Work Hard, Play Hard

Today is the first day of Eid the Arab holidays, the first day of the weekend and also the first day after I finished a month long training course. As usual though, this makes no difference and so far I have already gone out to the airport, missed my flight, got my job cancelled and run out across the airfield to retrieve my bag from the plane I was supposed to be on - and it is only 8.45am. Another of those small moments that leave me thinking simultaneously "bugger, why did I not get an office job?" and also "how bizarre is this - glad I don't have a boring job!"

Ive been very lazy at keeping this up to date (nothing interesting has happened!) since my last post but I have been back to "school" to learn about the fancy new-generation tools Slb is now running. The course lasted a month and although I was still based in Abu Dhabi it was virtually a holiday with a group of like minded, up for everything bunch of folk. Out of the 19 people on the course 14 of us made it to Dubai for a night out and even more when we were in Abu Dhabi but we all survived and avoided getting arrested for the atrocious dance moves and general chaotic becaviour that occurs when field engineers are released into the real world. (Special mention goes to Borgarr and Dmitry for entertainment value!)

Also during this time my parents came for a visit. I think there conclusion on the U.A.E was that it is nice as long as you don't actually have to live here. Taking my parents around was pretty funny for me, as usual I put maximum lack of effort into any kind of planning and so ended up driving to Dubai in my flat mates unlicensed, un-insured Saudi car with me at the helm. Although I assured my parents several time that everything was totally legit they remained deeply suspicious but to their credit never mentioned anything although I saw several meaningful looks pass between them! My dastardly plan really fell apart when I tried to buy the equivalent to the Dubai road tax disk (The UAE - tax free my arse!) and was asked for my vehicle registration details. After a brief argument I escaped by driving off across some bit of wasteland and back onto the highway with both my parents cowering in the footwells.

Offshore & Ramadan

Currently I am on a job in the Arabian Gulf on a rig called Delma. I'm not sure if this was the first ever rig in the gulf or the first ever rig to be made but I promise it seriously fucking old. It is still in better condition than the land rigs. I don't have to go to the loo in a HAZMAT suit and so far the food and bed has been more than acceptable, or may be my standards are just continuing to drop!

I actually quite like being offshore and if this rig only had a gym i think I would be happy to be left out here till my next vacation. My only complaint is that they have placed a rig phone/ loudspeaker in our unit that they blast call to prayer over every 5 minutes or however often prayer is out here. This did lead to a confusing situation when I called the UK to cancel my phone contract. Literally as soon as I had navigated the "press button x" maze and started speaking to some American chick prayer started. I was left shouting down the phone "please, please wait! It's prayer time!" something I don't think they are trained to expect. Any way the lady was very nice and waited patiently while being very bemused till it was over when she said "where the hell are you!" probably breaking every Orange customer services guideline which I appreciated and led me into a 10 minute chat with some complete stranger! Perhaps I just enjoy being able to have a normal conversation!

Vacation

One of the side effects of working in this industry is that is has a huge effect on your mentality. One of the most evident effects on this was when I went on vacation. The day after arriving in Lisbon Lu & I went with some friends to a festival down the coast.

I can't say that I get really excited about going to festival's; I certainly enjoy camping, I also enjoy spending time with a group of friends with nothing more to do than chill out, drink beer and watch some bands playing but something to do with being forced to do all of this within, literally, spitting distance of hundreds of other people tends to dampen my anticipation. Having said this, once I am there, set up and into my 3rd beer I tend to be much more affable and relax into the atmosphere.

But this time I found myself in somewhat of a state of shock at suddenly being surrounded by so many humans. The most people I had really seen in the last 4 month had generally been about 2 with a few exception when I was back in town for a couple of days. So for literally the first day I glued myself to Lu and tailed her around lost puppy style. The other difference was my desire to head to bed early. After a few weeks of getting woken up at any time day or night and pulling 24h shifts my body finally had a chance to go to bed at a normal time and was complaining a lot about staying up more. Looks like im turning into an old fogey after all... 

