After the most intestine week of training ever, I got to ride on a helicopter to quite literally the middle of nowhere. The flight was over cold water so that means we had to suit up in our cold water survival suits. They do not make for the most comfortable of fight wear. The loading and disembarking are very tricky and well coordinated operations.
When we landed I meet up with the person I would be replacing and handed off my life jacket. We had a very charming 3 second conversation as the helicopter in the background continued to run. After we where led inside I was given a platform orientation and tour.
The accommodations is a where the dorm style living happens. Two beds per room, lead your dirty laundry outside the door before you go to sleep and it will be back in the morning, here’s the galley only open for 4 means a day. The rec. room with pool table, darts, and TVs. The outside is where things get interesting. Fist there is the lifeboat stations. When there is a drill got to the right boat with your survival suit.
The main deck is where I started to recognize things from my land based rigs. The main deck was huge and covered in stacks of pipe and shipping containers. Two big cranes move things around daily and right in the middle of the deck was a rig. It seamed much bigger then the rigs I was use too.
The Derik was taller and the floor and the dog house where very different. The dog house was an explosion proof box. Everything off shore has to be explosion proof. When I finally got to my work spot it was very different too.. To get in you had to pass thru an airlock set of doors. It had running water in the unit and lots of counters space. But most notably it had close to 20 computers in there with different displaces. All showing something different happening on the rig.
I made friends fast and got to know as many people as a could. The cooks by far where the best. We are off the cost of Scotland but very much an international community. The cooks where from Scotland. And one night I walk in to get my midnight meal (lunch) and the cook asks me where I’m from and I tell him. He then slams down his spoon and says in a very think accent “Damn it! Isn’t there anyone from this side of the pond in here tonight? Nothing but yanks and Canadians” Apparently the Canadians had gone thru the line ahead of me and no one else had come to lunch yet.
My coworkers for the two weeks where as absolutely amazing. They came from all over and had great stories about life offshore. They were nice enough to play darts with me after shift. And when I got pack to shore one of them took me out on the town in Aberdeen and we had a great time. In Aberdeen there is a church that has been turned into a bar. If you ever get the chance you should check it out.
BUT the single most amazing thing was tea time. Twice a shift (total of four times a day) the whole rig would shut down. All drilling would more or less stop. Everyone would go to one of two brake rooms. Smoking and nonsmoking. There would be fresh pastries, cookies, snacks, and hot tea. The smoking shack always got the better stacks but no one was ever in the non smoking one so you could take as much as you wanted. We even had a kettle in our work unit. For 10 minutes twice a day everyone would stop working and have tea and snacks. Best part of the day hands down. In my option it made us work harder and was good for morale. Truly the best idea ever.