Long Time Lost (Luggage)

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In case you’re wondering, this is not a repeat of my earlier post(s) about my lost luggage. 🙁

This trip to work was also totally screwed up. It started in Houston. The original flight was so late getting to London that I missed all my connections. I had tried to make arrangements while still in Houston to make the rest of the trip go smoothly but that effort did not bear fruit.

You can read more about that disastrous trip to get here in an earlier post here.

I arrived in Luanda early in the morning of August 14. I was promised that my luggage would arrive on the next Air France flight into Luanda and the latest would be Tuesday the 19th. I have had a claim out since I arrived. I have been checking online every day for a week now and STILL no trace of my bag!

It’s been missing for a total of 2 weeks now. I really would like to see it again before I have to leave here to go home again in 2 more weeks.

I have been trying for the last couple of days to find a phone number to call so I can talk to a real person (rather than file a form on the computer that refuses to accept the information I need to input).

I finally succeeded in finding a phone number last night and tried to call but the first time there was an estimated waiting period of 20 minutes. The second time the waiting period was 30 minutes. Since I am at work on the ship, I really can not sit on the phone and WAIT for 20+ minutes.

Tonight the wait was ‘only’ estimated at 13 minutes so I took a chance and hung on the line. After listening to the same insipid elevator music repeat for 18 minutes a real live person finally came on the line. 🙂

Unfortunately, since my luggage has now been missing for almost 2 weeks, she could not help me at all since it didn’t show up in her system any more. 🙁

All I could get out of her was that my luggage was ‘scheduled’ to go on a Lufthansa flight on August 14th. WHY Lufthansa? It was supposed to follow me on the next Air France flight!

She couldn’t even tell me where that Lufthansa flight was going to, or where my luggage was supposed to go after it got there, or if it was eventually going to go to Luanda, or even if they had put a new baggage tag on it so I could trace it or if everyone was looking for a no longer in existence baggage tag?

So, what do I do now?

Wild Wednesday: Mola-Mola

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I’ve spent a lot of time at sea in my life. I grew up around the water and on boats. My father had a boat that he used for commercial fishing for a while. I used to go out commercial fishing before I got into working in the offshore sector. I even went deep sea for a while.

In all those years, I’ve never seen a mola mola (ocean sunfish) in the ocean until recently. I had heard about them and seen them in pictures and on TV and they fascinated me.

They just look so weird.

It looks like a shark or something chomped off half their body but they still manage quite well.

I finally did see a wild one recently. I was on watch on the bridge on my last ship and one was floating around. It must have been a pretty big one for us to be able to see it at all from the bridge.

I couldn’t leave the bridge to get a good look at it. I could only see it from the bridge wing which is about 75 ft above the water and about 200 ft forward of where it was. We were able to pick it up in the camera but not very well.

I hope to see some more of them around here. So far this hitch we have not seen much wildlife, but this evening there was a school of dolphins just off the bow. That’s always a good sign. 🙂

PS- it is Wednesday here.

Into the Fray: Fishing For Tuna From the Pacific Breeze

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Synonyms for fray

noun fight, battle

melee, fracas, disturbance, riot, ruckus, scuffle, affray,

contest, rumpus. broil, brouhaha, conflict

 

I took a look at a few of the entries for this weeks Weekly Photo Challenge from the Daily Post (FRAY). Most of the ones I’ve seen so far seemed to flow from the use of the word as wear, erode, unravel, etc.

I already put up a post using the word ‘fray’ like that, but it also seemed like a good word to use to describe some of my experiences on the Pacific Breeze while tuna fishing. Sometimes, it really does feel like you’re ‘rushing into the fray’.

My photos don’t really do it justice. I only had a cheap point & shoot camera with me and most of the action took place a long way from where I was. I hope you can get the gist of the story from the few photos I’ll post here.

When the fish are showing, it can get like the Wild, Wild West out there at sea. There can be flashing schools of tuna as far as the eye can see and dozens of boats from a half a dozen countries all fighting for the chance to set their nets on the biggest schools of the best fish.

You better believe it is a SERIOUS business! It can get REALLY crazy!

It’s a real challenge. The fish are not as dumb as you might think. It’s not really that easy to catch them. They manage to escape before the net is set more times than not. Then we have to wait a couple of hours to get the net back onboard and everything readied before we can try again.

Yes, it is a real riot, the boats are definitely in a contest and sometimes engage in a scuffle. The fish are showing in a disturbance of the surface of the ocean and they broil at the surface. That is how we find them (along with the birds to lead the way).

The way it works with ‘school fish’ is that first we have to spot the school. The lookouts are up in the crows nest and report the sighting to the Fishmaster. He will decide if we are going to go any closer to check out the school.

We can spot the fish on the RADAR by their disturbance of the surface of the water. The large flocks of feeding seabirds also show up on the screen and help lead us to the fish.

Once we get closer, we can use our SONAR to look beneath the surface and get a better idea of what we’re looking at. The Fishmaster can get a lot of information on what kinds of fish are there, how many of them there are, the depth they’re at, etc. Then he will decide if it’s worth it for us to set the net.