Not a Pretty Picture

So someone asked me what the toilets are like on the rigs here;

Get in mind a porta-loo at a festival or campsite then imagine that the same unventilated plastic box has been sitting in the desert for 50 years while being used 24/7 by people who's main diet is rice and curry while the best it gets to a clean is a hose down from a distance. And then imagine trying to use it in the middle of the night with no form of lighting what so ever.

I am always thankfull I am dressed head to toe in PPE in the unlucky event I am forced to visit while still trying to decide on the best technique for getting out off it without dropping ANYTHING onto the floor.

Link to some pictures

https://picasaweb.google.com/114086819686588038288/ACareer?authkey=Gv1sRgCMGFgIvC7p3dSw&feat=directlink

A Career?

Some photo's from Abu Dhabi & Dubai

Feeling the Heat

Back in the UK I would consider June to be the start of summer, out here it has been getting hotter with every week that passes. In fact I worry about how much hotter it can possibly get. I was sent to a rig out near the Saudi boarder in the last days of march and the heat here is very different to the kind of heat that you get in town. In town everything is really sweaty and humid, in the desert, not surprisingly, it is really really dry. 

In the desert the heat created weird problems. For example, I tried to fix one of the pieces of equipment that had come loose but had to put on gloves so I could even touch it it was so hot. Another problem is getting water cool enough to take a shower under. 

The hot water tank is on the roof of the cabin, so heats up to about 1,000 degrees, unfortunately the cold water pipe is a big black pipe that runs from the bowser to my room over the sand and so produces water which is approximately the same temperature of hydrogen the centre of the sun. The only water you can stand under is the fluid that was contained in the shower's pipe work inside the cabin, about a pints worth, meaning you get damp, soap up then hop frantically about splashing yourself with the scalding water in an attempt to rinse off without actually getting any 1st degree burns.  

UAE ID

So the UAE is now implementing an ID scheme, this means you cannot do or buy anything without having the ID which gets kinda annoying after a while. In fact, it got so annoying I faced up to the idea that I was going to have to go and visit the ID office and apply for the damn thing. Below is a brief explanation of the process that you need to go through to get the ID.

So I got to the office and a helpful guy at the desk give me one of those numbered tickets and got me to wait at the correct desk. I was something like number 514 and the number showing was 512 so I thought I was in luck and this whole debacle would be short and painless. Obviously I was wrong. It took over an hour for the two desks to process the two people in front of me, this is because once you get to the desk you hand over your passport and the morons scan every single page from it. They then proceed to ask all those complicated and confusing questions such as "what's your phone number?" or "what's you address?" which I obviously cannot be trusted to answer safely or correctly on my own. Once completed you then have to go wait in line in another queue to pay the £100 for the new card the government is forcing you to get.

Once this is over you need to go and get your fingerprints scanned and photo taken (im surprised they don't do DNA swabbing too). For this process they again seem to only have two machines to service, as far as I can tell, the whole of Abu Dhabi. You go get another ticket from the desk then go to wait in a waiting room with all the other cattle. The fingerprinting process is much quicker than the application process but more than just the ID applicants are there to get scanned. This means there is another hour wait extended by the incredibly irritating fact that any woman is allowed to skip the hour long queue and jump in without the need of a ticket. Who ever claims Muslims are suppressing their women are talking out their arse.

The thing that irritates me most is the fact that the UAE gives the impression that it wants to join the modern -westernised - 21st century and is all keen to utilize things like fingerprint scanning, hold the final F1 race of the season and build record breaking building but streamlining any application process, adding an on-line application feature or simply improving the post system in Abu Dhabi to allow such commonplace luxury's that we in the west are used too seems to be a step to far. If only I was Emir for a day...

