My life at sea

Another day in India

2009-01-29T07:59:00.000-08:00

Well today I walked the 2 kms to work. From my hotel the "Palm Beach" funny huh to the VCTPL port Visakhapatnam, Inida, down the beach. Its quit a nice walk. Here's some local scenery.

x-mas at My brother's

2008-12-25T08:49:00.000-08:00

2008-12-17T05:03:00.000-08:00

I am still on the Kingfisher standing by for further instructions in Mobile Ala.. We have gone over the system many times by now and are ready to do another job. Hope we have something exciting. Its been nice being here for a bit. I am only an hour from my brother in Pensacola so I have been able to visit some. I had thanksgiving with him and his family. That was cool.

Back at MC 696

2008-11-21T13:36:00.000-08:00

Today is a semi windy and choppy day in the gulf. We are still working on the same job in 7000 fsw. I think we may be in port for Thanksgiving. We'll see. We had to do another umbilical reterm. Oh yea, 12 hrs of bust hump work.

A new 2 me boat

2008-11-08T20:17:00.000-08:00

At home having fun on my new toy.... Been home almost 3 weeks now. Expecting to go back out in a few days........

Still in MC

2008-09-30T00:19:00.000-07:00

Yes we are still here. This is supposed to be a million dollar a day well and we still haven't put the final touches on it. Having tooling integration technicalities on the sub. Seems like everything we try goes bust. Oh well, the client is anxious but we are doing everything in our power to make it happen. Using these torque tools is sometimes mystifying. You get results one time and another nothing. 5000 fsw is no joke sometimes. But I have been on much deeper jobs that have went smooth. I hope things change soon. Its been a real struggle so far. Weather is great. I saw the Mahi mahi running today and even had some guys on board make a catch. Oh yea I almost forgot. We were around the rig the other day and had a whale shark pass over the sub and awhile later under us knocking off some of our tools as it scratched its back on the bottom of the sub. As it passed under, the tail fin hit the front of the sub and knocked it sideways. The client made us write an incident report. Ironic I guess, marine life slowing down the job.

All is well in MC 696

2008-09-23T22:45:00.000-07:00

Today we are in Mississippi Canyon in the GOM working on a long stretch of pipeline for a major oil company. We have been here for approx. a week on site and expect to be here for another few weeks. The weather hasn't been bad since Ike, only an occasional front. We are working in 5000 fsw + and have already had multiple problems with our sub and the other one on board. My sub currently seems to be working perfect at the present, knock on wood, but that could change at any moment. They are finicky machines and there are lots of stresses on them. Hopefully things will continue smooth.... Till next time, enjoy.

Back to work

2008-09-11T20:34:00.000-07:00

Today I am 75 miles off the coast of Mexico on the DSV Kingfisher. I have been back to work for two days now. We mobilized in Galveston, Tx for a job near Alabama, but hurricane Ike was bearing down on Galveston quickly so the decision was to run from the storm south and come around the back of it. We have been uderway for 27 hrs now and are still no where near our project location off the coast of Al.. The hurricane is approximitly 350 miles from Galveston, and is a cat. 2 at this time traveling 12 mph.. I had a good time at home, working on my boat ect. so its good to be back at work. I will most likely stay 2 mnths on this hitch. We'll see....

Houston

2008-08-02T14:27:00.000-07:00

Today I'm in Houston waiting for a class on hydraulics that will be this coming week. More training from our good friends in the office. I have been here for a week now and am really missing home now. I have been away for 6 weeks and the time really slows down when you are at the office versus being offshore. I should be home this time next week and will be happy to continue working on my fishing boat. Wow what a money pit, but it's good fun and a learning experience. I am refurbishing a 1977 Chris Craft and have already put a rebuilt motor and have the paint and some cosmetics left to do.....

Sunken Crashed heli

2008-07-19T16:19:00.000-07:00

Here's some pics of a copter that was crashed on bottom where we were working in about 1000 fsw..

Water Spouts

2008-07-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

Today is a lazy day at port. I was going through some pics from the last trip offshore and I found these I had forgotten about. It is the perfect time of year to sight these waterspouts. These were about 2 to 3 miles from us and danced around for awhile then disappeared.

