Clothes Drier

Dazzle has shamed me into posting on my blog… such a long time since my last proper posting.
Hmmm, so much has happened. I guess, first off there was the un-planned excursion with the Land Rover. The less said about that the better. There have  been a couple of trips off-shore since then, the first entirely in Norway. The second, well, I went to Norway supposedly for four weeks. When I arrived however, I was told that it would be six weeks. Two weeks into the trip I was asked if I could go to Australia to attend some meetings for a project we have coming up there at the end of the year. So, off I went, via a short visit to Buckie, Aberdeen, London, Dubai to Perth Australia. A day in the office, three days of meetings. Now I filling in the day before departing from Perth at the crack of dawn tomorrow to head back to the ship, via Dubai, Frankfurt and Stavanger. The Australia jaunt has now broken up what was starting to look like a long trip.

Sprinklers on the New Garden Area

Last leave we got a lot done around the ranch. We got our little clothes drier up, we got a lot of the new ‘adult area’ sorted out – a little vegetable garden area with some nice seating where only certain dogs are allowed and only under express invitation! We even finally put up our humming bird feeders, something that has been on the ‘to-do’ list forever!

Humming Birds at the new Feeder

So, next stop Norway, then around two weeks later, back in Colorado. This next leave could be my last one before winter sets in – I know, it’s 90 degF and we’re talking about winter – so there will be a lot of things to get done, most of which were on this years ‘Springs’ list, but have been over-taken by events.

Long, long time since I posted last.
Since my last post, I’ve had two trips offshore. The first was on-board the “Skandi Neptune” in the Gulf of Mexico. There I was working with the “PVLS”, essentially a clone of the main piece of equipment that we had on-board the Perseus. Although physically similar, there were enough differences in the control system to make it a good learning experience for me… I kept wondering how would could incorporate the improved points of it into the system that we had on the Perseus. That system, in the mean time, was being worked on in Dusavik in preparation for it going onto another vessel.
The second trip, which I’m heading towards the end of now, is on-board the “Skandi Seven”. On here I have been reunited with ‘my’ VLS, which has now been renamed “PVLS02”. Something of an irony really, as the ‘P’ is supposed to stand for ‘Portable’ and PVLS02 is now on it’s fourth vessel, whereas, PVLS has only ever been on the one vessel. I somehow feel we’ve been downgraded a bit!
I have been asked to be interviewed for a position on the “Seven Pacific”. I’m not sure how I feel about it. Before, when there was little word of the work on the “Skandi Seven”, it would have been a logical move. Now, I feel that there is little to gain from it and potentially a lot to lose. Even if I do interview, I don’t have to take it or even make up my mind immediately.
As I said earlier in this blog entry, I’m heading towards the end of my current trip. I’m due off in three days in fact. However, Eyjafjallajokull may have different plans for me. The Icelandic volcano’s eruption has played havoc with European air travel for four days now, and at the moment – to quote Icelandic geologist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson: “It’s the magma mixing with the water that creates the explosivity. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.”, This coupled with the fact that weather experts say wind patterns mean the cloud is not likely to move far until later in the week, means that Wednesday’s crew-change could be in doubt.

It’s been a long time since I posted a blog entry, so there’s a lot to catch up on.

Well, during my last leave we got a huge amount of work done on the ranch. Even so, there were still some things that we had wanted to get done that had to be postponed. Anyway, the major things were getting my work benches and tools sorted out in the barn, then getting some lambing pens built inside the main area of the barn. That necessitated a big clear-out, moving a lot of stuff into the hay barn while construction was on-going, then moving it all back in again after-wards.

We also got the washer plumbed up in the well-pump house, with only one gusher, but the least said about that the better! “There’s a limit to what can go wrong with a bit of home plumbing”, as we keep saying. In line with fitting the washer we also plumbed in a small electric water heater, and while we were at it we got the old UK tumble drier going too.

We did some work dividing off a bit of the animal pen to give the dogs a bit more room to roam, as we also managed to cut down a bit on the number of livestock we had. No more angora goats, now we just have sheep and dairy goats. We have added some angora rabbits though.

On the last two days of my leave we put up two trailer loads of hay. On the second run, while I was loading the hay, I turned wrong and pulled something in my leg. Absolute agony. Luckily the farmer arrived just at that time and he and one of his farm hands finished loading the trailer for me. When I got back to the ranch I’m afraid I had to sit on a bale and watch Dazzle unload. Chauvinism at its best! The leg is better now, but still quite colourful with the bruising.