P.s. During the fun I also attempted to apply for an UEA drivers liscence; Again I was lured into the idea when I found out I could kill two birds with one stone and apply there and then at the office. I needed to get a translation of my English liscence so I found the correct desk and asked the clerk to do the job listed on his placard, to which, he claimed was only achievable on Sundays. Obviously I was a little bemused and attempted to discover why Sunday was a special translating day rather than, as I suspect the clerk hoped, accepting this fact and disappearing. After a very confusing conversation it turned out that the guy could translate my liscence but I would need to turn up on Sunday to take said translation across the room to a different desk where some more form filling happened and I would be presented with my liscence. Again, I stupidly questioned the need of my presence in getting my form from one side of the office to the other and tried to explain that it may be possible for him to internal mail it to the correct department but I may of well tried to explain astrophysics. I never got an explanation as to why I need to be there to carry paper around, I thought they would of loved the idea of yet another pointless job being created to employ one more moron but apparently not. I shall return tomorrow to get my liscence and discover why I am in such demand at the government office. 

So the first job I was on was fairly basic (GR only) and I was allowed to go as second hand so covered the night shift. The job lasted a little uder a week and so I was back in town fairly soon and preparing tools in the base for future jobs. It was pretty good to be back in town and this time a ran into my flatmate for the first time in 4 months!

It turned out that I was due to go to my next job as 3rd hand so I could learn about Slb's super tool - the EcoScope, but a problem on the previous rig meant that I got sent out again with my flatmate to drill a puney 15ft in between coring jobs. This was pretty good as we get on well and we were only expected to be on the rig for a day or two. 

The set up went fine and we got some sleep before heading back to the rig at 10am (in between breakfast and lunch) the driver then dropped us off and headed back to town with someone else. This meant that we we unable to get and food out to the rig untill the next day when we were picked up again, and infact didn't actually eat till we were back in town 23h later!!! I was bloody starving! 

In town again we discovered the cable park in Abu Dhabi!!! This place is increadable, it has 3 seperate cables, kickers and all sorts. The weirdest part was, after first explaining to the security guard of the complex that there WAS a wakeboard park in there, second it was open and 3rd we didnt need to book to go in - that we were the only 2 ppl there and they had to switch the whole thing on for us! Crazy - only in Abu Dhabi!

Back to Work

So left Lisbon on the 17th March and headed back to Abu Dhabi landing at 11.30 and getting to my flat around 1.00, it was then that I found out through my flatmate that I was off to a rig the very next day (or that day if your being strict about time and dates...). So I spent the morning in a bit of a panic buying supplies and random bits and bob's for the rig and departed later that afternoon.

The job is a very basic direction, inclination and gamma ray job so we only have one tool and the DD's (directional drillers) tool. We got set up but it took 2 days for the rig to finish its previous operations before we actually picked up our tools and started doing any drilling!  

Lisbon was fantastic and it was super nice to have a relatively "normal" life for 10 day's. Sorry to my parents for not visiting, I looked but flights were expensive (almost the same as getting from UAE to Portugal!) and then there was a big lunch party that we wanted to go to!!! lol

I did discover how unfit I have become, I cycled out to Lu's work one day to meet her for lunch, it's a really nice cycle mostly along the "peridao" (Promenade - my spelling of that is not good!) for about 10K. There are a couple of hills and after climbing one I had to pull over in case I was going to chunder!

So I am back to work and now is the time when I really get "squeezed" by the company to make the most out of me, I have to say that going from vacation with my girlfriend in Lisbon to work in the desert in just over one day is quite a shock to the system but I know what I signed up for so....

Vacation, Yea!

So, have sucessfully finished the ENG1 training school and my general laxidasical attitude and low work ethic means I have been rewarded with a week off! Shabba!

If anybody finds themselves flying into or out of Abu Dhabi I suggest you try to fly Etihad Airways. In a classical example of good old emerati politics the Etihad Airways seem to have an entire terminal devoted to themselves, the place is pimped and a nice spot to hang around for a couple of hours. On the contrary I spent 2 hours last night sitting in yet another building site as I flew Air France. No joke the other terminal (2 i think) is like being in a DIY enthuisasits wet dream.

