What Ho All

It’s been a quiet week. I arrived back in Tunisia last Sunday, I caught a train from  Tunis to Sfax Sunday night, spent a day on the beach with my review team then flew out to the Flotel on Tuesday. And here I am.

At the moment, I’m not sure if I am going to the beach today or tomorrow, but have a swift trip to Belfast planned for Tuesday and back out here on Wednesday. Bit of a pain, but at least I’ll get to see Wifeyband the offspring for a night. And the new car of course. 

The main issues out here this week have been the reliability of our standby vessel. That and food. The quality, the variety and the quantity of food on offer. In short there has been a food crisis. 

Food For Thought

Yes, a genuine food crisis. I flew offshore on Tuesday and into a food storm.  Everyone,  expats and locals, have been complaining about  the food. Biggest gripes are over

the quality and choice. There’s no doubt that the quality has gone down since the vessel first arrived, but its still not bad. I’m kind of used to the usual complaints. I have the Tunisians complaining the food is too western and the expats complaining that its too Tunisian. There’s not enough fresh fish or there’s too much fresh fish. There’s not enough fresh fruit or it’s the wrong sort of fruit! It’s the old adage. You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but………  

Actually I do have one guy. A little Teessider, who is very happy all of the time.  I did mention that I wished there were more like him. He informed me that he was very lucky. His wife cooked so terribly, that anything was a step up. Hence, he’s happy as a sand boy. 

Perk of the Job

Regardless of the quality of the food, the guys are certainly not going hungry. I’ve never seen plates, or indeed trays piled so high. The camp boss was suggesting that he is currently catering for over 300. Given I only have 200 out here,  that’s a lot of food being consumed.  

The other morning I had a frustrated night shift supervisor complaining that there was virtually no food during the night shift midnight meal break. When I checked into it, we had 55 guys on night shift but the catering team served 109 meals. It seems some of the day shift are setting their alarms to get up for the midnight feast, seeing it as a legitimate perk of life on the barge. 

You have to remember that to these guys food is a big deal. Offshore meal breaks are always the highlite of the day, but these guys take it to extremes. I don’t understand why they aren’t all huge the amount they put away. Anyway, since the meeting with the skipper and the camp boss, things do seem to have picked up again. More fresh fruit and fruit juice, more variety of food with at least two Tunisian, two western and a veggi choice, (although everyone will happily take a helping of all the dishes if they can fit it on the plate!) Oh and my personal request, rice pudding at least once a week. So, At least I am a happy camper. 

The Big Cheese

We have played host this week to a company review team. The team comprised Snr management out of head office and a couple of regional guys. One from Trinidad, one from Aberdeen and one from Egypt. They were here to assess Project progress and readiness for entering commissioning. I was expecting it to be a bit of a pain, but much to my surprise, it turned out to be not only quite enjoyable but also quite useful.

My concern was that the team would dig over past mistakes, questioning the design, the implementation philosophy, generally raking over the history, non of which  the current project team were responsible for. Instead, it was a very positive look ahead to the future. A couple of good points were identified, thanks to fresh eyes looking at the job.  Better  yet, we didn’t just get issues raised, we were also given recommendations on how to clear these issues.

Beach Day

Monday was the scene setting day, where the  terms of reference were discussed and objectives set out. We also had a VIP lunch in the onshore

office. No expense had been spared and it was really excellent. There were Brochettes of fish, lamb and of chicken. Some wonderfully spiced king prawns, lots of calamari, including stuffed squid. A variety of Tunisian salads, antipasto and the centre point was a huge dish of a local Kerkenna delicacy, Octopus Cous Cous. Wonderful. I quite enjoy the local seafood so I was well impressed. Everything was really well prepared and I was very keen to sample the octopus.

There was a smidgeon of octopus poking out of the cous cous so I grabbed it with the tongs and pulled. And pulled! And pulled!!! I was beginning to think the thing was still alive and fighting back. Eventually it  came free and turned out to be a full tentacle, complete with purple suckers and was around 14″ long. It just to say fit on my plate and was delicious. Tender, flavoursome and very filling. I wouldn’t recommend trying to eat such a dish one handed whilst standing up, but non the less I enjoyed it.  

All in all, it was a successful review in lots of ways. Based on the meal in particular, I look forward to the next one. 

The Stand By Vessel

Anybody who has worked on an offshore installation will understand the importance of the stand by vessel. This vessel is there as first call assisitance for a variety of possible events. Fire or explosion. A collision or any of a whole heap of potentially disasterous incidents. The first  external help you are likely to get will be from the standby vessel.

