Tag Archives: #DS-11

Moving the Graveyard?

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DS-6+DS-11 at the dock in Las Palmas, Canary Islands

Since I made it to the ship last week, I’ve been watching the ship in front of us. They’ve had divers in the water and lots of activity going on. It happens to be the Discoverer India- the same ship I was on last Spring.

She was getting ready for a job in Africa- Ivory Coast. I got to ride as far as Trinidad. It was a good hitch. She did that job and now is getting some upgrades before heading out to another job.

I wish I could say the same for the rest of the rigs I see here. I can see at least 8 at the dock here. I know of at least 5 more that will be arriving here soon. That’s not counting another couple (at least) over at Tenerife.

While I was on the Ocean Evolution last hitch, steaming through the ‘graveyard’ just offshore Port Fourchon, I could only see 3 ships left. The year before there were at least 10, I think probably closer to 15. All of them fairly new, just sitting there, waiting and hoping for work. It was really sad to see.

We’ve all been hoping that this would be the year when we could finally go back to work. From what I see here, that doesn’t look very likely. The price of oil is still not even up to $60/bbl. Today it was only $57 and change. There won’t be much work until it gets up over $60 and stays there for a while.

I guess everyone but those of us working in the maritime industry are happy about those low prices, but I’m getting more and more stressed out. I don’t have many more years left to build up my retirement funds and my savings has already been demolished over the last 4+ years of not nearly enough work.

How much longer can this go on?

Weather Delay

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I was supposed to fly out of Houston yesterday afternoon. A friend drove me up to the airport so I didn’t have to leave my car at the parking lot for 30+ days. I was waiting at the gate for my flight to depart when I noticed they had posted it was delayed.

It was now due to depart about 3 hours late. I was told weather in Miami had delayed all the flights. If I had waited around for that flight, I would’ve missed my connection in Miami by about 2 hours!

The company travel lady set me up with a hotel for the night near the airport and new flights for today. I made it out of Houston this morning. I’m in New York now, waiting for my connection to Madrid.

It’s ‘only’ a 7 1/4 hour flight. The one I was supposed to take was almost 10 hours! I’ll get to Madrid about 9:30 in the morning and then on to Las Palmas. I should get there around 3 pm. I just hope my luggage also makes it (they refused to send it all the way through- I’ll have to pick it up in Madrid and go through the whole rigamarole with check in, security, etc all over again).

I don’t know how much I’ll be able to post once I get to the ship, so if you don’t hear from me for a while, that’s why. I hope internet is better than the last ship, but it’s always a toss up these days.