Worth a Read

Ment to add this on the end of my last blog, it's another blog of a frien from here which is pretty funny and goes to explain my job very well. The last paragraph is the best.

http://www.muelcolvin.com/hole-drilling-thing

Seasick Dave

Weekend out #2: Fishing

After the excitement of the camel race we decided it was time we did something gentlemanly and relaxing. Stu had heard there was some good fishing to be had off the coast so off we headed off to find one of the many day fishing boats out instructor promised us would be fighting for our custom in Abu Dhabi Marina.

After two hours of wandering around in 30 degree heat we had found only one bloke that cost 3600D for 4 hours but was out an a trip any way so couldn't take us. It was fair to say that moral was low so I decided to try the marine sports building. I casually wondered into the building and found a helpful looking block to ask where we could go to find fishing. As he chatted to a colleague I took in my surroundings, apparently I had wandered into the middle of an office but nobody seemed to mind so I carried on like I was supposed to be there. The helpful man did point me in the direction of some ramshackle cafe where we bumped into a guy we named Tony (or something) who was up for taking us out.

We decided to go to the store to stock up on water as it was roasting and Tony went off for prayer so we met up half hour late and jumped on Tony's boat. It was fantastic, the sun was shining the water was crystal clear and the giant flag on the mosque not moving an inch so we powered off into the distance. Dave was steadily working through the 3 litres of power aid he bought insisting we could sweat out 1/4 our body weight on a day like this when the horizon suddenly developed a line of clouds. When we asked our local fishing guide what the weather forecast was for the day it turned out he had no idea so we assumed it would be ok and carried on. By the time we dropped our first hook over the side it was pretty damn windy. Like proper windy - even for me. This meant that the moment I dropped the line over the side (the wrong side) it got wrapped around the prop. Tony spent the next 15 minutes hanging off the back trying to untangle us as the boat lurched about making Dave feel seasick - Quote "is it best to throw up?"

After untangling the fishing gear Tony had had enough so we motored back to shelter - totally soaking us when the bow buried itself in a wave sending a wall of water completely over the top of the boat straight onto Dave. The next 3 hours were spent catching hypothermia while drifting gradually down the coastline of Abu Dhabi. Stu took the record for fish over the day catching a total of one (the only one out of all of us) approx 7" long.

The day was summed up when Surab from off our course saw us at dinner and asked "what happened to you? why do you look so tired and red!". Another successful weekend.

Off to the Races

Hello again!

I've not been up to too much that's worth talking about hence the lack of new posts. But here is a small titbit of what im up to away from work;

Weekend camel race: So out here in the desert they race camels rather than horses like back home. Camels are well adapted to long SLOW walks through the desert but shit at frantic high speed pursuits. Personally I was more concerned about staying in bed on my day off but some of the others seemed uber keen for the "cultural" experience and so we headed off to the middle of nowhere to watch the races.

Once we got to the race course it too a little time to work out what was supposed to happen. After standing around in some drizzle pretty similar to that from Scotland we started to hear a lot of car horn beeping in the distance. As the entourage drew nearer we realised they were coaxing a ragged group of camels all exhausted and frothing at the mouth down the final stretch of the race course. As it turned out the Arabs had decided it was easier to build one track 10km long and have the camels run round once than build a 1km track and do 10 laps. This meant that there was some frantic action at the start a long period of nothing then a final burst of excitement again at the end.

The start of the race was defiantly the spectators sport. The way it was organised meant we could take bets on which handler was trampled to death at the start as well as which camel would win overall. What happened was the camels were all pulled begrudgingly, like only camels can truly achieve, to a net that served as the start line. Their handlers then stood in front of the net. On the race track. Idiots.

On the clapper the net shot up and the camels get whipped into action by a "robot jocky". This invention was brought in after the UAE passed a law preventing children from racing the camels. It is simply a box with a motor in it that is attached to a whip or bit of rope. When the net goes up someone must remotely operate the "jocky" and it whirls the rope around whipping the arse of the camels. The best bit is watching the handlers stuck in the middle of the track run for their lives as 30 maddened, grumpy camels spring into action and flail their legs about in a action totally ineffective at propelling them forwards but great at taking out any tardy handlers. As the camels head off into the distance the locals spectate in true UAE style; they all jump into their 4x4's and blast after the camels horns blaring leaving us to wait in the rain till they make it round the ridiculously long track (seriously we couldn't even see the other side!). Great fun.

