I went to great pains to arrange for my off-shore medical, in a sensible manner, co-ordinating with all the relevant parties, while en-route to Norway for my trip to the vessel. Then, last minute changes to the crew-change, had the office re-scheduling my travel from Aberdeen to Norway with too tight a margin for me to be able to make the flight after my medical appointment. A fact that I didn’t find out until late in the evening the night before, (and only then thanks to the vessel co-ordinator calling me to check that I’d got them!). Thankfully I’ve now managed to get a THIRD set of flight bookings that has me making all the connections that I need, albeit with only 10 minutes to spare between my arrival in Brønnøysund, Norway and the check-in time for my helicopter flight. The plus side is that I’m supposed to be on the first helicopter, so if I am in anyway delayed, I can be switched to the second one to give a bit of lee-way. All of this was on top of having a tight connection in Chicago and missing my original flight to the UK, being transfered to a later flight and making it to Aberdeen six hours later than originally planned. My recent history with Chicago O’Hare has not been good!
Brønnøysund, Norway is a first for me, and I believe that it may be the furthest north I’ve ever been (70 miles south of the arctic circle) while still on land, though I have been further north while at sea.
