So
as I sit here on the eve of Lucy's 21st birthday, miles
apart. My feet cold, my water chilled and my stomach bloated from
eating a whole bar of Cadbury's Dream chocolate I ask myself... just
how did I get here? o_O
I
really should be rigwise, I mean on the Deep Water Frontier about
60km north of Barrow Island. But they sent me back for a few days
because... I'm not sure -__ - but I know they might have needed the
bed space and I wasn't doing anything there. But my story begins back
when I was delivering leaflets, clue theme music for scene change.
It
was an overcast day in autumn here in Perth...
It
was overcast, but don't think for a moment that it was cold. At this
point I still didn't own a jumper or fleece and hadn't worn that or
trousers for months and today was no exception. Where I was, was down
in North Fremantle, dispute being called 'North' its the most
southern place I deliver to, but obviously every north is also a
south... cept Antar... anyway lets not get bogged down in that. The
area is really cool by the way and the highway there always has
massive trucks going by with like 32-36 wheels. The houses are
snuggling settled amongst house sized warehouses and old shops which
look like houses without doors and you wonder, if only passing there,
whether they are any houses there at all but there are and there are
actually quite a few. I was delivering over the east side of Stirling
highway when I got a phone call. I'd been expecting one... but I'd
been expecting one for days and I'd started to think there wasn't
going to be one. I had become content with life in the previous few
minutes as I was listening to Ross Noble conduct live Cluedo on the
hip youth radio station Triple J. I never did find out what happened
to that game but his accent definitely carried an odd funniness to it
all. I kept thinking of his interview on top gear.
The
phone call was from Baker Hughes and he was telling me I'd got the
job, this time the comment was more secure as he said he'd emailed a
contract through. So I was in the middle of delivering phamphlets and
I needed to head back and read this contract, print it off at the
library and work out what changes in my life were about to unfold.
I'm
sure there were a lot of things happening around this time and I went
to get cheesecake because I had gotten a job, something I promised
myself. It took a while but I was given instructions to get training
for rig work and travelling by helicopter. In order to get there I
had to wake up at an early time, but I'd been waking earlier than
this anyway for deliveries, I'm such a hard worker me -__ -; Then I
had to drive all the way down to Roe highway and head into Jandakot
airport. Of course wouldn't you know it my car had started to die
nice and slowly. First the indicator broke so that the front left
doesn't show and the rear left blinks twice as fast as a result. Then
the clutch started to go so you need to be careful under foot or rev
it more. In order to cut out all shaking I need to hit 3000 revs
which is inefficient engine wise and damaging. Then on the second day
it sounded like the windshield was about to crack! But luckily it was
the noise being made by the windscreen wipers twitching in the moving
wind, because they're broken! But even the car was weak I got down
there and back five times. There was a lot of traffic between Leach
Highway and Roe Highway where there are roads works, brilliant. Also
on Thursday I got stuck in this tough slog heading back and it looked
like I was going to drive into the night, not good because me lights
are frayed too. I head off the number 2 freeway and headed to the
number 8 freeway, that one was gridlocked too, oh deer. I managed to
listen to the 'hack' program though and they talked about the mining
boom in AUS and how it was affecting the lives of young people
working on silly roster away from home and loved ones, everyone hates
it basically and they do it for the money, way of the world?
The
training consisted of background history about rig dangers and
accidents. They talked about Piper Alpha in the North Sea (1987)
which exploded, quite simply. A maintenance crew was working on pipe
work and weren't finished by the end of their shift. The shift change
didn't point out to the gas pump crew what was unfixed and they head
on with operations. The pipe they normally used which wasn't been
fixed faulted and so they switched to the other one which was being
fixed, the weak seal broke and gas spilled out, found an ignition
source and the rig exploded as the gas caught fire. Then everyone had
two options, jump 30m into the sea or die in the apartment block
before the rig burned to a wreck as there were no lifeboats and the
evacuation plan was to be airlifted off... which is just silly. The
other example was Deep Water Horizon in 2010. When you drill a bore
hole into the sea and a gas reserve you case it with metal as you go
and then put a blow out preventer on the top so that the gas and oil
doesn't come up when you're not producing it. In 2010 this failed in
the Gulf of Mexico. The blow out roared up to the rig and exploded
killing 11 people, which they don't remind you on the news, only
about the spill but one is more major from a systematic point of
view.
We
were trained about life on a rig and work practises. They covered
everything even though not all rigs are like their example. Also of
course at training things were more strict than they would be, not in
reinforcement of policy but state of mind simply because as humans
we're not machines and we'd go insane living like that... I will go
into this in more detail later.
We
were instructed in leaving a smoke filled room blindfolded, although
that wasn't really necessary as you can't see anything as it is. A
lot of the people on the course were rough and tumble men, well they
were all men but yeah. Some of them had been in the navy and others
were young and a bit quiet but that said a lot, they acted like they
were above something, but I don't know what that something was. We
were asked to mention one work place accident and I had to talk about
a woman slipping on salad at Sainsbury's... hmm... didn't match a guy
also getting eaten by a shark somehow.
The
BOSIET side of things deals with things that happen during helicopter
flight. If you don't have this card you can't board a helicopter and
for some reason they check this after you get off the plane not
before you get on it :/ anyway. We were shown some videos and talked
about many things but the thing that takes the cake biggest of all is
the part where you get given a breathing apparatus and are put in a
pool with a type of faux helicopter set up.
The
truth is this question, if a helicopter ditches in the sea what
happens? On impact with water the liferafts deploy automatically...
but in waves and wind the weight of the engine and propellers is
above the cabin... so that thing might tip and you're not jumping out
of there while the rotors are still going. So in other words you need
to stay seated and strapped in while that thing flips underwater
before you push the door out and escape. So.... they gave us this bag
thing. What you do is breath a long breath into it... long.... then
you breath normally from that. We breath out a lot of oxygen so we
can use that for a short while. Of course I've breathed underwater
before and so I must tell you that this was the most intense thing
I've ever done. I know that when Lucy and Kyenen and me were in
Cardiff and we went to the pool it was hard enough for Lucy to dip
underwater let alone breath while submerged. So things were scary. I
mean your whole body is telling you not to breath because you'll just
get a mouthful of water. But once you get your head round that it
makes things easier. It would probably be like learning to walk with
the vision from either eye switched.
Then
we got in this contraption and it dipped us nicely in the 3m of
water. We had to remain seated and strapped in until it stopped. So
on the first run we had to do it while holding our breath... so
yeah.... that didn't frighten me at all. When it stops moving you
punch out the window and put one hand on the airframe so that when
you release the straps you can easily pull yourself out of there
despite being inverted or confused as to where you are, your seat
won't move from the window and you're number one job is getting out
of that window. So the brown trousers moment comes when you're going
down into the water holding your breath and its seems to take forever
for the machine to stop. You constantly think about knocking that
window open so when it does stop you find that you can't get out of
the strap. Seriously... in a pinch like that it really says it all
when you can calmly think about why you're not getting free of that
seat and unbuckling calmly. Being able to rationally think that the
way out is the longer process takes a certain trust in yourself and
your surroundings so when you enter somewhere new take stock and know
what's going to happen if... I mean this isn't important in most
situations, I drove into and emtpy McDonalds now I can't leave boo
hoo but there were some things you could have done. Thats the whole
point of the oil and gas industry working places, those things happen
all the time and the sh** is so close to the fan all the time. Not to
worry you loved ones though I'm on an exploration rig not a
production one so the chances of a blow out are rare and only for a
short period... heck the ruffnecks (rig workers) even smoke outside
(under the designated smokeo area though of course).
