In which Dan gets rigged.

So between finishing training and getting my first hitch to the rig was a painful time. I was still at the hostel and they were still busy. So I was told a date I would be leaving and put everything to that, and then when that didn't happen, it got pushed back some more, I needed to book more time and they couldn't handle the late notice. So it looked like I would be ending up sleeping in my car.... however I was saved by the bell. Back at the pamphlet job, which I was still doing, they said I could stay on the coach there and since then I've kind of been doing that. I'm not in the way and I'll deliver for them when I can so its not problem. I feel weird because that job was never supposed to be serious and the pay wasn't a lot, however this reward is much worth the effort.

I went to the rig the following Monday anyway. It was both with excitement and worry that I attained the airport terminal. It was a domestic terminal, but not the domestic one. It was a private firm the Cobham terminal. They take trips for mine companies and you might guess the rest. The planes they use though aren't the same as the others because they don't handle the same volume of people nor do they go to places with large air ports or landing strips. Both of their two types of planes look the same but one is a British aerospace and one I think is an Airbus. I think the difference is that one of them has a pointyer nose.

The flight was interesting. After the Cyprus flight I've seemed to think that on a plane you ignore the seat number on the ticket so I sat anywhere, ended up next to a policeman who gave me one funny look but then that was it, on the flight back I realised, as there were many more people, that I needed to look at the boarding pass. Then the plane flew out from Perth, it was a smaller craft and it acted slightly differently. We flew over the nothingness that is WA. I swear that after leaving Perth I saw not a single town the rest of the journey, just a load of fluvial action :P but this is an untouched natural spectacle and its best viewed from the air. I will say one thing of interest and that is that to the immediate north of Perth there are a lot of farms with their square plots and orange roads and then suddenly this just stops dead and it become dusty.

The plane flew all the way out to the coast and then started down to Barrow Island. Barrow Island is a funny place. Its a class A reserve which means that you're not allowed there and that its critical over the quarantine, yet there are nodding donkeys everywhere. When we took off by helicopter after a short sit in the terminal building, which is the smallest I will ever go into, I could see the island much better. It is covered in dotted termite mounds between 1 and 1.5m in height. They are about 10m apart and they cover the whole island, its kinda mental. There are nodding donkeys all over the island in little brown vegetation less squares and they are all connected by dirt paths/roads. The island is trying to be preserved, while oil is drilled and pumped here and its an odd thing to see. The companies will go to a plot, rip up a square area and drill a hole, place a nodding donkey there and when that runs dry they remove it and let the grass grow back and the road if necessary. What interested me most about the island was how amazingly scenic it was. I could get lost in the stories I dreamt up just looking at it. In the north of the island is a port which runs the whole Gorgon project, run by Chevron, which is something I'm attached to, what work I'm doing that is.

The helicopter flew out over the sea and let me tell you, helicopters are amazing o_o but don't be too afraid of them, like a plane or a bus or even a car I think all travel feels the same when you get down to it, still would love to fly one though ¬_¬

We came to the rig and entered the heli room. I still didn't know anyone at this point and so I sat there feeling sheepish the whole time. We watched a silly video and then we had some food and found our rooms before being shown around the rig. It definitely felt a lot bigger than I thought it would. After that we headed round to a shipping container with 'Baker Hughes' written on it and I was convinced that our office wouldn't be in there, but just look at me now, I'm writing in it. So yeah, it was weird at the time too. This unit is small and I have to sit on a horrible stool all day feeling the burn.

My job, consists of waiting for the cuttings to come up from the drilled bore hole where oil based mud is blasted at the rock to help drilling. When the cuttings come to the surface its my job to clean my so that I can make a section with which to bring to the wellsite geologist. His job is to note down the rock type, porosity and other things which are of importance to the company and the project. Do I do anything else you may ask other than wash rocks... no. Welcome to the world of the oil and gas industry, I get paid to sit here wasting my time.,

About the rig. Supporting the rig are two support vessels. One is blue and is called the something Nexus and the other is red and is called the Far Swan. These have to hang around the rig, one at a time. They stay for five days then head back to port hedland and then switch shifts.

From the rig side you can look down into the water and sometimes see sharks and tuna swimming about.

The BHI unit has a door and the unit is pressurised so that any gas leak, the gas won't be drawn in. If the door is held open for 40 seconds then the whole thing shuts down to prevent an ignition source, so anyone holding the door open gets yelled at. There is also a very noisy air conditioner at the back of the unit which means we have to wear ear plug while simply sitting in here. There is a tiny escape door at the back which is the size of a chimney and it leads right to a wall made by another container.