These vessels bob about, steaming around the platform,  ready to assist with man overboard situations or to assisit during operations such as overside work, helicopter operations. All kinds of things. It’s a thankless task. Most of the crews in the N Sea spend 28 days guarding the 500m exclusion zone, going around and around the platform, often in attrocious sea conditions. That’s the North Sea and then there is Tunisia. 

The Ash Can

We have a standby vessel called the Ashtarte, or as I prefer to call her, the AshCan. She’s a pile of junk. Sadly you just don’t get N Sea standard vessels out here. The Ashtarte is an old Croation vessel about 100 yrs old I think, but possible a little younger. Her skipper is a Croation and I am sure he is a very experience mariner. However, one of the important,  if not the most important ability of a standby vessel is the ability to standby. Especially in dodgy weather conditions. Ours can’t.

The sea state is never  that bad out here in the Med’.  2 to 3 m seas are the highest I have ever seen witnessed. Trouble is, everytime we get more than a meter swell, the bloody AshCan steams at full speed towards the Isle of Kerkenna some 8 hours steaming away. Once there, she moors up and hides.  So, in seas that would have a typical North Sea skipper commenting on what a nice day it is, our vessel is miles away in a shallow water harbour. Possibly in the local boozer and enjoying Kerkennian night life. Don’t know. What I do know is, they are not here.

Ash Can Can’t

With  no standby vessel, there can be no overside work. Hot work is also restricted and there are no helicopter operations. To cap it all, we discovered yesterday that she cant even launch her fast response craft. The FRC is put into the water to quickly get onto the scene in the event of a man overboard or helicopter ditching etc. Yesterday was like a mill pond out here. Still, sunny and flat calm, but the AshCan, in response to a request to launch the FRC whilst we had some abseillers over the side, apologised profusely but cant launch the FRC as she hasn’t got the right type of launch cradle for rough weather conditions.  You wouldn’t believe what the AshCan is costing and she’s useless. In future, everyone getting onto the chopper to come out here is going to be issued with a rubber ring and flippers as its more assuredly safer than relying on what we have out here.

Looking Ahead

Its looking more and more likely that I will be in Egypt before too long,  on my next project. Probably in Cairo.  However in the meantime,  I reckon I have still a minimum of 3 months work out here. So plenty more air miles to gain and plenty more rants about bloody air france to go yet.

Probably a lot more next week as I have to fly from Sfax to Tunis, Tunis to Paris, Paris to Manchester, Manchester to Belfast then back again to be on the platform by Thursday morning next week. Should be fun. 

Tuesday, of course is March 1st and new car day.  I may yet get to drive my new car before Wifey adds 10,000 miles to her and wears out the gearbox. ( Not to mention breaks the Sat Nav system. You should have heard her arguing with the GPS navigation in the last car we had. It came to blows in the end I’m afraid. Vorsprung durch technique indeed!! More like Stitch that pal).

Right time to go. A bit worky and boring this week, but should be more lively next week. Can England Beat Ireland in the 6 nations. Will Scotland finally beat Italy. Will my socks come back from the laundry a) at all, b) as a pair, c ) the same colour they went in.

Watch this space next week for answers to this and much much more.

And Finally…

A final thought I want to share which was passed onto me by my darling wife. She obviously has way too much time on her hands. Last night’s  

musing concerned the new Gillette Mach 3 Power razer. She bought me one a while ago and has commented on how much better a shave it gives me. This razor has a battery in the handle and vibrates as you shave and does seem to shave closer. I did suggest to her that I couldn’t

understand how that could possibly work. Well she has obviously been thinking about this and last night explained that she reckons it must be like seagulls, You know, seagulls stamping on the ground such that the vibrations trick worms into thinking its raining and coming to the surface where they get scoffed by waiting seagulls. It all sounded a bit far fetched, so I asked her why she thought Gillette had decided to put a battery into their razors because of this phenomenon. Obvious she said. Because they couldn’t possibly train the seagulls to stamp all over your face. 

As she says. Obvious

Sigh.

Right until next week, cheers  all,
Graham

And the Riposte..

When I first wrote this, I e-mailed it out to my chums and family back home.   Imagine my surprise and delight when I received the following response from my good friend, the follically challenged, Mr David Ford.

“ Dear Graham,

After reading your e mail, I grabbed the keys to the Landy, drove to the nearest beach at some mighty speed, frantically beckoned all nearby seagulls to land and stamp on my head in the hope it might get my follicles into gear.

Please tell your Wife her theory is a failure.

i am willing to be guinea pig to any other hair growth ideas. Just let me know when and where and I shall be first in the queue.

Yours,

David “