This and That

Back on the boat and we've been running hard the past few days.

This is my last two weeks as permanent crew on this boat, and it is a bittersweet feeling. 

Most of us out here, I think, like the feeling of having a permanent "home" at work. In an unpredictable business, it's nice (usually) to work with a crew you know on a boat you know on a job that is familiar.

I give a lot of credit to my company that I was able to have an extended conversation with the HR manager and VP about options that would give me a little more time at home with the family. From what I read and hear from other mariners, even broaching such a subject at a lot of companies is likely to land you on the dock immediately.

We weren't able to work-out a formal solution, but in a couple of weeks I'll become a relief captain here, a floater ... kind of like a turd in the giant toilet bowl of the Gulf.

The impetus for the change is this: I have a high school freshman and two toddlers at home. My amazing wife, who works about 60 hours a week, struggles to keep up with the little guys, the house and her job while still getting at least five hours of sleep a night.

The 3-year-old struggles with some other things because his dad is gone. The 1-year-old changes almost daily. And the 14-year-old, well, we have some things to work on.

And I miss all of them, terribly, when I'm gone a month at a time. But if it was just me missing them, I'd take the lump, because after all I did choose this work. And I love my job.

At this point, though, it's a matter of one kid's healthy development and my wife's mental and physical survival.

So, now, in a best-case scenario, I'll essentially work 14/14 with no guarantee of the 14 days on. It was like flicking a switch: I went from worrying about the family in my absence to worrying that I won't be making enough money.

But I'm grateful that my company will continue to carry me on payroll and give me an opportunity to work. And they say I'm welcome to come back full-time whenever I like.

Most guys I talk to - and I've actually conducted a poll on this topic - are very happy with their even-time schedules. 

Of course, all of the guys who have that schedule are on bigger boats at bigger companies and making 50-100 percent more per day than I am, which adds up to a pretty good living for 180 days a year.

That's my goal, too, actually, but it's still a year or two down the road, what with sea time and classes and testing.

In other news ...

On the professional mariner forums there is sometimes some back-and-forth about who are the better, or more professional mariners: the blue water shipping guys or the oilfield boat handlers or the towing gurus, the 1600-ton masters and mates or the 100-ton schmucks like me who have to live-boat everything.

As a broad generalization, I'll say that typically the folks with larger tonnage licenses seem to be a bit more on the ball. But I'm here to tell you there's good and bad everywhere.

Chalk some of that up to "we're all human," and "everyone makes mistakes sometimes." But it's also true that there are idiots everywhere......

Yesterday morning in the wee hours I found myself southbound for sea behind a supply boat with all of its deck lights blazing. Imagine driving down the highway with an oncoming vehicle in your lane with the high-beams on. It was sort of like that.

After several attempts (another boat chimed-in: "That's the Seacor Deaf-and-Dumb, Cap. Good luck.") I finally got the other boat on the radio and kindly asked the captain if she needed those lights or might she turn 'em off.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't even realize they were on."

She then proceeded to have a detailed conversation with someone on another boat about (her husbands? brother's? friend's?) appendicitis. On VHF Ch. 13. Which, in Port Fourchon, is not the channel to conduct friendly conversations, or even to think out-loud. 

It's busy, busy, busy here, and boats need to be able to broadcast security calls and make passing arrangements. Right now.

A little later, I noticed an odd set of lights just off the Martin fuel dock, and just ahead of a northbound crewboat. It was a kayaker, paddling up the bayou in the dark. He got bonus points for exhibiting the required all-around white light. He lost all of those points for also exhibiting a bright red light. 

He plunged into a lifetime points hole for crossing the channel ahead of a work boat and for not having a radio tuned to 13.

Or maybe he did have a radio, but just wasn't talking into it. In which case he would have heard himself referred to as a "retard," an "idiot," an "organ donor," and worse.

Compare and contrast with the captain of the pogey boat Vasco de Gama, who called me as I was approaching the end of the Belle Pass jetties, just to let me know he was holding-up before he crossed the channel.

Which he should have, but it's always nice to know that the other guy knows what he's supposed to do.

In the Northeastern Gulf right now, there's a low-pressure trough moving steadily westward over us. 

The National Hurricane Center says there's only a slight (10 percent) chance it will develop into a tropical cyclone, but we should expect thunderstorms, lightning, strong wind gusts and occasional heavy rain over the next four or five days.

We've had a wicked pretty moon over the horizon in the west in the mornings this week, and from the wheelhouse I can see "isolated showers" here and there across the Gulf. It's a pretty nice view.

One of my cousins asked an interesting question on Facebook the other day: "What's it smell like out there?"

