What a wild week! I feel like it's been a mad scramble to finish up this and that before the Christmas "holiday." For clarity, there's no holiday for us company employees, but pretty much all of our contractors will be off beginning the 23rd. They are scheduled to start back to work on the 29th and work through the afternoon of the 31st, but folks tend to opt of work straight through Christmas and New Years. In short, we aren't planning any major activities until Januray 5th...
Normally, I'd welcome slow, easy days at the office, but while on rotation if I'm not busy everyday it sure makes the days drag on. Lucky for me, I've gotten a pretty great opportunity to travel down to one of our fabrication yards to witness loud out and sail away of the jackets for one of our offshore platforms. An added bonus is that Lobito, an hour plan ride South of Luanda, happens to be quite beautiful.
I didn't confirm my trip down to Lobito until this week, so of course whenever I told my Malongo team (family) that I would be leaving over Christmas, they all gave me endless amounts of crap for leaving them. Going on and on about how "I don't care about them," "I'm too good for Malongo," etc. Just really being a bunch of babies. On Wednesday I made some brownies and took them around to smooth things over, but really I just wanted to shut them up. Then I got, truly, one of the most thoughtful gifts that I have ever received from my lead inspector. I know I constantly talk about "my guys" and how good everyone on my team is to me, but I really couldn't be more grateful for my co-workers. They keep me sane on crazy days, provide comfort when I just want to be home, listen to me complain endlessly about bugs (that will never go away), and most importantly keep me very well fed.
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| They know me too well. |
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| THE sweetest. |
So I left camp Friday and headed South for Lobito to visit the Sonamet yard where the jackets for our offshore work are being fabricated, which is located here....
The jackets (part of the offshore platform that sticks into the bottom of the seafloor and supports the top sides) are being fabricated in the Sonamet yard, located in Lobito. They have finished the jacket for our living quarters platform, and are going through loading it onto a barge (load out), securing it to the barge so nothing falls off (sea fastening), and shipping it up to Malongo for installation (sail away). So I came down to witness all of the activity in the field - aka get in everyone's way and ask too many questions.
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| Living quarters platform (LQP) loaded on the barge (the bottom of the structure, mud mat, is facing the picture) |
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| Top of the LQP with some of the rigging that has been installed for transportation and installation |
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| Piles that will secure the platform into the sea floor (top of the LQP in the background) |
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| Another shot of the massive piles |
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| Shot of the mud mat from inside the structure |
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| Production processing platform (PPP) jacket, in progress |
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| PPP, too massive to get into one photo |
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| PPP |
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| PPP |
The bad news is that my hotel's wireless internet is pretty poor, and only works every once in a while. The good news is that this is my view...
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| Not too shabby! |
So since I don't have any wireless connection, I apologize in advance for not wishing a Merry Christmas to all my loved ones back home...consider this an early MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!! The site team manager is a resident here in Lobito and has a home just down the road from my hotel. He and his wife have asked all the expats that are away from home to come over for a Christmas Eve dinner at their home. We are scheduled to have workers here on Christmas Day because they are on a very tight schedule trying to get everything ready to ship on the 27th, so I will be back in the office jamming to Christmas carols and celebrating Jesus's birth :)
12 days down, 12 to go! xoxo...