If we do, the entire crew springs into action. A couple of guys will jump in the skiff boat. The Radio Officer will assist on the SONAR and RADAR. The engineers will be standing by in the engine room to make sure everything is OK with the power. A couple of guys will get ready to help keep the fish contained from the boat (they throw dye markers and pound on the boat to make noise-both of those the fish will avoid).

When the Fishmaster thinks the time is right, he will yell: “skiff booooooaaaaat……… LET GO!” and the skiff boat will drop off the stern of the boat with the end of the net attached. We will drive around the school of fish dropping the net as fast as we can while the guys throw out the dye markers and pound those hammers. It gets really exciting. 🙂

While we are rushing as fast as we can (not actually all that fast- maybe 10 knots tops), the speed boat and the net boat (and helicopter if the boat has one) will be doing all they can to keep the fish contained inside the area where we are setting the net around them. We need to get the net run around the whole school and then haul in the bottom of the net to close it before the fish get wise to the game and swim underneath it.

It’s such a great feeling. It gets really intense. Your adrenaline starts pumping, your concentration goes up. The challenge, the anticipation, the not-knowing, the feeling that you’re doing everything you can but it might all be for nothing. It can hook you along with the fish you’re trying to catch. I do love it! 🙂

Then it takes a couple of hours to haul in the net. We never really know what we’ve caught in there until we pull it up close enough to the boat to start ‘brailing’ it out. Usually, if we’re lucky it’s full of nice big amberjack tuna. And yes, they broil in the net! It’s always a thrill to count over 10 scoops (each one holds between 3-5 tons of fish). Lots of times it’s empty, the fish got away.

This is what a net full looks like when we’re brailing them out. If I remember right, this was a pretty good catch. 🙂

 

Just to clarify, the skiff boat is the one in the last photo holding open the net so we can brail it out. The speed boat is the little yellow one in the 3rd and 5th photo. The net boat is the one towards the bottom of the 5th photo, we use it to help hold the net open which makes it easier to haul it in.

 

Drills Today

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Wondering if we’ll have fire and boat drills today?
Is it worth trying to go to sleep? Or would it be better to try to stay awake so that you can get some good rest after it’s all over?

Weekly (at minimum) drills are a necessity on most vessels, but boy do they get old fast.

It’s already so hard to get enough sleep out here and then we have to do these drills every week (as well as safety meetings). It’s really amazing but almost every time, we’ll have at least 1 person who doesn’t know where their muster station is, how to get there, or what they’re supposed to do when they do get there.

It’s not like that on ships that have a crew full of professional mariners. They are trained and will almost always do the right thing, even go and check out their gear when they come aboard.

On vessels that have ‘crew’ other than mariners (construction, cruise, fishing, drilling, etc), most of these people are NOT mariners and don’t come from a seafaring background. Even though the STCW (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping) mandates that every mariner has to take a basic safety course before going offshore, I’ve noticed that all these other people do NOT have to take that course (or others).

THEY are the people who actually NEED that course (at a bare minimum), but of course the IMO and others who make the rules really have NO idea what they are doing when they come up with this stuff.

I’m falling asleep whether I want to or not. Here’s hoping the drills go fast today.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Fray

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For this weekly photo challenge (the idea is “fray”), I chose this photo I took at the photography workshop in Washington DC I went to a couple of years ago.

We spent some time wandering around some of the famous monuments like the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. We had some free time to wander around and take pictures of different things.

One day they had set up a bunch of different items in a big room at the hotel we were staying in. The idea was to practice getting shots from all different angles. Different viewpoints, different subjects, different focus, different light, different effects…

I had just bought this camera (Canon) and was trying to figure out how to use it. I usually just use a point and shoot. I can’t usually carry around a nice, big camera with the fancy lenses. I just don’t have the space in my carry on. 🙁

I got this camera to try and learn how to take pictures good enough to get my photos accepted on some of the stock photography sites. One more attempt to find SOME way to support myself without having to stay out on a boat for half the year or more.

I am still trying to do that. I am still trying to learn how to use that camera. I am still trying to figure out how to get my photos accepted onto a stock photography site. I am still trying to figure out how to make the TIME to do that.

I think that last one may be the key. 🙂

United Nations Meets At Sea

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   It’s like the UN out here on these rigs.

When working for American companies, there are usually only Americans on board. Every once in a while you might see a Brit or a Filipino. Probably because of the Jones Act and other rules and regulations.

The Jones Act is one of the most important of the laws regulating the American Merchant Marine. One of the provisions of this law for US vessels is that the Master and crew must be Americans. Of course, there are exemptions. Lots of them, really probably too many.

But that’s another story for another post.

The ship I’m on now is not American. The company I’m working for is based out of Athens. It was out of Norway but it has been taken over by the Greeks. I’m not sure yet how that is going to work out. It seems already to be bringing unwelcome changes.

