spreadsheets. There is a question about one of the excel files, and while I can give a basic explanation of what it is used for, I decide to go do more background reading on it. Well that is about it. Drilling is going really smoothly. As the company man said in the safety meeting, these last few weeks has been some of the smoothest drilling operations he has seen in a long time. I am reminded to stay diligent though as you don't want to ever let your guard down out here. The crew change is at 0600hr and I spend the next 45 minutes asking questions about details that I was not clear on through the evening. It is vital that I learn what I don't know, and to know what I don't know. If that makes any sense. I headed to the galley before it closed at 7am. Time for another days sleep, better wake up on time.

Chow!

P.S.

This is a view of the "Moon Pool". You can see the yellow bit suspended from the BHA coming down from the roof. This is from an earlier run. The 26 inch diameter section. Photo thanks agian to work colleagues.