I made it to the airport! I was only out a short time this trip, but going home still feels as good as ever. I was out on the Deepwater Pathfinder. It was a pretty good hitch, even if it was shorter than usual.
I was a little frustrated over the weekend with not being able to get a flight out of New Orleans til early evening. Hard to believe there wasn’t an available flight til almost 1800!
Turns out there is a big golf tournament going on in Houston and all the flights are booked solid.
I was lucky to get a flight at all!
Really, it worked out that I was on the late flight since the weather was foggy with a cold front between us and the heliport. I didn’t get to the airport til almost 1300. At least I wasn’t panicking about missing my flight. 😉 It all worked out in the end.
So, I should be able to catch up a little bit here over the next few days and get ready for my trip to Korea. It’s only about a week away, YEAH!
I really have no idea what to do there other than the travel writing/photography workshop I’m going to Seoul for. I haven’t had time or internet availability to do any research. Anybody have any suggestions? I have a couple of weeks before the class and a week after.
I was thinking I might go down to Busan to visit the company I used to work with when I was on the tuna boat. The new captain on the ship I just got off mentioned that they have a good maritime university in Busan. That sounds like it might be worth checking into.
I’m hoping to go see an old friend I used to work with at Oceaneering. He’s an ROV (remotely operated vehicle) mechanic. When they brought our boat to the Gulf of Mexico to work, he was able to get a transfer to Korea and has been working there ever since.
I would have LOVED to do that too, but Oceaneering only had one vessel over 1600 tons and so they didn’t have any other jobs to offer me. Being a ships officer/DPO doesn’t make for an easy job transfer when there isn’t any other ship. I felt I had no other option but to leave at the first opportunity.
Too bad, they sent the ship out of the Gulf only a couple of months later. When I found out, I was sad I didn’t stay longer. The job I took instead turned into a disaster and I didn’t even stay for the whole trip. 🙁
I hated to quit that job. It sounded so perfect when I decided to take it! I had never really been interested in drilling since it always seemed so BORING. Sit in one spot for months on end, never moving, never really doing much ‘SAILING’.
But this one seemed to be a great option. It was supposed to work in Alaska in the summer and Australia in the winter. I would actually get to do quite a bit of sailing. 🙂
But when I got to the ship, I felt a little queasy. Not because I was seasick!
The ship was in bad shape. It was old. It was rusty. It had issues. LOTS of issues!
It was basically an old ship (built 1966!!) that they had cleared off the topsides, then stuck a new house and a drilling rig on top of it. It had not been taken care of properly. I was not comfortable with it at all. Bad news. 🙁
I’m not any sort of safety nazi, not by a long shot, but I was really concerned about the condition of that ship and the lack of concern for all of the ordinary things we seamen look out for.
I stayed on there as long as I could, hoping that things would improve. I finally had to leave after only 3 weeks. I couldn’t stick around knowing the problems that were bound to come up. No job is worth my license I’ve worked so long and hard to earn, or my life! This one was seriously putting both at risk.
I couldn’t figure out WHY they would want to bring an old piece of sh*t like that up to work in the pristine waters of Alaska, KNOWING Greenpeace would be all over them.
Turns out, they DID have all kinds of problems on the trip to Alaska and since. They’re presently back in Asia in the shipyard (again) and all plans for Alaskan drilling on hold (again).
I wonder if that was the plan all along? If they had a nice, new, fully functioning rig would there have been such an outcry? Would there have been so many problems? Would the oil companies all have put off their plans to follow the success of this adventure in Alaska?
I don’t know, but I think if they had a better ship/rig, they would be drilling by now instead of still spending a fortune in the shipyard. Was all this a case of trying to save a few bucks by using old, worn out equipment? If so, they sure messed up on THAT decision!
Is she, or isn’t she aground? I’m sure glad I got off when I did!
Glad you have a break for a while
Thanks Joan,
That’s the nice thing about working as a contract employee. I can take a break whenever I want. The only thing holding me back is that I usually don’t have the money to take the time off work. 🙁
What came to my mind is CoachSurfing in terms of people willing to show you arond during your weeks in Korea. But shouldn’t those ship issues be known by some sort of ship authorisation agency – I don’t know the subject, but cars need to be approved before you can use them on the road.
I might have to look into the couchsurfing idea. Thanks IMdm!
As for the ship issues, yes, they are well known in the industry and we DO have all sorts of rules and regulations, inspections and approvals from dozens of international agencies. It’s a real mess! Makes it very hard to do business out there, costs are sky high, but yet these substandard companies continue on.
Nothing ever stops them. No one is really concerned with the seamen themselves, only with blaming them for everything that ever goes wrong out there like it’s ALL their fault instead of mostly the fault of the company that puts them in these situations (up to and including the Exxon Valdez which had NOTHING to do with Captain Hazlewoods drinking- he was just the fall guy for the company and their profits).
The only people who seem willing to help the sailors are the seamens clubs and the unions like the ITF mentioned in the video. It’s sad. People don’t realize that pretty much everything they use on a daily basis is transported to them by people working ON SHIPS. Good book about this is 90% of Everything.