But it is a nice change to have people from all over the world to work with instead of mostly just from the southern US. When I’m working in the Gulf of Mexico, most of the people I work with are from Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi. Maybe we get a few from Florida and Georgia. A very few from the other states.

The reason for that is that the companies we work for do not want to pay for our transportation to and from the boats/rigs so most people they hire have to live close enough to drive to/from work in a reasonable* amount of time.(*What the companies think is reasonable is not necessarily what any reasonable person would think is reasonable.)

Since I’m now working for a company which is not based in the USA and we’re not working in the Gulf of Mexico, there is no restriction on who they can hire or where they can come from. I really like that. I love meeting people from all over the world. 🙂

On my last rig, the DPOs were from Ireland, Croatia and the Netherlands. Here, they are from Poland and Canada. The last rig had lots of Brits. There were people from Ireland, Scotland, England. There were people from South Africa and from all over Europe (Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Belgium, Lithuania, Italy, France, Spain).

Here, we have lots of people from Poland. We have people from Portugal, Brazil, Croatia, France, etc. We have lots of Canadians. We even have a couple of other Americans. I’ve met a guy from Azerbaijan and another from India. Some from the Philippines.

Of course, we have people on both rigs from Angola and all over Africa (Ghana, S. Africa, Liberia, Guinea, Libya). We are required to have a certain amount of our crew hired locally. We are supposed to train them up to take over eventually. I’m not sure of the time frame for that but it will probably take a while.

So I hope that will allow me to keep my job and they won’t take over from me for a while. Let me keep doing my job here a few more years til I’m ready to retire. 😉

So much of what goes on out here now is extremely complicated and complex. It takes a long time to learn the things we need to know to do our jobs. I know I am always having to go to classes. This place will probably be sending me to classes every time I get off the ship for the next year or so.

I’m not really looking forward to that. I used to really look forward to going to work. I used to really enjoy my work and loved looking forward to joining a new ship and seeing all the new places we would go. But they’ve taken all the fun out of the job. It’s not at all like it used to be out here. To me, at this point, the best part of the job is the time off!

Yep, let me keep working overseas until I’m ready to retire, that idea is getting better looking every day.

 

In Spite of Ourselves

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I was fiddling around with my i-pod the other day and listening to some music from home. I thought maybe I’d share some of my favorites.

I haven’t really been able to keep up with my ‘editorial calendar’ I came up with on assignment from the Zero to Hero Blogging Challenge. I was going to do a feature called ‘Wild Wednesday’ (or creature feature) and another on the weekends called Song of the Sea, but the time just flies too fast.

So much of my time is spent offshore where I’m lucky to be able to get online at all and the connection speed is pretty slow. When I’ve been home lately I’ve been so caught up in just trying to get caught up, I haven’t had much time to work on my blog at all so it’s been kind of hit and miss as to what I post and when. 🙁

I’m still trying to post at least a couple of times a week and keep it interesting. I do like the photography challenges and I like to post good stuff I find to share, things like good recipes, interesting articles, beautiful pictures, cool ideas, and good music.

I thought some of you might like this song. I love John Prine, he’s a great songwriter. I always love a good story-teller. Iris Dement is the perfect match for him in this song. Listen to the lyrics, I think you’ll enjoy it. 🙂

These people are animals…REALLY???

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An EXCELLENT post from the Culture Monk! Hopefully he is starting a conversation that we all really ought to be having. I completely agree with his comments about the news media (mainstream news media) and I am SO glad we now have the internet to help us learn the truth about what’s going on in the world and to bypass the lies the psychopaths in power wish us to believe.
I have been promoting the libertarian outlook for a long time. I think they deserve at LEAST the opportunity to have their views known in the public forum. The mainstream news media does all it can to discredit their views and label any politician who espouses them as a ‘nutjob’!
Who’s nuts” Someone who believes in freedom and liberty. or someone who prefers to use FORCE on every issue?

Silhouette: Singapore Sunset

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Here’s another one to illustrate the Weekly Photo Challenge from the Daily Post. This week the subject is “silhouette”.

I took the photo a while ago when I was working on the DB-50 (derrick barge 50) in Singapore. We spent a lot of time at this anchorage while we were working on our list of items to get checked out on sea trials.

We did leave (and come back) a few times. Singapore is one of the busiest ports in the world. It’s a great place for any sailor. Both on the water AND on land. 😉

This is one of my favorite photos. I even chose it to be the headliner on my blog.

Silhouette: Boys on a Bali Beach

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Here’s another one to illustrate the Weekly Photo Challenge from the Daily Post. This week the subject is “silhouette”.

I took the photo a while ago when I was on vacation in Bali Indonesia. I LOVE it over there and go there every chance I get (which is not nearly often enough).

It’s such a nice, friendly, peaceful place. There is so much to do on such a small island.

I’ve been to see many of the craft villages (batik, stonework, painting, woodcarving, silver-working), enjoyed watching some of the traditional dances, explored a few temples, went horseback riding, river rafting, rice-paddy walking, bike riding, snorkeling and SCUBA diving. I still have plenty of things I’d love to do there.

