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Birds Offshore

October 27th, 2004 by James

Besides the usual mechanical birds that you expect to see offshore, the platforms provide a resting place and even a home to many species of birds. The Holstein platform serves as home to at least one pair of hawks. These two can be seen wheeling and soaring around the platform, roosting on the drill rig and the flare boom, and even knocking doves and other small birds out of the air around the platform. Hawks and falcons seem to get along well with human developments - soaring amongst the buildings of Manhattan and sitting on freeway-side lamp-poles.

I’ve also gotten a few shots of the mechanical birds as they take off from the platform:

An S61 and a Puma take off from the platform on their way to either Mad Dog, or shore.

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Offshore Again

October 26th, 2004 by James

Ten days onshore, and then back to the C-Legacy. We have the pipeline dewatered now, and things are running along smoothly again for the drying phase. I snapped a few more photos from the Legacy of the Holstein platform:

I also got some shots while we were taking on fuel from the C-Pacer. I’ve never refueled offshore before so this was a pretty interesting (and stressful) operation to manage. We saved a lot of time by not having to come back to shore to refuel and the operation went off without a hitch.

During the operation we used our Fanbeam positioning system to DP off of the reflectors on the Holstein platform. We moved away about 100 meters from the platform and set up a fanbeam reflector on the deck of the C-Legacy. The C_Pacer came by on their way to the Deepwater Horizon and set up their DP so that they could position based on our reflector and stay about 30 feet away from the Legacy.

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DEMA with Friends from Digideep

October 16th, 2004 by James

When I returned home, Andi, Aline, and Lars from Germany had already arrived and were happy to finally see me. I was pretty tired having only caught a few hours of sleep but I felt like I should take them out for a beer, so we went to the Onion Creek Cafe in the Heights. I’m glad we went, as it was a beautiful night and I hadn’t had a beer in weeks…:-) I was hosting these three who were visiting from Germany, staying in Houston for the Dive Equipment Marketting Association (DEMA) show. I hadn’t met them before (except over the net) but they were nice and I think we all had a good visit at James’s house.

A cold front came through so the next day was absolutely gorgeous. There was still some swell pumping in from Matthew so I took all of us down to Surfside Beach with the longboards. Andi really wanted to try surfing and conditions were perfect for surfing lessons - a light offshore breeze, warm water, thigh high swells with good form. A great bonus was that Andi brough along their Canon S60 with underwater housing - so we took it out in the waves to get some photos.

Photos from Surfside Beach. Photos in this section are by me, Lars, Aline, and Andi. Lars has some more shots in his gallery at: http://www.sinnfrei-aber-cool.de/images/2004_10_11_surfside/

Eric says I look like a mountain man with this beard - I didn’t shave while I was offshore - and he’s probably right. I did shave when I got home, so I’m back to “normal” now. Before that Lars captured this photo of me after the days surfing that pretty much says it all - time for some sleep!

My friends Eric Cheng and Craig Jones came in to town for the DEMA show so we had a blast. Eric put together a comprehensive report about underwater photography equipment showcased at DEMA which can be found at Wetpixel.

Andi, Aline, and Lars at my house for breakfast. Eric takes notes, and Eric and Craig take photos at the Amphibico booth at DEMA.

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Heading Home - Flooding in South Louisiana

October 12th, 2004 by James

After tropical storm Matthew passed over the platform, we had beautiful blue skies. Helicopters began flying again that day, however, they didn’t really have anywhere to take us as the port at Fourchon was under about a foot of water. The heliport was clear by noon, but roads weren’t open out of Fourchon yet - but we were given the option to go in anyway. That one was an easy choice! I only caught about 2 hrs of sleep because I was working the night shift - then flying in the morning.

We flew in on a Sikorski S61 which is the largest helicopter I have ever flown in. It has two engines which is a comfort when you have 110 miles to fly until “feet dry”.
I took a few other photos of the helicopters used offshore: Helicopter Gallery

I flew in with BJ Services engineer Robert Danek who was kind enough to give me a lift up to New Orleans. After about an hour, the water came down on the road enough for us to make our way up North in caravan led by the local police. The highest water we had to go through was only about 6 inches. Obviously the water was a lot higher based on the debris on the road and flooded houses, cars, and other facilities.

Flooding along Bayou Lafourche.

Eventually we made it up to the airport and I caught a 6:30pm flight back to Houston, and arrived home around 8 to meet up with my friends Andi, Lars, and Aline - visiting from Germany.

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Tropical Storm - Again!

October 9th, 2004 by James

OK, this will be like the 6th tropical system to hit the Gulf this summer. Enough is enough! I’m stuck on Holstein until the helicopter can fly again. The last time a storm came through (Ivan #2) I was down on the boat. Being on the platform is a LOT better.

View from the boat (Keep in mind this is a 280′ boat):

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Shipwrecked at Holstein

October 6th, 2004 by James

If you haven’t heard from me lately, it’s because I’ve been working offshore since August 25th. For the first month I was on the boat the C-Legacy, a 280′ OSV. This week, I’ve been up on the Holstein Spar platform, so I have internet access again. The C-Legacy is the orange boat in the lower left.