The second job till now

After being back in town for a fed day's I was sent out to the next job. A EcoScope/ Telescope/ PD Exceed 8.5 in water injector on a rig located a couple of hours drive into the desert. I was first to the rig this time so got fully stuck into the rig up operation which means I need to move all our sensors* from the logging unit** to the rig floor which is about 50m above ground level, it was prob 30 deg hard work and hot! I also made the rookie error of running a cable the wrong way round so had to re-lay it again, not fun.

The job had a couple of problems but I was not involved and not too sure what happened but we had to run out of hole and replace the tool which was great for me but cost the company a lot of time and money I guess. But after this drilling was pretty smooth and uneventful. I had to return to town to take the entrance exam to get into the training school and then went back for 2 day's before getting some vacation for xmas.

Im now in the training school and trying to un-learn all the bad techniques I was taught on the rig and the various specifications for tools and technology's that we use to do our job's. So far it's been pretty easy going but it seems to have stepped up a gear recently.  

*Sensors: 6 in total, one measures the weight of the drill string, one the cable that raises and lowers the drill string, 2 pressure sensors for the mud, and a couple of other less important ones. This allows us to tell how deep we are, when we are drilling and when the pumps are running.

**Logging unit is a container that houses our computers and engineers - it's where I sit for a lot of time....

Arrival, typical day, ID's and rig's

My first day in Abu Dhabi actually went amazingly smoothly. I landed and there was a nice bloke waiting in the airport for me with a car and the key's to my new (and amazingly pimped) flat. After this though things switched to what I now consider normal life, i.e. I seemed to have been completely forgotten about! I eventually spoke to someone from my base after having to call the regional personnel manager, on a Friday, which is the holey day here and the day off for everybody. 

Once I had spoken to my contact at the base I got to explore Abu Dhabi and was then off to the base the next day. The first week of work basically involved introducing myself to everybody and going on a whole load of training courses for fire fighting, H2S and the famous Underwater escape from a helicopter. After this point though everything slowed down, in Abu Dhabi you need approximately 1,000,000 ID cards, this meant I had to hand over my passport which disseapperared for 3 weeks before I chased up my friend from the base to discover he hadn't even bothered to send the stuff off for processing, in the same incident I found he had also neglected to apply for my PPE and a couple of other things. Standard. 

Once I eventually got all the appropriate ID's for working out here (apparently for the first month here I could have ended up in Jail!!!) I went to a rig. I basically got there with another guy after some delays to discover that the company man had not been told I was joining them so I was booted off it pretty sharp.

Rig 2 - I arrived here and the company man was way more chilled out and invited me for tea in his sweet cabin and we talked manly stuff about cars and motorbikes for a bit, the rig's here a pretty old and I think kinda lax on the H&S aspect, this was confirmed when some siren went off, I sat for a bit wondering what the siren could be for before deciding it probably was bad - so obviously went to see! This reason was not hard to miss, one of the 4 inch in diameter power cables had burnt out it's plug and caught fire right below the mud return line. The flames were pretty big and there was smoke everywhere! I decided to make a hasty retreat. The rest of the job went smoothly and I was back to the base in just over a week.

First Blog

So this is what a lot of people are doing here to keep everybody updated back home so thought I would jump on the band wagon, Baaaaa.

I'll try to be a little more explanatory soon but I want to see how this works first of all. As pretty much everybody who reads this will know, I started work for a oil field service company called Schlumberger who sent me for two cushy week's training in Paris before shipping me off to Abu Dhabi in the middle east for a lesson in real Schlumberger life.

I have spent a couple of months on location doing lots of training and a couple off weeks on some rigs in the desert before going to the company training school in.... Abu Dhabi! Although now I am no longer a short walk from the supermarket, kabab shop or bar but out in the middle of no where 20 mins from the nearest cooling beverage. Doh!

Ill post some stuff about life out here soon but not now as it is bed time.

Hope your all well, Olie.