Amy, "Dad", Oil Rigs - part 2

#51 - Instead of seven days, this would be a ten-day shift. That would leave me and Amy little time before I would have to fly home.

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part 1 

Amy, “Dad”, and Oil Rigs - part 2 

Instead of seven days, this would be a ten-day shift. That would leave me and Amy little time before I would have to fly home. I was bothered by the way things were turning out, but Amy was upset. 

I tried reasoning with her that it was for the best as I was making money as opposed to spending it on a vacation. “Dad” was doing me a favor. I needed the money.  

We spent the day in Lake Charles visiting my family and friends, then back to New Iberia. I was early to bed, and early to rise. 

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It took just over an hour to get to the rig. It was about a hundred miles offshore. A huge platform, building-like with derrick and cranes, appeared in the distance. On the horizon were more of the same. 

A Jack-Up Rig, on four legs, was in about three hundred feet of water. The platform bottom was about fifty feet off the water with another forty feet above housing the living quarters, machine and office workspace, and storage compartments. Atop that was the deck with the drilling apparatus, staging area, and work cranes. On the opposite side of the derrick was the helipad. 

It was a metal island on steel legs. Nearing the rig on the approach to land, men appeared, looking miniscule, as they moved about on deck. 

We landed and twelve of us got out and were replaced with those who were going home. Almost to the offramp, the prop wash blew off my hard hat. I chased it to the perimeter of the roped off landing pad where it went over the side. Seeming to take forever, it hit the surface and corkscrewed slowly down into the depths and out of sight.  

Only then did I see how incredibly clear and turquoise powder blue the Gulf was. It was tropical island worthy. I had not even thought it could be so clear as I was familiar only with the coastline and the silted muddy outflow of Louisiana’s rivers and bayous where you couldn’t see even a foot underwater. 

A sharp whistle and a beckoning hand wave from someone I took to be the Foreman directed me back to the ramp and down as the helicopter revved up to take off. I would have to find another hat. 

My work shift was from 11 pm to 11 am. What odd hours, I thought. I spent the rest of the day looking around. The working areas of the rig were off limits to those not on duty.  

The place was immaculately clean. I ate a late breakfast, shot some pool, played poorly at  ping pong, lifted a few weights, and relaxed on the patio, where a couple guys were fishing. The rig structure itself draws fish for the protection it offers to some and the food source it offers others. The rigs legs are soon covered with barnacles and mussels. 

The workers and geologists and managers were housed together, which was great for camaraderie. 

I thought conditions were better than at many resorts. And I was being well-paid for it.  

A wicked thunderstorm, a common occurrence, blew in and briefly stopped all work until the lightning and heavy rain subsided. I got a few hours' sleep before my shift. 

I was up bright and early at 10 pm and had another breakfast.  

Two nights and mornings went by with my crew moving countless bags of drilling mud and pipe from storage to the staging area near the drill. I was so stiff and sore. I thought my back would give out. 

Then came a supply ship with more mud and pipe. We climbed into a cage-like cargo net and were lowered to the ship below by a crane. As we were above the ship a good height, an attached rope was lowered to the ship and manned so that we wouldn’t begin to sway and twist on the way down. 

Pallets of mud were raised to the rig in the same manner. It was relatively easy.  

The pipe was a different operation. Two cables were attached at the 10‘ and the 20’ section of the 30’ pipe and lifted by crane. Again, as the pipe tended to swing and rotate easily, a stabilizing cable played out from the ship below as the pipe rose. 

It was here on the rig that I first heard the cost of things spoken of in terms of millions of dollars. Nothing in the oil business was cheap.  

Between supply ship arrivals, we swabbed the decks, washed down or painted all surfaces most susceptible to the weather. It was an on-going process. This was the nature of my work on the rig. 

It was a slow, steady, and safe process. Safety was key and there were no shortcuts taken. 

*  *  * 

I liked the guys I was working with. Some of them had not finished high school. Workers drove in from as far away as Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Georgia.  

There was one guy. Jackie. He was looking for trouble, upset about something. He was caught sleeping at the rear of a storage area on bags of drilling mud. He was fired. The next morning a copter arrived with a team of geologists. Jackie got a one-way ride home on the copter. 

On the morning of day eight, Jerry, one of the roughnecks on the drilling crew got sick. I was called on to replace him. These guys make more money but are also more skilled at equipment operation.  

I worked at the drill hole adding pipe to the string. The initial bore hole casing had been completed and a narrower pipe was going down inside of it. We were down about three hundred feet, on the sea floor where the casing connected to a blowout preventer. This rig would eventually drill down to about 15,000’ to where the initial surveying and testing indicated the oil was. We had a long way to go. 

Learning on the job, two of us had the job of securing two large clamps to the end of last pipe drilled down, thus keeping it securely in position, while another section of pipe was lifted from the deck, upended, and threaded onto the secured pipe. We would release the clamps and drilling would commence another 30’ until another section was needed. It was quite a process.  

The clamps were suspended on pulleys to help counter their weight. It was all I could do to maneuver the clamp into place. It was intimidating. I perceived this part of the operation as precarious, at best. I was so glad that Jerry was back at his job the next shift. 

One constant source of entertainment, especially at night with the sea surface lit by the rig lights, was watching barracuda chasing flying fish. The barracuda is fast but so is the flying fish and at the right time, the fish clears the surface, its fins project out like wings, and it glides away thus escaping its chaser. If only temporarily. They can also be picked off in midair by predator birds, like seagulls. It was quite a show. 

I was glad when the ten days came to an end. Due to stormy weather and rough seas, we were transported home by a crew boat. The ride took several hours. I got home to Amy and a big meal late in the afternoon. We had three nights left to spend together. 

*  *  * 

With little time to take a real vacation, we ended up staying put. It was the best part of the whole three weeks. We weren’t in a rush to go anywhere or do anything.  

I think I had “Mom and Dad’s” approval. I felt welcomed and at ease. 

We lazed around under the big moss-covered backyard oak tree. We ate a lot. We fished from their backyard bank along Bayou Teche.  

“Dad” had an airboat in his boatshed. We cruised cypress tree swamps and bayous and over marshes and waterlogged grasslands. We saw numerous alligators. I liked the airboat most of all.  

On the last afternoon of my stay, Amy and I went shopping. I had a couple of things in mind. At a nursery I got a glass birdbath for the backyard and in a jewelry store we took a look at rings. We got an idea of what we wanted. Amy took a fancy to a silver necklace with a turquoise hummingbird pendant, and I bought it for her.  

The time came for me to leave. Amy drove me to New Orleans for my flight back to L.A. We made plans for her to come out my way during her school’s next semester break. That was only four months away.  

The End 

part 1

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