Tag Archives: Frontier Discoverer

Time Flies

Posted on by
1

I only just realized it’s been almost 2 weeks since I last posted. I’ve been onboard since January 30th and haven’t really had much of a chance to keep up here. It’s kind of strange, since I really haven’t been all that busy, but still on watch 12 hours a day and not able to spend so much time online like I can at home.

I’m back on the Ocean Evolution. I was on here last July for a hitch. It’s a nice boat. Good crew. Good company to work for. I used to work directly for Oceaneering. I spent 5 years on their DSV The Performer overseas. I loved it! I think that has to be my favorite job of all.

If we would’ve stayed overseas, I would never have left. I’d have 18 years here. But, that’s not what happened. They brought the ship back to the GoM (Gulf of Mexico) and it was such a horrible culture shock. I got an offer to go back overseas and jumped on it.

That turned out to be a bad decision. I should’ve known it was too good to be true. It was supposed to be on a drill ship. It would work in Alaska in the summer and Australia in the winter. Perfect! At that point, I never wanted to work on the drillships because I figured they would be so boring, just sitting in one spot for weeks at a time. This one would spend a lot of time underway- great!

Well, it didn’t work out for me. I joined the ship in Singapore. That was pretty cool. I always loved working in Singapore. It’s such an exciting, exotic, fascinating place. I love the energy there. I spent about a month onboard while we all worked hard to get the ship ready to go to work.

I spent most of my time on the bridge, working on correcting charts and publications. Years worth of work that hadn’t been done. Also making voyage plans. Plans that changed every couple of days.

We were supposed to sail from Singapore to Alaska to start work, but we had a lot of issues onboard. Most of the crew that was there when I signed on quit before I did. The rest of them quit with me. Only the captain and second mate were left while they scrambled to acquire new crew for the voyage.

It’s a long, sad story that I probably shouldn’t get into online. It’s not a good idea to air your dirty laundry in public. Especially online, where everybody in the world can see it and it never, ever goes away.

I’m just glad the industry was still going strong at that point and I was able to stay constantly busy with work from the temp agencies. The same ones I’ve been working with the last few years. Sadly, none of them have had nearly enough work since then. I wonder if the shipping industry is ever going to provide a decent chance of employment again?

Between autonomous shipping (theres already a ferry in Norway running around on its own), the STCW that allows shipowners to go to the lowest bidder for crew, and the push to get rid of fossil fuels it doesn’t look good.

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

Posted on by
Reply

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!

U.S. EPA Fines Shell for Arctic Air Pollution Violations

Posted on by
Reply

U.S. EPA Fines Shell for Arctic Air Pollution Violations | gCaptain

OK, they got fined $1 million, I don’t think that’s really all that big a deal to them. I am SO glad I didn’t stick with that job!

That was going to be my perfect job. I left Oceaneering after they brought my ship to the Gulf of Mexico. What a HUGE culture shock! I’ve done everything I could do to get the hell back overseas ever since (STILL trying). When I got the offer from Frontier Drilling to go as 2nd mate on the Frontier Discoverer (now Noble Discoverer), I was on that like white on rice 🙂

It was out of the GOM, the pay and benefits were better, the schedule was better and best of all, it was drilling but NOT going to be stuck sitting in one spot for months on end not doing anything. This one was supposed to work in Alaska in the summers and Australia in the winters. I figured, great, I would still get to do some actual navigation. Finally get to go somewhere interesting again!

So, I flew over to meet the ship in Singapore. Whoa, what a surprise I got. I had the idea the ship was ”new”. The ship itself was built in 1966 (but NOT well taken care of- parts of it below decks looked like Swiss cheese- NOT good!). They stuck a new drill rig on it midships. They stuck a new house on it aft. It still had the original engine (that wouldn’t start) and bridge. Not much in the way of modern electronics, no DP systems- it was “turret moored”. They only had a captain, chief mate and 2 second mates for bridge team. I guess we were going to stand watch like a regular ship (12-4, 4-8, 8-12) instead of the usual 12 hour watch like the oilfield. I never did find out since I quit before we left Singapore. They did have a bunch of good ABs at least.

I really wanted to keep that job. It offered everything I wanted. Actual sailing around to interesting places around the world, good crew (international), good schedule, good pay, good insurance, decent quarters.

I hated to leave! But things were getting pretty scary to me. More and more every day. For instance, I would make my way up forward to the bridge for my watch and someone would casually mention to me that the “swimming pool” was full again. WHAT???? Swimming pool??

Yes, some ships do actually have swimming pools but this one was NOT supposed to. So, what were they talking about. Turns out, the swimming pool was a void space, starboard side midships. It went all the way down from the main deck to the bilge. Every other day it would fill up to the top. Then it would drain down. What was going on? No one knew. No one really seemed to care…

I was there only about 3 weeks. We would have fire drills every couple of days. Mostly because we could not conduct a ‘proper’ fire drill to satisfy the authorities. We would start the fire pump, but where was the water??? We could never get any water to the forward part of the ship. Why not??? Yeah, pretty important question…

Turns out that about 50 feet of the fire line had been cut out previously. No one had put a blank on the line. No one had ‘remembered’ about it. So, when we started the fire pump, the water from the fire line would fill up the swimming pool instead of going down the fire line to the forward part of the ship. WOW!

So, OK, that problem solved. Only took 3 weeks I was there and who knows how long before that they had been without any fire fighting capability. Again, no one seemed to care.

They did finally manage to get the main engine started too. I’m not sure why they bothered. The company man assured me they would TOW the ship to Alaska if they couldn’t get it started. They were bound and determined to get it there on schedule!

I almost fell out of my (top) bunk when they finally lit it off! It sounded like a bomb went off the first time it rolled over. Of course, the engine being so old, they don’t service that type anymore, or make parts, so the engineers were having a hell of a time. A great bunch of guys. They all walked off the ship a week before I left. The chief mate left a couple of days before I had enough. The QMEDs left when I did. All that were left was the Captain, the other 2nd mate (who was used to getting shot at while working in Africa) and the (foreign) ABs who were staying til the end since they wouldn’t be allowed to stay once the ship got to the states.

I felt bad leaving like that before my scheduled hitch was over. That was one of only a couple of times in all these years I’ve quit like that. It just wasn’t worth either my license or my life for that job no matter how badly I wanted it. Every time I see this ship in the news I’m reminded of that time in Singapore and glad I made the decision I did. I feel sorry for the people who had to deal with all that crap in Alaska. 🙁

Here’s a link to the ships details so you can see what I’m talking about 🙂http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/shipdetails.aspx?MMSI=636014934