It smells like the sea, but not like the beach, where there is more (often decaying) organic matter. It's a clean, briny sort of aroma, most of the time. Sometimes you get the sweet, mulchy odor of feeding or schooling fish. In the vicinity of those thunderstorms you can often smell ozone.

Less often you might get a whiff of diesel exhaust from the boat, or grease or oil or driling fluids near a rig.

But usually the wind is blowing over open water and it's pretty nice.

Let There Be Light, But Not Too Much Light

I've heard it said that we really earn our money at the stern controls.

Crewboats -- and most offshore service vessels -- have two helm stations: the forward helm station you'd expect to find on any boat, and an aft helm station with a sweeping view of the cargo deck and the stern.

That's where the close-quarters maneuvering takes place; offload and backload at rigs and platforms, personnel transfers, docking and undocking.

On a boat without DP, like this one, it can be stressful. Live-boating a two-hour water transfer to a production platform in 4-6-foot seas in the middle of the night; transferring deck cargo to a supply boat while fighting a 4-kt. current, 20 knots of wind and the other boat's wheel wash ... it can get pretty exciting.

It's also fun and interesting, and at the end of it all I sometimes feel a little drained.

That's one of the reasons that when we finish at the rig, I'm happy to punch in the numbers for Belle Pass and let the deckhand take the wheel while I catch-up the logs, grab a cup of coffee and take a smoke break on the "Texas" deck just behind the wheelhouse.

The other night as we settled on to our homeward course, I noticed a bright glow on the water. I looked over the railing and saw that the (mostly) blue deck lights ringing the house were on.

"Hey," I said as I ducked my head in to the wheelhouse, "turn those deck lights off, will you?"

"I have them on so these shrimp boats can see us better," said the deckhand.

This is a peeve I feed and groom on a daily basis: the navigation rules specify what lights a vessel must display. The flip side is that the same rules stipulate what lights a vessel may display.

Rule 20: (b) The Rules concerning lights shall be complied with from sunset to sunrise, and during such times no other lights shall be exhibited, except such lights which cannot be mistaken for the lights specified in these Rules or do not impair their visibility or distinctive character, or interfere with the keeping of a proper look-out.

Lights tell us a lot: they can tell us how large the other vessel is, which way it's going and what it's up to. This in turn tells me whether my vessel is privileged or burdened and whether there is a risk of collision, and dictates whether I need to talk to my counterpart on the other boat or make a course adjustment.

Rule 30 does allow that vessels of less than 100 meters may display working and deck lights while at anchor. This rule is frequently observed by workboats and crewboats moored to platforms in the Gulf.

It is confusing, then, to come rolling by what one assumes is a boat hanging on a satellite to discover, instead, the vessel is underway and the captain forgot to turn off his floodlights. Hopefully AIS or radar gave me a heads-up about that, but it doesn't always or there is so much information on the screen I haven't yet sorted it out.

But back to those shrimp boats. I hate 'em. I mean, I don't really ... I love shrimp, and that industry is an important part of the heritage and culture of my hometown. But I hate having to deal with them on the water: they rarely answer the radio, they always seem to be right on my course, and those damned work lights are blinding.

So blinding, in fact, that it's often difficult to tell at any distance which way the shrimp boat is moving or if it is underway at all. See Rule 20, above.

Aside from the glaring worklights, we know shrimpboats by the green-over-white all-around lights they display.According to Rule 26, those are the only lights they should display while engaged in trawling, but what are you gonna do?

They are probably relying on a fact that immediately came to mind when my deckhand told me he had the lights on so the shrimpers could see us better: they don't need to see us better, because according to Rule 18, vessels engaged in fishing are privileged over all other classes of vessels, except those not under command or restricted in their ability to maneuver.

Holding my boat at the rig or platform may be the more technically challenging part of this job, but I'm betting that if I ever have the misfortune to be involved in an accident, it's going to be on that boring, "easy,"point A to point B stretch.

Tension and Contention

Things have been a bit tense on the boat this week.

Not sure why – could be I’ve been a bit peevish; dirty dishes in the sink and dead fish on the deck three days running when I come on watch, well it begins to annoy. As does being one of just two people (of the five on board) actually grinding and painting with a shipyard deadline looming.

So maybe it’s just me. Maybe everyone else is fine. Anyway, not a huge deal, just not optimal.

This week has introduced a couple of firsts. For the first time I became really, really angry with someone associated with our customer.

I woke up Friday night to the smoothly-surging-forward feeling of the boat cruising hooked-up across flat water, and deduced (correctly, as it turned out) we were headed for the dock. Checked with the captain on watch and found out we’d been sent in to pick up equipment and some passengers. 

Cool. I wasn’t able to get a card in the mail before we left Wednesday, so this will give me the opportunity to place an Internet flower order to be delivered on my wedding anniversary.