One of my favorite things to do in Bali is just to head to the beach at sunset along with a lot of the locals (and other tourists like me).

This photo always reminds me of good times. 🙂

Silhouette: While Sailing

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Heres another one to illustrate the Weekly Photo Challenge from the Daily Post. This week the subject is “silhouette”.

I took the photo a while ago when I was out sailing Galveston Bay with the Sail-La-Vie meetup group. We were coming in to Kemah after a great day out in the bay and everyone was relaxed and just chillin’ out.

I really liked how this photo turned out. 🙂

Silhouette at Sea: Sunset Sail

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I thought this photo would be a good choice to illustrate the Weekly Photo Challenge from the Daily Post. This week the subject is “silhouette”.

I took the photo a while ago. I belong to a meetup group in the Houston area called Sail- La- Vie. They go out sailing pretty much every weekend.

It’s a great way for me to still get to go out sailing for the day without having to spend the money to buy another boat of my own. 🙂

I do love sailing. There’s just nothing like it. It’s so nice to be out on the water with the wind in the sails and the sound of the water rushing by. 🙂

I don’t like the worrying I do when I have a boat sitting at the dock and I’m stuck working offshore hundreds or thousands of miles away. The entire hurricane season I worry about every storm that enters the Gulf of Mexico. 🙁

With Sail-La-Vie, I can go out sailing every weekend if I want. It costs me less than $100 for the day, including the drinks and snacks we all bring to share. I have a great day out on the bay with a bunch of fun and interesting people and the best part is, I don’t have to worry about the boat.

Silhouette at Sea: Ship and Seagull

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I thought this photo would be another good one for the Weekly Photo Challenge from the Daily Post. This week the subject is “silhouette”.

I took the photo a couple of months ago when I was in Korea. I had gone there to attend a workshop on travel writing and photography.

I flew into Incheon and decided to stay there for a day or 2. Just to rest up before figuring out what I wanted to do. I had a couple of weeks to spend on my own before meeting the rest of the group in Seoul.

I took this picture my first day there. I wound up down by the waterfront (of course) at a place called Wolmi Island. Its one of those “pleasure islands” the Asians seem so fond of.

I wandered around for a while taking pictures. I had some local junk food (tried the little boiled  ‘silkworm cocoons’- which I did NOT like at all! they tasted like salty dirt!).

I was surprised at how nice and quiet and peaceful it was there. I really enjoyed my afternoon there. 🙂

Silhouette at Sea: Pacific Breeze

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I thought this photo would be a good choice to illustrate the Weekly Photo Challenge from the Daily Post. This week the subject is “silhouette”.

I took the photo a while ago when I was working on board the Pacific Breeze. It’s a tuna boat, a purse seiner. We were fishing around the Solomon Islands at the time.

I was on board as captain (regardless of how many locals refused to believe that there ARE women captains).

I watched the guys set and haul in the nets and sometimes could get some great shots!

Law & Getting Back Our Sovereignty, Andrew Bartzis & Rebecca Cope, Part5

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this information really needs to be spread more widely, most people have NO clue as to what is being done behind our backs.

The Freedom Myth

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the more we can spread this information (which is the truth about what’s going on), the better off we’ll be.

Landing in Luanda

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I had a hell of a trip this time. We left Houston about an hour late after sitting (all ready to go) on the runway for 30-40 minutes. I was thinking maybe I would still be able to make my connection in London. Until they announced that they were turning our plane around. 🙁

We got off the (full) plane and shuffled across the terminal to the new gate where they had another plane waiting for us. It was supposed to be ready for us to go right aboard. Something changed tho. Those of us with connections in London had to stand in line at the desk while the gate agents tried to find us new connections.

When I finally made it to the desk to talk to an agent, they told me that since my company had bought the tickets for my trip separately, they couldn’t do anything to help me. I would have to talk to the connecting airline once I got to London.

Has anyone else ever heard of this? You buy a ticket to go from one place to another. You make sure all connecting flights are on partner airlines, you get one ticket with one confirmation number so everything seems OK. Lesson learned, it’s NOT.

I didn’t buy these tickets personally. My company sets up my travel arrangements to and from work. I’ve never had any problems like this before. Usually, when a problem with the original flight causes you to miss your connection, that carrier is responsible to get you on the next available flight. Apparently, it doesn’t always work this way. 🙁

I tried to call my company to let them know what was going on. I had an emergency number and the number for the rig I was going to and a couple of others. I called all of them and no one answered. I was able to leave a message on at least one of them.

I wasn’t really sure if anyone had received my message or if they were doing anything to arrange for my passage on from London, so when I got to London I turned my phone on hoping for a call from my company and proceeded to try to get the airlines to get me to my final destination somehow.

I went to TAP first, since United told me in Houston that they could/would not do anything for me (because of the separate ticket issue). TAP told me that they could/would not do anything for me since it was United that screwed up and ruined my connections so they were responsible for me. They did have flights available that they could get me on, but it would cost me 860 GBP to replace my tickets! They suggested I go back to United and try again.

