A to Z: Global Orion

Another post today for the A to Z Challenge (I’m trying to catch up) is on the Global Orion. The Global Orion is a really sweet dive support vessel (DSV)- Norwegian built. When I worked on board, a few years ago, we were kept pretty busy. I hope she’s still working and not laid up like so many others have been since the plunge in the price of oil.

Global Orion

Global Orion

I was chief mate on there for a short time. I enjoyed working there a lot. I had a great crew to work with. I still keep in touch with some of them (on Facebook mostly). I like working with the divers and ROVs. It keeps things interesting, much more interesting than the drilling rigs.

I really hope work will pick up soon. I’m going nuts hanging around the house for so long, never knowing when I’ll get called out to go to work. Never able to make plans of any sort. It’s very stressful. Much more stressful than anything I’ve ever done at work!

Zero to Hero Challenge- Day 12: Inspired by the Fourchon Shuffle

The assignment for day 12 of the Zero to Hero Challenge builds on the one from the day before. The one for day 11 was to leave comments on 3 blogs you’ve never commented on before. Today’s is to build a post out of one of those comments.

I made a comment on the New England Watermans’ blog yesterday. I really liked his post with the video of Port Fourchon. Here’s the link to my comment again.

His video was a time lapse of his work over the last year. Both offshore and in the port of Fourchon, La.

I liked it because it reminded me of a lot of the same things I see all the time at work. He also mentioned the Global Orion which is one of the vessels I used to work on.

Global Orion

Global Orion

I’ve been in and out of Fourchon more times than I can count. It’s NOT my favorite place! It’s the largest port in the USA for the oil and gas industry and it is VERY busy! Usually it’s a huge pain in the ass to go to Fourchon.

We call it the Fourchon Shuffle. Bring your boat to the dock so you can unload your deck cargo. Oh, your halfway done but there’s another boat that has a higher priority. So, MOVE.

OK, so you go to another dock to get some fuel. Wait, there’s no space there. So, you wait. Wait some more. It’s not like parking a car, you can’t just put a boat in park and walk away (tho some DPOs might think so).

Oh, now they’re calling you back to finish unloading. No time to spare, you have to get back offshore again ASAP.

Oh yeah, you still need fuel so go back over there. This time you can get to the dock. Now you need to go to another dock to load up more deck cargo. You’ve got priority so you make 2 other boats move out of the way for you….

That’s just a short verse, the Fourchon Shuffle goes on and on. They’ve improved it slightly with some additional dock space but it’s still far from ideal.

No one in Fourchon ever gets any peace at the dock. I always just wanted to get the hell out of there and back offshore as soon as possible. At least be able to get some rest again.

Here are a few photos I took in Fourchon recently…

 

Luckily, I don’t spend too much time driving around Fourchon anymore. Lately I’ve been working on a lot of large vessels like drillships and they don’t usually go into port. I only go to Fourchon to fly in or out to the rig. 🙂

 

PS- the orange boats are the ones belonging to the Cajun Navy 😉