Then I was on my travels again, back to Europe. First to the UK where I had a day in the office to discuss some control system issues for the Perseus’ replacement. Then straight from the office in the evening for a flight over to Norway before joining the Perseus for my third ‘last trip’. This one does seem likely to be the last. We still have the on-going project to complete, but there is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel. Lots of planning for the demobilisation, but until the project is officially complete we’re straining at the leash before starting all out disconnections.

I do keep joking that we can’t start the demob until the 13th of November, as the 12th is the last of my ‘contract days’ so I’ll be on to day-rate after then!

As I suspected in my last entry, this will not be my last trip on the Perseus. The current project has been seriously hampered by bad weather (something that’s unlikely to improve at this time of year in the North Sea) and we still have a number of things to get done before the demobilization. The usual rumor mill has been churning at full speed and the latest good one is that, soon, if not immediately, after we demobilize the VLS from the Perseus it is to be mobilized on one of our other ships..
As the old Chinese curse says: ‘may you live in interesting times’

I’ve been back on the boat for over a week now and to be honest the trip is dragging already. We’ve been plagued by bad weather which is hampering operations quite a bit. That is going to have a knock-on effect, not only on this project’s schedule, but also the de-mobilization of the Perseus which is supposed to follow straight on the heels of these works.

Along with all the operational things, we’re still getting questions and queries, about not only the imminent de-mob, but also still a few on the ‘Pacific’ and her new systems.

A lot of the guys are getting a little ‘antsy’ as they know that this could be their last trip on ‘Perseus’, but still have no idea what the immediate future holds for them work-wise. We do know that the company’s stated intention is to utilize the personnel as and where required, then to get them back together again as the ‘Pacific’ moves towards it’s commissioning phase. There is likely to be a gap of at least six months between ‘Perseus’ and ‘Pacific’ but no real indication of how and where the guys (including myself!) are to be used. Even if they do disperse us in the short term, the likelihood of getting all of us back together again for the ‘Pacific’ seems like a bit of a vain hope to me. People may get temporary assignments that they like, in which case they may not want to leave them to come back for the ‘Pacific’, or they may get assignments that they hate, and decide to move on somewhere else completely.

Needless to say, the rumor mill has been in full grind with stories of the ODIM winch (a big piece of equipment that we had on the Perseus a year or so ago) being mobilised on one of our other ships, our own VLS being mobilised on another chartered vessel in the fleet, and I have heard that there is ‘definite’ work for the VLS on a.n.other ship in the Asia-Pacific region for 2011. That still doesn’t help us in the short term.

All in all, with things being such a drag here, I’m already trying to figure out what all jobs I need to do a home during my next leave! hahah

It’s been a busy night so far. We’re dealing the the end of a riser installation, which has necessitated changing from Tandem tensioners to lower tensioner only, to upper tensioner only, back to lower tensioner only and then on to the abandonment and recovery winch.  Keeps people on their toes with the multiple procedures that have to be gone through with each change over.

I started the trip on night-shift, then changed to day shift for what would have been the ‘second’ half of my trip. Then, with my trip being extended, I had to change back on to nights, where I thought I’d be for the remainder of the trip. However, my colleague is crew changing a week early, so now, I’m going to have to change back on to day shift again. My body-clock is seriously messed up!

While we’ve been operational with our ‘day job’ we’ve also had to do a lot of preparation and paper-work regarding the de-mobilization of all our equipment from the Toisa Perseus, an event that seems to be approaching with increasing rapidity. I guess it’s a sign of the times when I compare the preparation and documentation that we now have to have in place, to when we last de-mobilized the equipment from a vessel (that WAS 11 years ago!) In them days, we just got up in the morning and did it using a big slice of common sense for safety matters. So far, for this impending de-mob, we’ve probably accumulated 10 times the man hours in planning than we expended on the entire de-mob last time. Along with all that of course, we’re still having to deal with questions and queries for the replacement ship, Seven Pacific.

On a much lighter note, Dazzle listed a ‘Fiber Grab Bag‘ (a small selection of different fibers for people to try) on our etsy store yesterday. She posted about it in her ‘twitter’ account (as did I) and mentioned it on a couple of her Yahoo groups. Within 24 hours it had accumulated over 170 views, making it our most viewed item ever… She’s tried a new listing with the same technique so we’ll see if it will generate the same number of views!

I’m writing this courtesy of the free WiFi in KLM’s Crown Lounge in Amsterdam airport. It’s the first time that I’ve managed to get in here in all the times that I have been through Amsterdam. The key this time, was my ‘Flying Blue – Petroleum Club’ frequent flyer card. We had all been asked by the company to get one, obviously not for the benefit of access to the lounge but, because having the petroleum card is proof that an individual is eligible for ‘seaman’ discounted air fares – thus giving the company cheap options for crew-change flights!

