Rambling On: Crew Change, Korea, and the Frontier Discoverer

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!

Is she, or isn’t she aground? I’m sure glad I got off when I did!

Russia Dismisses Dutch Legal Action Over Greenpeace Activists

Russia Dismisses Dutch Legal Action Over Greenpeace Activists | gCaptain

Did anyone really expect anything different? I’m not sure what people are referring to when they say Russia “unlawfully detained” the Greenpeace activists. They invaded the 500 meter zone (that is illegal) after repeated warnings not to. They tried to board the Russian vessel. Some of them were actually doing it and the rest of them were helping, those are acts of piracy! It is totally and completely illegal under every maritime law of every country as far as I know.

I’m absolutely positive the US would have done the same thing. We probably would have charged them with conspiracy and a dozen other charges, or maybe just terrorism. That seems to be our fail safe lately, anyone we accuse of terrorism is pretty much automatically guilty and they don’t get to have a trial. The actions they took does make them guilty of those crimes under OUR laws (not that I am saying our laws are good ones in this case, they actually suck pretty bad as far as terrorism and conspiracy goes, everybody can be charged for pretty much anything).

Under international law, those people illegally boarded the Russian vessel, the Russians were within their rights to do what they did and actually I’m surprised they have treated them as well as they have.

I admire the Dutch for trying to help their people, but they should have been more involved in trying to stop them from acting against the Russians in the first place. That probably would have been a lot more helpful.

Russian Authorities Charge Greenpeace Activists with Piracy

Russian Authorities Charge Greenpeace Activists with Piracy | gCaptain

Pirates or just ordinary criminals? Or possibly even peaceful protesters like Greenpeace insists?

OK, they are NOT just peaceful protesters like Greenpeace says. They invaded the 500 meter zone (that alone is a crime), and then ILLEGALLY BOARDED the vessel! THAT is an act of piracy! A PEACEFUL protest would have remained OUTSIDE the 500 meter zone!!!

Pirate = one who robs at sea. Technically, they DID act as pirates. By their actions, they cost the Prirazlomnaya oil platform millions of dollars. Those rigs cost hundreds of millions of dollars a day to operate. So, did Greenpeace commit an act of piracy? Yes, they did, they cost the oil company a TON of money by their intentional actions, so yes, they DID rob them.

OK, so they did not intend to cause harm. So what? Just by the fact of them invading the operations of the Prirazlomnaya, they DID cause harm and they knew they would! Maybe not much harm in the scheme of things, but they still disrupted the activities on board the oil rig. That costs time and that costs money.

Were the Russians doing anything illegal to board the Arctic Sunrise (the Greenpeace vessel), tow it to port and arrest the people on board? NO! Those people were ALL involved in criminal actions.

Nothing has come out about anyone on the Greenpeace vessel trying to prevent the boarding of the oil rig so no one is innocent. As far as I know, Russia does not have any Bill of Rights that guarantees freedom of speech, or of protests, peaceful or otherwise. They’re lucky they DID get taken to jail instead of just shot! After all, they WERE caught in the act!

Greenpeace may have some great goals they’re working for. Even I don’t disagree with their goals. No one wants to see the oceans destroyed by oil spills. No one wants to see the environment polluted. Greenpeace is just wasting time and money on these stunts and also putting peoples lives and livelihoods in danger. That is NOT the way to accomplish their goals. They need to go fight their battles where they might actually do some good. Go to the courts, go to the legislatures, go to the people who are responsible for MAKING the RULES and get the rules changed!

Even better, or more effective in any case, they should spend their resources on trying to find some way to convince people to lower the population! To stop having so many babies! If we could/would lower the human population, then pretty much ALL of our problems would be solved, or at the very least minimized. THAT would be the greatest service to the planet, why don’t they go do THAT instead of trying to stop people from getting the resources they NEED to survive and to enjoy a decent standard of living?

Personally, I would like to see every person on this planet able to enjoy a GOOD life. I would like to see them have everything they need to live on and opportunities for enjoyable, fulfilling work. Not slaving away all day in dangerous conditions for barely enough food to get them through another day. Get people into a place where they are not so concerned about their own bare survival and they become a little more concerned about the rest of the planet around them.

Russia’s Imprisonment of Greenpeace Freelance Photographer Crosses the Line

Russia’s Imprisonment of Greenpeace Freelance Photographer Crosses the Line | gCaptain

I wasn’t there so I can’t vouch for what really happened, but from reading the news I would think that YES, the Greenpeace activists could and should be charged with multiple violations.

Yes, the photographer/journalist has certain rights (here in the USA- maybe not in Russia!). I think he knew very well what he was getting into. Greenpeace has done this kind of stunt before (and not only on the Disco)!

The Arctic Sunrise violated ALL the rules of maritime traffic. There are 500 meter security zones around drilling operations. Greenpeace surely knew that. The vessel captain and crew absolutely must know that! They’re even marked on the charts! It is illegal for ANYONE to enter that zone without asking and being granted permission from the rig.

The Arctic Sunrise at the very least helped the Greenpeace activists in their attempts to board the Russian rig. That boarding can certainly be seen as piracy. It is of course illegal even if they did not intend to harm anybody or steal anything. It is a dangerous place and could have resulted in a major accident (which of course would have been blamed on the drilling company).

Of course I don’t want to see the Arctic ruined by oil spills either. But I can’t agree with Greenpeaces’ tactics. Either they fight to change the laws so that there will be no Arctic drilling, or they fight to change peoples minds.

The ONLY way we are ever going to not NEED the oil is for people to limit the growth of the human population. Either that, or come up with some miracle energy source that is cheap, efficient and can replace everything we use oil for today. There is nothing even close to oils ability to provide the things we NEED to survive now.

Greenpeace Protest Ship Threatened, Leaves Kara

Greenpeace Protest Ship Threatened, Leaves Kara.

I think Greenpeace does some good but they go overboard (literally) sometimes. I don’t think the Russians were justified to deny their entry into their waters. There is the principle of freedom of the high seas and we have always been allowed the right to sail freely from one place to another without interference. Apparently the USA has stopped standing up for any kind of freedom to travel, they prove this every day but forcing people to submit to a strip search just to fly somewhere (anywhere)! Since the US has so obviously given up defending freedom, I guess the Russians figure they can do it some more too. They probably just figure Greenpeace is going to cause a mess and they don’t want to deal with it so they stop it before it happens (prior restraint- we are doing a lot of that here too, although that is ALSO against all our principles).