30 Days in Nigeria
After the first week of working for the dirt bike guy I got a call from California, it was time to go to work. I explained my situation (working on dirtbikes) and got one more week extension to finish the job. On June 10th I flew back to California for two weeks of shop work and a briefing of the up and coming work overseas. June 21st I set out on a 30 hour trip from Santa Barbara, CA to LAX to Dulles, DC to Frankfurt, Germany to Lagos, Nigeria to finally Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Now, Nigeria is not the first destination on my list of places to see but it will be an experience, that is for sure. I met up with a fellow employee in Frankfurt, so even though this was my first offshore rodeo at least I had a senior engineer with me to show me the ropes. From the airport we were picked up by a transporter company with our very own Police escort truck. The ride from the airport to our compound was nothing short of a teeth grinding, gut wrenching, white knuckle ride. With a good amount of corruption in the country the oil companies do what they can to keep their employees (me and Jimmy) away from the pirates. We arrived at a compound around 9 PM, just after dark. We had a decent little house inside a guarded compound with our own bedrooms and running water, I was happy with that. The house also had cable tv and wifi that worked once in a while. The compound had a couple restaurants and a bar inside, the food was bearable but I wouldn't call it good by any means. We stuck around here for 3 days or so, chicken, rice and shwarmas were our basic meals, neither of us had the guts to try anything else. The morning of the 4th day we took off and headed to the heliport, sat there for 8 hours and had to head home because of thunder and lightening. Instead of going back to the compound we stayed at a different brand new hotel, I was impressed with this place and the food was pretty good (by Nigerian standards). In the morning we headed back and after only a few hours of waiting were able to get on a chopper.
After a 45 minute chopper ride out to the middle of the ocean with 16 other guys crammed into a small space we landed on the "USAN FPSO", this is the main vessel I'll be doing all the work to while I'm here. The chopper ride was fun, it is really neat to see the small villages from the air, the "highways" are half concrete and half dirt. Also being able to see all the jungles and waterways that run into the ocean is pretty neat as well. A quick glimpse over my left shoulder I could see the smokestack in the distance, it was a pretty ************ feeling to be rolling into this place in one of these birds. After landing there was safety training and confusion all around trying to figure out where I would be living, plus I had no idea where I was and what was going on. Finally I was sent to the "Bar Protector" which is a diving vessel, this will be my home for the next 2 months or so.
The first two weeks were pretty rough, I was waking up at 4am to catch a surfer (small boat) to head over to the other vessels for prep work and a lot of running around. It took me about a week to get my sea legs as I usually get sea sick, the first day was the worst but I never did lose my lunch. There are guys from all over the world here (no women), so it's nice to have a culture change and everyone speaks some sort of English so it's nice to be able to communicate. In order to leave and return to the vessels we have to climb down a ladder on the side of the ship and step off onto the hull of the surfer, it is a dangerous game as you have to time your steps by the timing of the waves. The first day I saw a guy almost get eaten up by the hull of the surfer, the waves were so bad the front end of the boat would slide 20+ feet up and down the ladder, he was lucky enough to pull himself close to the ladder and let the hull slide past him. After a couple weeks of runner work we started the main job, replacing UCSF's, which stands for Underwater Chain Stopper Fairlead. My main job is to help aid the divers and riggers in the removal and installation of the fairleads. These things are 20 tons a piece so we aren't talking a couple pounds.
The first couple weeks working in the dive shack was very stressful. There are lives in your hand as the divers are in the water and heavy equipment is being used to move everything around. The language barrier is the worst part of the job, I am American, there are guys from South Africa, Italy, Malaysia, France, etc. Plus everyone has their own ideas of how things should be done. After the first two weeks of being thrown to the dogs I've caught on to the job at hand, my confidence has grown and I'm fitting in to the crew out here. It seems like it has only been a couple weeks but I have been here for 30 days now, I miss my girlfriend, family and friends but this has been a great and once in a life time experience that I will always remember. Hopefully I will be here for another 4 or 5 weeks and then be sent home.