As I said, I’m in Amsterdam, en-route back to Colorado. I actually got of the ship yesterday, but had to stay in a hotel overnight, as my arrival on-shore was too late to get a flight home that day (i.e. after 12 noon!) It was an early start, and I’ll have almost exactly 25 hours traveling (airport to airport) and almost exactly half of that time will be spent hanging around either Amsterdam or Minneapolis airports. Hence why I’m quite excited about actually being able to get into a lounge, where I can a least sit down in relative comfort for a while. Of course, free internet access and cappuccino on tap are additional pluses!

Minneapolis has always been less of a problem as, like almost all American airport hubs, my American Express card seems to get me into most airline lounges. (You just slip the card between the door and the door jamb, and slide it up until the card pushes the latch in… hey presto! – only joking)

So, what all has been going on between now and my last posting? Well, to be honest, not much of interest from my perspective.

The project that we were on with the Perseus didn’t have much involvement for us for the last few weeks, so we’ve mainly been catching up on maintenance and the like. Even that is a bit thin on the ground given that there has been a tailing off of interest in the Perseus’ systems in the last few month… everyone seems to be on a count-down to the de-mobilisation. There has still been the occasional questions from the office relating to the new-build vessel, Seven Pacific, but even those seem to  be tailing off as I think we’re at the stage where what they’ve decided already is what we’re going to get.

There has been an announcement about redundancies within the company owing to the global down-turn. Nothing specific as yet, other than the figure of 85 staff positions has been mentioned (along side an unspecified number of ‘contract’ positions). Of course, nothing on whether those are ON-shore or OFF-shore positions! The cynic in me is sort of assuming that they are on-shore positions, as there would have been little announcement or publicity if it were only the off-shore animals that were being laid off.

Anyhoo, more to the point, I’m on my way home. For that I’m happy, though perhaps with a little trepidation, as Dazzle says that this leaves job list has 45 items on it…..

So what all have I been up to, and where all have I been since my last blog entry?
Well, last time I wrote, I was on the ship en-route to Norway. We arrived in Norway, and I got off the ship, had an overnight stay before journeying onward.
First leg was to Aberdeen where, after picking up a hire car, I headed out to Buckie for a very flying visit to my parents. The hire car itself was a bit of an experience. Luckily one of my colleagues was going part way along the same route, so he drove as far as Keith, which got me well clear of city traffic before I took the wheel, bearing in mind that this was the first time I had driven on the “right” (well, left actually!) side of the road for over three years!
I did make it to my parents without incident, and only then realised that, although the route I had taken was a very familiar one, it was in fact the first time that I had ever driven it myself.
It was a great visit with my folks, even though very short, and in the course of the few hours I was there, my sister, niece and nephew all popped in at one time or another. The visit also gave me an opportunity to be reunited with my wayward luggage that I mentioned in my last posting!
The following morning it was back on the road again (clutching my bag!), into Aberdeen, dropping off the hire car and then flying back to Colorado via Amsterdam and Minneapolis. I arrived in Colorado late on Friday night and was back at the ranch in the wee hours of Saturday morning.
Saturday was a bit of a rest day, and then it was down to the serious business at hand. A lot of work to do, and not a lot of time to get it done. From the Sunday to the following Sunday we achieved a great deal, mostly cleaning out some of the animal pens, the chicken coops and re-doing the smaller of the two coops for more head-room. We got a new batch of day-old chicks to replace our current layers as they grow older (once the new ones are old enough to start laying, the older ones may end up in the freezer, but don’t tell them that!)
The other big job was getting the freezer room in the barn walled in, insulated, and making a door for it. Lots of other little jobs too, but still some time to get caught up on the TV shows that Dazzle had recorded for me. Some friends took out a couple of different calibre rifles, a .30-06 and a 6mm, to the ranch and we had some target practice to let me try them out.
On the last Monday we had a road trip over to the other side of the state. The weather for the most part of the leave had been very good, but (of course) on the Monday morning it was freezing cold and started to snow just as soon as we went outside at 4:30am to start the chores! Road conditions on the outward part of the road trip were pretty treacherous, particularly around Alma and the Hosier/Frisco Pass, just south of Breckenridge. Once we were on I-70 things were a bit better. We made it to our destination a little behind schedule, but we did pick up the animals that we had gone for and headed back home. The day had improved remarkably and the roads were not only clear, but mostly dry for the homeward leg so we made better time.
While on our road trip, I received my travel details for the following day, so we knew that when we got home it would have to be a relatively early night. Tuesday had to be an early start to get the chores done before heading off to the Airport. Back to Norway again, via Minneapolis and Amsterdam. Then, once in Norway after 24 hours traveling, about 4 hours kicking my heels at the Airport before my helicopter flight out to the ship. So, back on the ship again after less than two weeks off, and only ten days at home.
This trip is only scheduled to be three weeks though, which isn’t too bad. But, (isn’t there always a ‘but’) although I’ll have three off in theory, I will have to leave Colorado early again, as I have an appointment at he US Consulate in London to renew my visa on the way back to the ship next time.