I did that. I was lucky to get a very good agent this time (thanks again Usama). He did his best to help me and really came through. He was able to route me through Johannesburg to arrive in Luanda by noon the next day. Even got my luggage straightened out to make sure my bag would be on the flight with South African Airlines.
 
Lucky me, I thought I was all set and would have a couple of hours to rest and relax in the airport lounge. I figured I would try to call my company again and if there was no answer I would send emails.
 
I checked my phone and there were a couple of voice mails, but for some reason when I tried to listen to them they disappeared. I have a very new phone and I’m not really used to it yet so maybe I did something wrong. 🙁
 
I tried to check for records of calls in and calls out but it looks like this phone doesn’t save that information like my last phone did. Since I didn’t have the phone number for the person I was going to try to reach on my phone, I tried to get online with my computer to check my email.
 
I FINALLY found an unused electrical outlet in the lounge where I could use my computer without running out of juice (it’s old and sucks down the battery pretty quickly). As soon as I opened up my email, I found a couple of messages from my company.
 
First thing that popped out at me was that they had already arranged another flight for me. I guess they DID get my messages from Houston after all. Next message from them was to call them asap. So, I called.
 
The result of the conversation was that I needed to cancel the flight through Johannesburg that I had FINALLY managed to get United to arrange for me and take an Air France flight through Paris! I don’t know how much money that ticket cost but I know it wasn’t cheap!
 
The reason for spending all that money for another ticket rather than allow me to take the free flight through Johannesburg that was already arranged (and paid for)? That I would arrive in Luanda at 1200 noon and the Air France flight would have me arriving at 0500 am!
 
OK, I get it. They would like me to arrive at work as early as possible. The issue for me is that I had already been awake since I got up to get ready to leave home. So, since 0600 Tuesday morning August 12th. It was already around noon on August 13th, so I had already been up for 36 hours (adding 6 hours for GMT).
 
The original flight they had booked me would have allowed me to get at least a few hours of sleep at the hotel. The Air France flight would have me awake for a total of 54 hours by the time I arrived in Luanda and then I would have to spend another few hours in the airport and helicopter trying to keep my eyes open while getting from the airport in Luanda to the rig on the helicopter.
 
I don’t know about you, but I am not one of those people who can sleep anywhere. I really envy those people sometimes. I can only sleep if I can lie down comfortably (or, if I am just SO damn tired it’s impossible to stay awake anymore).
 
So, I was NOT looking forward to canceling the South African flight. I did do it tho. I went back to the South African Air desk to try and have them find my luggage before they put it on their plane (and would have to delay their flight taking my luggage off when they found out I was not actually on the plane- ‘security issue’ so they say).
 
Of course, they could not actually FIND my luggage and told me I would have to go back to the United desk to save my luggage. At that point, I didn’t have the time to even try to get to the United desk, much less try to get my luggage issue resolved. I would have to hurry to get from terminal 1 over to terminal 4 where the Air France flight was departing from.
 
Other than the usual time wasted going through ‘security’ once again (I had been no place other than inside secure areas of airports since 1200 on the 12th), things went pretty smoothly. If they didn’t, I would have missed that flight too.
 
I did make it. Stuck in the middle seat (probably due to last minute purchase of tickets) all the way to Paris. At least it was only a short (1.5 hours) flight.
 
I arrived in Paris and tried to use my United lounge pass and no such luck! United is a ‘Star Alliance’ member and Air France is not, so I couldn’t even find a comfortable place to chill out for the layover in Paris.
 
The next flight from Paris to Luanda was also stuffed full but I was lucky to at least have an aisle seat for the 8 hour flight. Thank goodness for small favors.
 
I was SO tired by this point, I think I actually fell asleep for a few minutes at a time during this flight. I know because every time I did, my seatmate had to wake me up to go to the bathroom, or else the flight attendants would knock me in the elbow passing by with the drink cart.
 
We arrived in Angola before dawn. There was a mad scramble to get in line for immigration. There must have been over 300 people in line and only about 5 immigration agents to process us all. I was lucky again and pulled aside by one of the officials to start another line, so I got to show my papers fairly quickly.
 
Since I didn’t have a visa and had to get one on arrival, the immigration agent just looked at my yellow fever certificate and sent my passport and official paperwork
off with another agent while I was to wait off to the side.
 
It didn’t really take them very long to come back with it. Only about 30 minutes. After they gave me my passport back with the visa stuck in there, I was free to pick up my luggage and go.
 
I was one of the last people from my flight to arrive at the baggage claim and the carousel had already stopped turning. Just as I suspected, my luggage did NOT make it to Luanda.
 
Once again, my luggage was lost in transit. At least it was not a surprise this time. I also knew it had arrived safely in London, both United and Air France confirmed that before I left London.
 
I went to the lost and found office and proceeded to fill out the paperwork for my bag. Thank goodness, I TRIED to pack lightly this time. Last time I found out they have very low weight limits on baggage for the helicopters out to the rig.
 
