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...