Well, we’re back on the job and I can’t decide if it’s the
best job ever, or the worst job ever. My opinion changes with the weather,
mostly because our heading and speed over ground do not.
We are one of a fistful of support vessels for a five-ship
seismic fleet searching for buried treasure about a hundred miles offshore from
south of Pensacola, Fla., to off of the South Pass of the Mississippi River.
Sometimes we act as a guard vessel, ahead and outside of one
of the big boats, warning approaching and crossing traffic that we require a
7nm CPA astern and 3nm abeam and ahead. Other times we are chasing the tail
buoys at the end of five miles of steerable streamers.
On yet other occasions, we act as the safety standby vessel
when one of the survey ships launches a workboat to service their cables
underway, or crew changes via helicopter. Sometimes they send us out ahead of
the fleet to scout for reported obstructions or to provide current readings at
a given location.
The planning that goes into something like this – both ahead
of the project, and during operations -- is mind-boggling. The two seismic
survey ships have dedicated navigation departments. I imagine them to look
something like an Aegis missile cruiser’s combat information center.
Anyway, it’s good to be working after too many weeks
pushed-up on the mud. An idle boat + oilfield slowdown = one nervous crew.
My first hitch I voluntarily worked-over for another captain
and the customer then held us over in the field. I can live with that …
weather, customer whims, emergencies – these things make our crew change dates
and times a rough guide rather than an actual schedule.
At the end of my second hitch, we were off-charter and at
the dock two hours ahead of the relief crew’s arrival. About 30 minutes before
they were due to show up we got a call from the office informing us that one
guy wasn’t going to make it, but a fill-in was on a plane, and we could expect
them in “a couple of hours.”
Mmmmm … not so much. Twelve hours later I was actually,
finally, on my way home, by that time going on 24 hours since I last slept.
This time we knew a good 30 hours in advance of our
departure from the dock that we would not be back in time for our scheduled
crew change. That, in fact, we would miss it by at least several days.
“If you need to get someone down here early, you’d better
call your office now,” the company man said. I concurred, and listed the
reasons, including the fact that the deckhand who has been on the boat
70-something days at this point had a ticketed international flight the day
after we were scheduled to be home.
Anyway, I went to bed thinking it would be resolved through
the chain-of-command. Didn’t happen.
I spent, literally, many hours scheduling everything I
needed to do in my “off” time so that it did not interfere with the boat’s
schedule.
Two surgeries, two endorsements for my license upgrade and a week-long
vacation with the family.
The procedures have been rescheduled, the vacay reservations
amended.
And now I’ll have to take extra time off of work to make all
this happen, and the company will have to find someone to fill-in for me. I am
assured by my crew coordinator it won’t be a problem, but it’s still less than
ideal for everyone.
There is no guarantee our crew coordinator could have found
fill-ins on 24-hour notice, but he sure would have tried.
The bottom line is
that this little delay is costing the family thousands of dollars. Possibly
as much as $6,504, depending on when I get back to the boat. (The $4 was the
change fee for my plane ticket home.)
Waaaa, right?
But hey, we’re working. And that’s a good thing. It’s about
to be an uncomfortable good thing – a norther blew through at 0552 with 40+
kts of wind. Seas are forecast to build to 10-12 with the occasional 16-footer thrown
in for good measure.
The entire fleet is running before the weather now.
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