I really didn’t have much to worry about in there except for my prescription safety glasses and comfortable steel toed boots (if those things could EVER really be considered at all comfortable). I just had a few other things like work shirts, underwear, socks, flip-flops, tooth-paste, etc.
 
Thank goodness I was able to send a box of stuff over to this ship from my last one! At least I have a few pair of underwear and a couple of days worth of toothpaste. I HOPE they will deliver my bag on the next Air France flight to arrive in Luanda. They should, they know to be on the look out for it. I just hope it gets here on the next chopper after that (which might not be til Tuesday).
 
Yes, I did go straight out from the international airport to the domestic airport to catch the helicopter to the rig. I was put on the 1800-0600 (night) watch so was able to get about 3 hours of sleep before going on watch. Yeah, right, 3 hours after all that.
 
Here’s to the wonderful world of travel to Africa! 😉
 
 

Angola Again!

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If you don’t hear from me for a couple of days, don’t worry- I’ll be traveling and unable to get online.

I’m already at the airport. It seems I just left the place. 🙁

I’m headed back to Angola. I’m going back to work. A different ship this time, but the same company. The ship should be very similar to the last one I was on.

I was only at home for a little over a week. A couple of days flying home, a couple of days flying back. Whew! I’m already exhausted and I haven’t even got to work yet.

I didn’t really get to do a whole lot while I was home this time. I was pretty busy trying to get my taxes done. Or at least in good enough shape to turn them over to the accountants. What a job!

I’m hoping I got everything I need done. I should have a few days at home before the deadline, just in case. I just hope I get home on time. I’ll be ready for a real vacation for sure by the time I get off this trip!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Texture (Mineral)

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I’ve already posted for the Weekly Photo Challenge some photos of animals, and vegetables, so now I figured I might as well post some ‘minerals’. 😉

I took the first one while driving home along the beach on the Bluewater Highway from Galveston yesterday. It was such a gorgeous day! I was just interested in looking at the patterns and the textures of the land along the road.

I guess mud is some kind of mineral. It’s not animal or vegetable, right? 😉

The others I took at the Houston Museum of Natural Science a couple of months ago. I can’t remember what kinds of minerals these were. They had so many of them. I just thought that a lot of them were really beautiful.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Texture (Vegetable)

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Here’s another entry for the Weekly Photo Challenge. I’ve got so many great photos for this theme! I did animals already so now I’ll do some plants (animal, vegetable, mineral). 😉

DSC08045 DSC08070

Weekly Photo Challenge: Texture

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Here’s another entry to the Weekly Photo Challenge. I took this one at the Houston Zoo last time I was home. I have to say I’ve never felt the texture of a live rattlesnake like this guy. 😉

Weekly Photo Challenge: Texture (Simple Sea Creatures)

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I’ve been busy all week working on my taxes. I had to take a break and decided to go up to Moody Gardens in Galveston for Shark night. I had a good time. They had a pretty cool film showing about Great White sharks and elephant seals.

I’m trying to catch up on my email now. I got one for the Weekly Photo Challenge from the Daily Post. So, here’s my entry.

I took all these pictures there except the last one. I took that one in Korea at the fish market. Seems people there really love to eat those things. I’m not sure exactly what they are. I think they’re some kind of sea squirt.

  

Getting Moody

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I’ve only been home a few days so far. I’ve been really busy trying to catch up with everything that’s been needing to get done while I was at work over the last few weeks. Especially my TAXES (UGH)!! 🙁

I decided I needed a break. I got free tickets to “SHARKS After Hours” at Moody Gardens. I’m going. 🙂

Moody Gardens is in Galveston and the show is from 7-10 pm. I know I’m not going to feel like driving all the way home at that hour, so I got a hotel for the night. I figure I can hang out for a while before I head home and then stop and see my friends at Surfside on the way home.

I hope to get some more decent pictures while I’m up there, (these are from last time I went).

Moody Gardens has a bunch of cool stuff to see. They have a ‘rain forest pyramid’, an ‘aquarium pyramid’, another one that has special exhibits (last time I went it was about pirates), a water park with nice white sandy beach, zip lines, a paddle boat, etc.

I don’t have any kids but apparently it’s a great place to take them. I always see lots of families. They all look like they’re having a good time. 🙂

green sea anemone

green sea anemone

underbelly of a sea star

underbelly of a sea star

sea dragon

sea dragon

pot bellied sea horse

pot bellied sea horse

puffer fish

puffer fish

sea turtle

sea turtle

chameleon

chameleon

penguins

penguins

orchids DSC04855

Rush-Hour Pork Stir-Fry

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Rush-Hour Pork Stir-Fry Recipe – Kraft Recipes.

I’ve been busy since I got home working on my taxes. I’m trying hard to get them to the accountant before I leave again next week.

I’m about sick of that so taking a break and cooking tonight. I made a quick and easy stir fry for dinner tonight.