How I got into the BIZ

2008-07-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

Well my affection with water has been a lifetime obssesion but I actually started making a living from the offshore industry in 98' after I went to a school in NJ for commercial diving. We learned all types of things, like underwater welding, pipeling construction, NDT, water survival, dive medicine and general offshore practices. This school is really what got me offshore, then I realized after a year and a half of diving that I really didn't like that side of the industry. I had a friend I went to dive school with that hired on with a co. that did diving and ROV work and with his industrial electronics background and schooling made an easy switch to ROV's. I however wanted to do ROVing but couldn't seem to get hired. The demmand was small then. After keeping in touch with my friend for years I got the opportunity to hire on with a new division he was starting for a major corp.. I started as a deck foreman, as I was familiar with offshore ops, rigging and cranes ops.. While I was working that end of the spectrum I always would spend as much time with the ROV crew as possible, learning and working. Showing your willingness to learn and work is a big part of any offshore position. Will cont.. gtg to work.

Another sucessfull hitch

2008-07-12T03:21:00.000-07:00

The vessel arrived in Port Fourchon yesterday @ 19:30, after 24 hrs of transit from EB 160 in the GOM. It's nice to see the dry land after 3 weeks out, but I don't think I will be able to make my family reunion on the 17th as I had hoped. I called the office yesterday and requested a flight to WV to go and spend time with grandma before the reunion and our HR guy asked if I would stay onboard because we are short handed. Oh well, I really want to go but may not make it.....

Bottom of tree where we had to cut 1.5" steel casing and mutiple pipes inside.

2008-07-05T11:57:00.000-07:00

The 30" casing

2008-07-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

2008-07-05T11:43:00.000-07:00

Sub sea tree removal complete

2008-07-05T11:37:00.000-07:00

Today about 05:00 we brought the casing off bottom from the sea floor. We finally completed this phase of the job! What an experience.

2008-07-02T18:12:00.000-07:00

This is our Control console. We operate the ROV from here on the surface. The pilot sits on the right and the co-pilot sits on the left.

3000 m ROV

2008-07-02T18:02:00.000-07:00

Here is one of our 3000 meter systems. This is an ROV (remotely operated vehichle) on the bottom. On the top is the TMS (tether management system). When the configuration reaches 100' from working depth the ROV seperates from the TMS and operates remotely, from the surface but tethered to the TMS which is connected by a 10,000' cable on a winch on surface. The gray part is the LARS (launch and recovery system).

Tiger Fish

2008-07-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

Here's one of the boats I work on. In the middle is a small grey "A" frame where the ROV is launched from.

Another day at Sea

2008-07-02T17:27:00.000-07:00

Today was the day when we finally got the well casing blown with charges sub sea, below the bottom. Finally. We had so many problems to get to this point. We set off the charge about 11:00 a.m. just before my shift ended at 12:00. That was cool. Even though the charge was set inside 4 steel pipes, the biggest one being 1.5"thick, 20' below the bottom, 550' sub sea, we felt the boat shake and saw an area of water explode on the surface. After the initial charge had been blown we had the helicopter that had been flying over head just before the blast, in circles for about 1 hour, make another few passes over the site just to make sure there were no injured large animals. The helicopter was charged with looking for sea turtles, whales, porpoise, ect.. The only thing that had been affected was a few Lane Snapper, similar to red snapper but smaller. There was a shark cruising around cleaning those up very quickly though. We actually saw this shark swimming around taking mouth fulls of fish even before we could move in and scoop some for ourselves. This shark would come up to a fish, stick its head out of the water and gulp down a mouthful every time. That was cool to see. Anyway,the job should only go a few more days and we'll be on to the next adventure.

Well it's the first one

2008-06-22T13:20:00.000-07:00

Today is Sunday, June 22nd. I am currently writing this from my room on a 260' vessel called the Tigerfish in the Gulf of Mexico, block EB 117. We are working on a well abandonment job. The water depth is 555'. My job here is to operate and fix the ROV, (remotely operated vehicle) and do whatever task sub sea that our clients request. Once we detach the old wellhead from the well casing, we will put explosives down hole and blow it 20' below the mud line. As per M.M.S. (Minerals Management Service) instructions. Finally we will rec0ver the pieces and the job will be complete. Sounds simple huh? Well I tell you it's not and it's extremely expensive. For this vessel and robot on board with crew to operate 24 hrs a day it cost approximately 100,000.00 a day (24 hour day). And the problems we run into working in the water are many. The ocean is the least explored place on the planet for a reason. Well, hope you enjoyed a small part of what I do and a day in my life at work