On the first night I was there, there was a fire muster. We had to assemble by our lifeboats. At first Sydney, the mud logger I work with from Nigeria, thought it was a drill that we didn't have to attend, which is just clumsy in my view. Anyway we headed there. There is one thing I learnt from this and that is that you can never be too experienced. I went to the wrong lifeboat to start with. The muster was because of a fire in the engine room, but it was minor and was put out before we even mustered but it was still an important lesson. When we got back I heard someone say that was the third real alarm in twenty years working offshore... not sure what to make of that because it makes me feel that when it happens, it happens big o_o.

I thought it was silly that there was a certain way to walk on the stairs here but if you see the steepness of them you understand why. I think its something you can take with you anyway because if you fall on the stairs the only thing you can really do is reach behind you not in front so while you wouldn't need to hold the hand rail all the time, be prepared if you do trip to grab the rail behind.

One thing about the rig is that there are four cranes for bringing 'baskets' on board from the support vessel and when these are swinging across you stay well clear, however some people don't and it makes you feel silly for standing there not doing anything. Also its pretty odd to see a container like that swinging around, I guess that's just something I'm not used to.

They do your washing for you here. All you need to do is, at the end of your shift, put whatever you want washed into one of the bags in the room and leave it outside. Then they take it and wash it in a massive industry washing machine... every night.

The food here is pretty good. I must admit that even though its free and there is a lot of it I no longer like the idea of someone else cooking for you and then you finding out what it is a moment before you choose off the menu. I mean its nice but there's something a miss with me recently, but I shouldn't complain. They do a great deal of meat though and sometimes the chef can appear to be lazy and do a little range of choice. I could go on about the food here but for now I must admit that I like it, and I put on 4kg after five weeks :/

When I first came to the rig I was a genius and forgot to bring trainers. Turns out that I thought I didn't have space in my bag but that's not an excuse. So I got given some Crocs... which I gave to Steven for free when I got back form the rig, before I was given these I just slid about in socks, I see no problem there ^_^

I didn't have a helmet and on the chopper there we brought a box with one in, but I had to wear a green one, oh well. If there is one thing I've realised its that I stick out like a sore thumb as no one else looks like me, but I don't care :P My coverals have a blue bottom half, I have long hair and a green helmet and without coverals I wear a red shirt when everyone else wears Transocean tops or dark clothes, good out Juddy being awkward.

From the store room they were handing out bottles so I went down at got one, all by myself, pride, but its a stupid bottle. There is a cap that comes off easily and then its just a long hole. Those camel back bottle are much better as you bite it to drink, these... they could spill in any bag. One thing you should know, I don't have a proper chair. This unit is actually too small and the Wellsite geologist should be in a different completely. I'm not like the Directional Driller who complained about that every single day he was on shift but seeing as I've been bumped down to the stool for sitting on I am vexed. Plus when we're drilling there is nothing for me to do and so I have to sit on this painful stool all day.

Of course we're in the middle of the ocean so there are no insects but let me tell you, it is odd. Back home, you'll head somewhere in your day and at some point you should see a bug of some sort, it makes you feel that the world is complicated even if they aren't always things you wish to see, but here there is nothing of the sort and it makes life seem wrong on a subtle level.

Someone made a little bird sculpture out of mud in the shaker room. Pepels in the unit constantly bring snacks back from the gally with them, not that I'm any different. I can't wait to have that banana. Whenever there is an announcement over the speaker it plays it twice, which means that if there was a funny thing in the first call, you get to hear it twice. The ship rocking isn't too bad, its not like a normal ship because this rig has risers which tether it to the sea bed, but there is still some heave. Something interesting and magical about working at sea is the fact that you can see some amazing sunsets. The problem is that I have too much Sainsbury's attitude in me that if you stop, even for a moment and even if there is no work, you get told off.

When I go to catch samples I have to wear this mental yellow suit that makes me look like a bio hazard officer. Its to keep me clear of the mud but there is no ventilation and so it can get very hot in there. I have sweated so much that my ear defenders and glasses have been sliding off. Annoying thing, when you go for food, you have to make sure you're not late because even though the food is there for two hours they close things up half an hour before, I told you people were lazy, and so they clear all the chairs even when you're still eating. I've heard stories of the crew watching you eat so that they can take your chair when you're finished. Although the good thing is that they have big tubs of ice cream. For a long time we had a problem with scoops not being enough to penetrate the ice that the ice cream has become, but now we have some good ones.