Life on the Ocean Wave

Now a long long time ago I used to spend a lot of time in the North Sea on both sides of the demarcation line, seemed like I was at war working out there. I worked for a turbine controls company called Woodward Governor and they made some very good controls systems but couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. Anyhow I did spend many hours flying to and fro from shore to platform and platform to platform and from platform to shore, over and over, week after week, I did think it was exciting at first as any first timer would but after 2 years the grey sea and grey sky was just too damned miserable for me. I got out not because I wanted to just because of a company takeover and circumstances and I ended up in the US of A, the land of plenty and lots of it. So I didn’t really miss the flying in helicopters anymore. So I land in Malvinas the camp in the jungle and what do I see but helicopters everywhere. They fly all day everyday, there are no roads in the jungle so when the guys out to drill somewhere in the jungle they fly in helicopters, and when they want some large piece of equipment to be sent they fly it slung below a huge helicopter, either a skycrane or a Chinook, they have access to every type as Peru and Ecuador are a booming oil economy. The noise of a helicopter taking off is unmistakable and it brings back the smell of kerosene and the sweaty survival suits that we used to wear. And being stuffed into a relatively small helicopter and thinking I am never going to get out of this if we hit the water with a 350 pound guy sat at the side of me. So it gives me a little shiver to think of all the flying I did while watching these guys flying in and out all the time. Also i was thinking about platforms that explode and sink as we have here.

A BP platform that hadn’t even started producing and was half sunk, some leaky valves or something that allowed water to back up through the producing lines and into the oil tanks, could have been really nasty. I am so glad that fate had its evil way with me and sent me to the land of huge burgers and supersized fries it kept me out of harms way and I will never ever go offshore again as long as I live in a small house in Costa Rica, but that can all change overnight in this game. I would prefer to never fly offshore again. I would like to go and work in Brazil which is my main aim for the next year. Even though Rio is one of the worlds worst places for being shot to death, at least you get a chance to get away, unlike if you were flying in a helicopter and the pilot lost control or the engine fell off.