It only slightly resembles the recipe in the picture (but that one looks pretty good too). I fixed mine up with stuff I had around here. Substitute ramen noodles for the broccoli slaw and you’ll get a pretty good idea of what mine looks like. I didn’t have exactly everything the recipe calls for, but I’m very good at improvising. 😉

Basically, I just melted some butter and sauteed some onions (I almost always cook with butter instead of any other kind of fat/oil). I added some pork ‘medallions’ I had saved in the freezer from last time I was home. I just sliced them up real thin. I threw in some mushrooms (cause I always add mushrooms with onions and I like them). 😉

Then I boiled up a pack of ramen noodles. Drained ’em and threw ’em in the skillet with the seasoning packet. Then I added a few pieces of fresh pineapple I’d just got done chopping up for a smoothie (they’re on sale for $0.99). 🙂

I needed some green vegetables so I added some frozen broccoli to the mix. I was going to add some peas too, but the broccoli looked good enough.

I didn’t have the “Asian Toasted Sesame Dressing” the Kraft recipe calls for, but I did add the garlic and soy sauce to the pot. I like sweets, so I also added some honey.

All in all, it came out really good. It only took me about 15-20 minutes from start to finish. I’ve got plenty for leftovers I can have in a day or 2. I think if you make this recipe the way I made it, you can figure on feeding 2 people if they’re hungry, 4 if they’re not. 😉

You can easily scale it up or down depending on how many you want to feed. I don’t usually cook from a recipe or strict measurements, I throw in ingredients by look and by taste. If I think it looks or sounds good, like it’ll go together, I’ll try it.

I like to TRY and cook for 2, that way I always have leftovers and so if I don’t feel like cooking again soon, I can have the leftovers.

Twisted Strawberry Shortcake

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Twisted Strawberry Shortcake Recipe – Kraft Recipes.

This looks SO good! Strawberries have been on sale and so I bought a bunch the other day. Too bad I didn’t see this recipe until after I went to the store. 🙁

The only thing I have that the recipe calls for is the strawberries and milk. Oh yeah, and I always keep a can of whipped cream in the fridge (never know when that’ll come in handy). 😉

Since I’ll be leaving for work again so soon, I don’t want to go back to the store again now. I know I’ll buy way more stuff than I intended to and then wind up having to throw most of it away when I leave for work. I HATE THAT!

I guess I’ll just have to settle for strawberries and whipped cream and will try this recipe next time I get home (if the strawberries are still in season).

BringBackOurGirls

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I agree with this completely. NO ONE should be abducted and sold into slavery! EVER! For ANY reason!! And any so-called god who was OK with anything like that is certainly NOT worth worshiping! Any idiot who would follow such a god I can’t think of anything else to call that person but a pure bred IDIOT! Go and sell YOURSELF into slavery if you think it’s an OK thing to do!

Home

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I made it home, just a little bit late. The plane was delayed for an hour leaving London due to problems with the AC. It was pretty hot on the plane. I was surprised they didn’t tell us all to get off. The plane was full tho, so I guess they didn’t really want to deal with almost 500 pissed off passengers.

Whoo-hoo! My luggage made it too! 🙂

Songs of the Sea: A Pirate Looks At 40- Jimmy Buffett

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This is one of my all time favorite songs by one of my favorite artists. I grew up on the beach in Florida. I grew up with Jimmy Buffett songs. I always love a good songwriter (storyteller). I always felt like he was writing his songs about me and my friends. 😉

This particular song is really hitting home right now. I just had a birthday and definitely still feeling like I’m “arriving too late”. I’ve mentioned before about how things have changed (for the worse) in the maritime industry.

Yeah, this about sums it up for me…

Yes, I am a pirate two hundred years too late.
The cannons don’t thunder there’s nothin’ to plunder
I’m an over forty victim of fate
Arriving too late, arriving too late.

Heading Home

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Things will probably be a little slow around the blog for the next day or 2. I got off the rig yesterday (NICE birthday present) on the helicopter and have been traveling since last night.

The company was nice enough to arrange hotel rooms for us (at the same place I stayed when I came out to work). The problem was, we got there at around noon and they didn’t have any rooms available til earliest 1400. 🙁

I was already tired, since I’d been up since 2200 the night before. I have been working the midnight to noon watch the past week or so. I went to eat lunch while waiting for the room to get ready.

At least the food was decent.

I went back to the front desk a little after 2, hoping they were going to have rooms ready. To my surprise, they did. 🙂

They had a porter help me bring my bags to the room. First thing we noticed was the smell. Disgusting! Like old socks, dirty laundry, moldy old basement. Yuk! His shoes squished through the carpet when he walked into the room and flipped on the lights to show me the bathroom.

OK, so he called the desk and they set up another room for me. We went back down there to trade keys, went back up to the room and… the new key didn’t work. 🙁

The porter found a maid cleaning rooms down the hall and got her to open the room with her passkey. At least I could check out the room and get settled a little bit. The porter showed up in just a few minutes with a new (working) key. 🙂

By this time it was after 3, and the driver was coming to pick us up for our flight at 2000. I figured I had better get up by 1800 so I could have a shower and a cup of tea.