About an hour-and-a-half after we get in, our deck is packed. I’ve already been ignored once by a new dockhand when I told him those full totes need to go on the port side, not the starboard side, and argued with the new crane operator about where a 5-ton generator should go.

The aforementioned, plus another rigger, troop up to the wheelhouse to bring me cargo manifests, and one says: “Your radio ain’t working? Man at the office been trying to call you for the last hour and a half.”

I check the company set: yep, it’s turned up.

“It’s working,” I say. “Tell him to call me on the company set.”

The man at the office did, and proceeded to dress me down for not checking-in on VHF 19, implying a.) I don’t know how to use a radio, and b.) I don’t know my job.

A couple of problems with this: First, his tone – whoa buddy, slow your roll! Second, for the 13 months this boat has been on the job, no one has ever asked us to communicate with the dock on 19. Third, we have three VHF radios installed on the boat, and in the port environment monitor three separate channels for regulatory and safety reasons. Fourth, I wasn’t even on watch when we got to the slip.

I decided a face-to-face discussion might be more productive, so donned my hardhat and walked the 100 yards to the dispatch office.

Turned out not to be more productive after all, and ended with the dispatcher threatening to call our company’s sales manager (I’ve since given him that individual’s mobile number and invited him to call any time).

This particular dispatcher is new to our dock, came over when the logistics company added our customer’s construction boats to its production boat business. 

Over the past two weeks, he’s handed-down one contradictory, problem-inducing edict after another (An earlier one was that we could only take on as much fuel as we had when we came on charter, which is about 6,000 gallons less than we typically bring to the field. The field bosses weren’t too happy with that one.).

I get the sense this guy is ex-military. Also that he’s about to be ex-where-he-is-now. 

I’m out here to do a job and support my family. And, if feedback from the customer and our company is to be believed, I do a good job. I’m certainly not here to be insulted, browbeaten or talked to like I’m the Army’s newest basic trainee.

I’m confrontation-adverse in general, so the whole episode fell on the unhappy/tiresome end of the human interaction spectrum.

We finally embarked our passengers at around 0600, got clearance from traffic, and headed downstream to the Gulf.

Along the way I encountered some patchy fog, but didn’t begin worrying about it until visibility dropped to less than a quarter mile. 

When I couldn’t see the stern of the boat or the next set of markers, I sent my deckhand to wake-up the senior captain.

“What should I do now?” I asked.

“Hell, you need to turn around and head back to the dock,” he replied. And then, after ascertaining our position – very nearly out of the river: “Or maybe push up on the mud.”

Since we were just off a point that I figured had a pretty steep bank, I opted for the latter, and there we sat for most of the next hour, broadcasting security calls and watching a diffuse sun rise as Saturday’s fishermen materialized out of the fog and zoomed past us.

Our company has a “Zero Visibility” policy, which is vaguely enough worded that I’m not certain if it prohibits running in zero visibility or if it just gives captains the discretion to not run in zero visibility. 

I’m also not certain if zero visibility means I can’t see anything past 100 feet, past the bow, or past the windshield.

I already knew that one of our captains typically sits-out the fog, and another will happily run through it (especially if it’s crew change day and our destination is the dock).

Anyhow, conundrum solved by asking a question, and I learned a few things, too.

The rest of the trip out was a slog, kind of like running with a fire hose on the windshield the entire time. 

The design of this particular boat, with a fo’c’s’l bow, gives it more interior volume and more clear deck and – possibly – an easier ride, but it also makes it extremely wet.

Week before last a captain from another boat called me on the radio and asked if I still needed a periscope to run the boat. 

Turned out he had trained on an identical hull, and remembered well the constant deluge. I told him that if our windshield wiper ever went out, that would be a no-sail.

The truth of that statement became evident towards the end of my watch when a utility boat materialized off my port bow. A quick check of the AIS showed a closest point of approach of 0.13 mile. I called the boat and asked if he intended to hold his course and speed.

“Sure, cap. I ain’t gonna bother you none,” was the reply.

About a minute later, probably due to a course correction by one or both of us, the CPA had dropped to 0.00, and my  Mk I range-finding devices (eyeballs) agreed that a collision was imminent.

I called again, and informed the other boat that the CPA was now showing zero, and that I would alter course to port to pass behind him.

Thing is, that was his job, as the burdened or give-way vessel. Until he didn’t do it, when it became my job.

Reading up on the practical assessments for some of the STCW endorsements required for my next license, I saw that one of the standards (I think it was for Radar Observer Unlimited) is to maintain a CPA of three miles with other vessels.

Given the number of boats in our field, that’s not practical. 

But given all the open water out here there’s also no reason anyone should get as close to anyone else they don’t have business with as that utility boat did to me.