Ah, well, yet again I appear to be ‘guilty as charged’ when it comes to failing to keep my blog up to date. Now, thats not to say that I’ve had nothing to write about, quite the reverse in fact.

As usual at this sort of times the main questions are “where do I start?” and “what do I put in?”, or even “what do I leave out?”

So if I went for the answers I’d like they be, “the last blog entry”, “everything” and “nothing”, but the reality will have to be “from the last blog entry”, “what I can remember”, and “what I’ve forgotten”!

So since my last entry, I’ve been on leave and come back to the boat. I was on leave for just under three weeks and, though generally quite busy, the biggest achievement was probably getting the plumbing installed in the well pump-house and that was finished on the last day of my leave! So now instead of having to run out over 100 feet of garden hose and plugging the electric lead for the pump into a socket, there is now a stand pipe with a faucet at the corner of the barn and all you have to do is open it. A bladder forces the water out, and when the pressure in the bladder drops, a switch turns on the pump automatically.

We had some livestock movements, exchanged a couple of goats, bought four more angora goats, two doe’s, a doe kid and a buck kid. We had someone come and shear four of the sheep and five of the goats. (That was followed with the ‘fun’ task of trying to get coats on them all!) We also sold a number of our older chickens. One aspect of that was, after we had cut the numbers down, egg production went up! Not sure if it was because of fighting between the younger and older chickens or whether we had an older chicken that was breaking and eating eggs. Net result though is that we are down to 14 chickens and re getting an average of 10 eggs a day. (of course, Dazzle wants to know who the slackers are!)

Dazzle had purchased a couple of small looms, so they were assembled for her to start weaving on them. She managed to finish her first scarf on it before I left and it looked really cool.

I did actually get a painting done, however that too, was in the last day of my leave and was done in a relative hurry, in artificial light. So I really have no idea at the moment how it turned out. I suspect I may be slightly disappointed with it when I see it again but, even if I am, it is a painting concept that I like so I’ll probably try another version of it in the future.

We, Dazzle and I, went up to Denver to see an immigration attorney on the subject of applying for my ‘green card’. It was a very informative meeting and I think that its likely that, come the New Year, we will be starting the process. A an aid to that, I went to Colorado Springs to have the medical examination that needs to be submitted with the application.

The only other trip we had was for another herding lesson, and this was the day trip that we picked up the new angoras too.

Well, then, back to the boat. The return to the boat started off badly when I discovered that American Airlines are now charging ‘excess baggage’ charges for ALL checked-in bags. That made me mump a bit, but not nearly as much as finding out, on arrival, that they’d only gone and lost it! I was cheered up slightly when I found out that I wasn’t going straight to the boat as I had thought, but would have a night in the hotel first. Anyway, the next day, I joined the ship and we were about to leave Panama City, FL for the transit to Nigeria. I did get word that the airline had found my bag, but it wouldn’t make it to the boat before we sailed. At least I had some clothes on the boat, so it would be a big deal for the transit, only when I need to travel home!

Now we have been in transit since the 24th November, and at the moment, we’re expected to arrive in Nigerian waters around the 17th December, and it looks likely that I will be traveling back to Europe on a charter flight thats tentatively penciled in for overnight on the 19th/20th December.

The big news of the trip so far, is the fact that 3 (of the 19) regular crew have just handed in their notice for various reasons. Two of them are off to work for a new competitor and were due to be joining the ship on arrival in Nigeria. If they don’t do a last trip then the big boss has decided that we will have to manage without them, as he is not going to ask any of the guys that are supposed to be home to give up their Christmas (all the guys who are at home worked Christmas last year)

So, there we are, a bit of a catch up. I’m sure I’ll manage another entry before the end of the year…

Its wearing on towards the end of the trip again, and, yet again, I’ll be glad to get home! The ship has been busy with refurbishment and working towards being re-certified for it’s class, something that is required of it now that it is 10 years old. Hard to believe that we have been on here for 10 years! Having said that, we now only have one more year to go and the charter (which had been extended) is up and the ship will be handed back to Sealion. On that subject, I was at a meeting today, to discuss some of the scope of work that will be involved in the removal of our equipment like the VLS tower, and it’s installment onto the ‘TPR’ (Toisa Perseus Replacement) There was a bit of an irony there as the Perseus is currently moored at exactly the same spot as the “Adams Challenge” was when we installed and commisioned the VLS when it was brand new. What are the chances of that!?!