Fourchon, Finally ...

I've finally landed on a boat working out of Port Fourchon, and it's every bit as busy as I've always heard. Busier, maybe. Which is interesting. Especially with visibility of a boat length or so.

Damned fog.

But really it's been like old home week. A friend from Central Texas -- he and his wife were at my house less than a week ago -- was docked across the slip from me the other day.

Another captain (and engineer) I used to work with slid in next to us today. We got to visit as they got off after a long hitch.

The temporary lead captain on this boat -- he's training a new-to-the-oilfield captain and covering while the boat is re-crewed -- is from my neck of the woods.

As a matter of fact, one of his cousins was a couple of years ahead of me in school.

The engineer and deckhand know their jobs and are pleasant guys to be around.

In fact, everyone on the boat is pleasant.

My first day on the boat one of the passengers brought 30 pounds of hot, boiled crawfish aboard to share. He'd just won $9,000 at a truck stop casino on the way to work.

No complaints about the boat itself, either. It's well-maintained and comfortable, and only about two years out of a major refit of the 2001 hull. This morning we had a 90-something mile run to the field where I worked production, averaging about 20 knots in a 4-foot side sea.

Breaux Bays sure do ride nice. Well, for crewboats, anyhow ....