Hit the ground running.... a MARATHON

I was woken up from a lovely nap on Saturday (since I was still partially stuck on night shift from a WHOLE WEEK before) by a phone call from the rig. Guess what! The helicopter that everyone said wasn't going to be scheduled -- because a). it's the weekend and b). the weather is pretty bad for helicopter flights -- was slated for a last-minute departure early Sunday morning. I had three hours to pack, clean my house, and prepare myself and the trappings of my life for my next exodus to the rig.

A 4-hr car ride later, I was dropped off at the "Lighthouse Lodge" in Venice, LA <-- for all those interested in maps, check out that link. Venice, LA is in such a spotty area it doesn't even look like it should EXIST, let alone be habitable. In an unexpected yet unsurprising note, Venice is a world-class fishing destination and the Lighthouse Lodge is marketed as a premier spot to cater to such a tourist crowd. The front desk clerks were slightly befuddled by my pajama-clad, incredibly mussed female self checking in at 11:00pm and scheduling a check-out time for 5:30am the next day. They clearly get plenty of oilfield traffic, and must have assumed that I was part of that set, but under no circumstances do I fall into the "stereotype" of oilfield personnel. No matter how greasy and unkempt, I remain an anomaly.

The early morning helicopter ride was quite hairy, and our first attempt was actually aborted when the pilot did not feel safe continuing after the first twenty minutes out to sea. A few hours in a utilitarian waiting room and one more helicopter ride later, I eventually arrived at the rig just in time for lunch. I wolfed down a quick and juicy hamburger, and headed up to our unit to see what was going on.

They were finishing the data processing from the previous run, and I helped complete it and send out the necessary logs to the client. Once that was complete, there was nothing left to do but wait for all of our tools bobbing up and down on the boat a few hundred yards away. One surprisingly deep and thorough nap later, I was back in my hard hat just as the tools were loaded onto our deck. From there it was a frenzy of preparation for the next foreseeable future.

We had to program the tools (which proved problematic when our cable to plug into the tools shorted), we had to measure them, load two 30-pound lithium battery assemblies into them, type up a few dozen forms of data, etc, etc, etc, and all within a window of roughly 7 hours. There was very little breathing room that night. My cell manager, the night hand and I all worked unceasingly until four a.m. this morning when some equipment on the rig floor malfunctioned (unrelated to us, thank heavens!) and we got a few hours to catch our respective breaths while they repaired it.

Now we are tripping in the hole, which means that they're lowering the drilling assembly in piece by piece; screwing the 90-ft long stands of drill-pipe together one at a time. And lucky for me they seem to be taking their sweet time about it. I have been left on my own to keep this popsicle stand running, as both of my coworkers have gone to bed from utter exhaustion. We're all roughly equally sleep deprived, but in a twisted sort of logic it seemed to make sense to have me be the one unlucky soul who gets to sleep last. So until our tools reach a more interesting depth, I can nap in my office chair with impunity. We've got over a mile to go -- and I have improvised a nice little footrest for my purposes.

Good night.