Keeping busy

Busy busy week.. I'm regularly getting handed more responsibilities now, building a solid customer base with a few of our suppliers and spending vast sums of money ordering equipment this week.  A few guys went to the rig but I stayed behind to work on a diving container and stuff, putting my dive tech training to use by fitting it out properly.

Went to Buea (pronounced boy-ah) to get my residence card sorted so I can exit and re-enter Cameroon for when i go to the UK in just over a week.  I also got my drivers license done, had to go to the hospital for a medical check to see if I'm fit to drive.  I got the forms, gave them to some guy who went to see a doc and came back within 5 minutes with them all signed saying I'm medically fit to drive haha, wish it was so efficient in Australia.

Went out on Thursday night with everyone from work.  Friday the boss and I looked at a bar he is thinking about leasing, looks really nice, has a room in there also that he wants me to set up as a tattoo parlour.  hmm sketchy, but could be good fun. Just having a quiet weekend now though, laze about and stuff..  Monday I'm going to Douala again to do some sea bed surveys with Jules and hopefully the results will be good and we'll score a massive contract.

Birthday cake Sundays

Tomorrow is Sunday, which means the kitchen makes birthday cakes.  We also get an apple each too haha..

Last couple of days have been really nice and overcast so it hasn't been hot to work in, but today was a scorcher and the humidity is so high.  You sweat so much here, I mean you're literally soaked, looks like you've been swimming in your clothes, so keeping up your water is a must.  I hope tomorrow cools down a little.

I got a subtle hint that if I wanted a job on the oil rigs I could get one if I wanted.  I'm quite chummy with the project manager here and he's pretty high up in the company and one of the main people I've impressed with my initiative etc here so it's something to think about.  My dad told me doors will begin to open here and this was the first one so far so I was kind of excited.. This job would be fly in, fly out, one month on the rig, one month at home and around 60k a year to start but plenty room for promotion. Something to save for later maybe, we'll see..

One more week

Not much to tell the last couple of days but thought I'd update.. Work is going smoothly, been pretty busy around the place with the rig sending a bunch of stuff away for repairs and receiving a lot of things as they're going for a job in April, so a lot of action with the cranes and stuff.  Seen some ridiculous things done with crane loads to get them where they need to go, but management turns a blind eye.. I scored about $5000 worth of text books in pdf format today, gonna take me a million years to read it all but I'm sure a lot will come in handy for future.  One of the americans on board also gave me all his gun magazines and I couldn't say no it was kinda awkward haha.  I also talked to them about my stay in America (these guys are all southern) and mentioned I stayed on the east coast and my girlfriend goes to Smith.  Needless to say they found that to be terrible news and had a lot of things to say about the "liberals" along the east coast, again it was a little awkward.. My boss visited the rig today as a surprise - glad we were on a busy day for him to see.  We talked a bit of business and I proposed a few ideas I've come up with since doing this job and he seemed pretty impressed and interested in discussing them further when I get back on shore so I was happy.. anyways nothing else really, it's getting really repetitive out here and I'm ready to come back on land, only one more week to go!

 One more week on the bunk beds

Mango rain

Did a tour of the rig this morning which was really interesting and insightful as to how it all operates.. My inner-smithie got the better of me and I had many questions about the environmental policies on board, I was surprised to learn that almost everything is safe and clean for the environment, the oil on board (not the oil they drill, but the oil they use) is a soluble type of oil that if mixed with water it dissolves safely, even the water on board, which I though was brought with them or something, is actually made from 2 small desalination plants on board to filter and clean the ocean water to make it drinkable.. Anyways I found it all pretty fascinating.. It's heading into the "mango rain" part of the year where it will begin to rain more and more during the day which is effecting our work pace already, afterwards this seasonal rain though it's gonna get wicked hot and I am not looking forward to it..
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Quiet day

So today was pretty quiet, the rig manager wanted us to do up some reports so instead of inspecting pipes we worked on the reports, it's good though as it's been a very tiring 2 weeks.. On the 18th of march I will be going onshore to do my first bit of diving technician training, I'm excited about it. I am hoping they will pull me off the rig on the 16th so I can rest up first, plus I would like to spend my birthday on shore and at the "las vegas" bar haha.. Not much else going on, best thing about the rig now is one of the guys has a portable harddrive full of the latest movies which I'ma leech off him. Anyways I better get back to doing some work I'll update again later, found the usb for the actual camera so hopefully I can get some nice snaps this week..
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Rants and raves

Today was alright, we finally finished inspecting all the subs (pipe thingys) and moved onto the big drill pipes.  The only bad part is that I dropped a drill pipe on my fingers and split one open and it's really hard to type now.. looks pretty nasty though which is kinda cool I suppose.. Another rig pulled up along side ours today, maybe 500 meters away, was cool to watch it getting towed by this little tugboat (apparently they get towed around the world like that, this one came from Mexico to Cameroon in 6 weeks).  Once it found its position, it hefted its big legs and propped itself out of the water, it was impressive to watch.. today I had one of those moments where I was just thinking wow, I'm only 25 and I've done so much already and now I'm out in West Africa working on oil rigs and training for a job of a lifetime.  By the end of 2010 I will be a top level certified non-destructive testing technician specialising in UV light, magnetic particle testing, x-ray radiographic testing and a fully certified top level commercial diving technician.  Never in a million years would I have thought this is where I'd be at this point in my life.  A month ago I was mixing concrete to make garden edges haha.. Anyways not much else, my first batch of training is in the UK in April and I am hoping to visit America for a week after I complete it but I'm unsure as of yet if I will be able to.

I wanna touch on a few things I dislike about Africa, first thing (which has been the most difficult for me to get used to) is the open, forward manner in which they approach all subjects.  If someone has a problem or is happy or whatever they voice it incredibly honestly and openly, and I'm all for this in most cases but it's difficult when it comes to women.  Already I've had a couple marriage proposals, numerous girls wanting to date or just sleep with me, and they straight out ask you saying like "I want to be your girlfriend" or something like that.  It's mostly because I'm white; white people in Africa generally have more money thus the women love them and it can get really, really intimidating.  I can't go to a nightclub without them trying to chat me up or asking for some of my whiskey etc, which is why I'll never go alone haha..  The clubs are so awesome though, mostly people don't even drink they just love to dance and party, worst part is no one even contemplates clubbing until 1 am which is horrible as I like to be in bed by then.  You go into clubs though and they have the bar area to sit etc, dance floor, but then they also have these booths, which is just comfy chair/sofas where a group can sit, but there's also a table there and you can buy a whole bottle of whiskey or whatever and you get free mixers and ice etc brought over to you whenever you run out it's great and makes for a good time at the club.. the clubs look crazy run down outside but you go inside and they're really upscale it's cool. 

Another thing about Cameroon too is that its main languages are English and French.  It's difficult sometimes because they implement both languages into speech so a little English here and a little French there, and throw in a little pidgin African to top it off sometimes also.. Limbe is good 'cos it's almost all English, but you go to Douala (the closest big city) and it's French only.   I'm still learning French but it's pretty hard.  I would really like to master it though as it's a dream of mine to be multilingual. Anyways not much else, looking at least another 3 weeks on board this oil rig, maybe I will shift over to the other one that pulled up today though who knows.. sucks I'm a be having my birthday on board this place though oh wells, that's about all for me today I gotta go to sleep...

Offshore on the rig

Domestic life