I had already tried to check my email and it was impossible to connect to the internet in the room (again). I was really too tired to get dressed again and go down to the lobby to check email (or work on the blog).

I did get to sleep a couple of hours. I think I probably got 1-2 hours total on the flight to London this morning too. Im hoping I can get at least a little bit more on the way to Houston. It’s another long flight and I’ll be in the window seat this time. Last one I was in the middle (which I hate- doesn’t everyone?).

I should be home by dinnertime tonight (Houston time). I doubt I’ll manage to do anything tonight but pass out as soon as I get in the door.

I HOPE my luggage makes it this time. I’ll only have about 2 weeks at home before I have to be back onboard the ship again. I’ll have only 12 days at home to get everything done and rested up to go back over to Angola and start this trip all over again (in reverse).

Aberdeen: the End

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Are you all sick of hearing about Aberdeen yet? I figured I’d give you a break with some other stuff, so I posted a few photography challenge entries. But I did want to finish up my series on Aberdeen and end the story. This will be my last post about it (at least for a while).

I finished up my lifeboat training a little earlier than expected and turned in my ‘security’ badge at the harbor entrance. I still had some time left to explore Aberdeen. 🙂

I was lucky to have the opportunity to take a tour with “Aberdeen Day Tours”. I found their brochure at the tourist information center, it listed all kinds of things that sounded interesting, like the Loch Ness Tour, the Royal Deeside Tour, or the Mystery Tour.

I signed up for the Speyside Tour. It was the one they offered on Friday, when I thought I might have the chance to go. It sounded good enough to me. I’m always up for a visit to a distillery. 😉

We started off from outside the tourist information center on Union Street, right downtown next to the tourist center. There were 7 of us, plus the driver. It was a pretty diverse group. A couple of ladies from Brazil, a couple from Sweden and the US, a couple from France, and me (another American). Our driver from Aberdeen, of course.

We had a comfortable van with plenty of room and the driver had a headset that allowed him to easily explain the local lore to us as he drove. We first went to the Glenfiddich Whisky distillery in Dufftown (yeah, like Homer Simpsons’ beer- Duff), where we got a tour of the place and of course a taste of their different flavors. I think the whiskey is a little strong for me to drink straight like that (or even with a little bit of water), but it did make an impression.

After we saw how they made the whisky, we got to see how they made the barrels it was aged in. It’s actually pretty important to the flavor of the finished product to let the whisky sit for a few years in the proper barrel. I liked the taste of the one I tried that was aged in the barrels that previously held Spanish sherry. It tastes a little sweet, I thought I tasted honey and berries. 🙂

We had a tour of the Speyside Cooperage and got to watch the coopers as they broke down the old casks to repair them and make new ones. I was impressed by how fast those guys worked. I almost got tired just watching them. Our guide told us that the coopers were some of the highest paid workers in Scotland. I had no idea it took so much training and skill to make a barrel.

After watching the coopers so energetically rushing around their workshop, we were ready to have lunch. We could have had a nice picnic at the cooperage, they had a nice setup on the grounds there, but the weather was kind of grey and gloomy. We found our way to the little old town of Aberlour instead.

We were dropped off by ‘The Mash Tun’ for lunch hour. It looked good, but also busy and I thought it might take a while to get served. I would rather look for somewhere else to eat and at least get a little bit of sightseeing in. I found a cute little place right next to the town square. It’s always a good sign when the locals crowd the place. I was lucky to find a spot. The food was simple but good. I tried a scone. Very nice. 😉

After lunch, I had a few minutes before I had to meet the group back at the van. I spotted a store selling Scottish shortbread and scarfed up a couple of packages (different flavors) to savor later. I found out later they make the Walkers brand in Aberlour. 🙂

We all made it back to the van on time and we were off to our next location. We made our way to Ballindalloch Castle as the weather grew even more grey and dreary. I thought it was nice that the family still lived there and yet allowed the public to tour their beautiful property and even their house. I was hoping to spend time looking around inside if it started raining. 😉

The house was old and very beautifully furnished. The library was great (I love books). The nursery was small and located all the way at the top of the house. I thought it was strange that they didn’t worry about the kids getting loose and tumbling down the stairs. Maybe they just wanted some peace and quiet?

We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside. It didn’t really take very long to see everything in the house itself. 🙁 Outside the gardens were large and well tended. There was a walled rose garden with a circular pond in the middle and a trellis covered with roses. Too bad it started pouring rain just as we were finding our way there. Thank goodness they had spare umbrellas to lend.

After we had a (fairly quick) look around the gardens, we met up back at the van. I would have liked to spend more time looking around the grounds. The gardens were fantastic! They had a small herd of llamas (?) and a trout stream I would have liked to take some pictures of. I didn’t really want to get any more wet then I was already (and it was hard to take pictures and balance the umbrella at the same time). 🙁

I think everyone felt about the same. It was a more subdued group in the ride home. We made it back to Aberdeen in time for dinner and I headed back to the hotel for an early night. I had to get up fairly early in order to travel to Angola to join my ship in Luanda.