Unknown classic

Don't you hate it when not only you have not read a classic, but when on top of it you've never even heard of it before?

I just started "The Corn King and the Spring Queen" by Naomi Mitchison. I am reading in it the "Canongate Classic" edition.... I had never heard of either the book or the edition house.

So far I like the book. It is a story which could be a classic Greek myth. I won't say more until I read more.

Let's just say that right now at work it is the calm before the storm...I don't mean weather-wise I mean in terms of amount of work. Right now all is quiet but when it starts I will be VERY busy.

The Heart of the Matter

I think I have mentioned it before, but there are two books that I have been meaning to read for a long time and which always seem to come up in other books or articles I read.

One is "The Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, and I have so far never managed to make any headway with it even though I have tried reading it several times. I have even read the book written by the completely unknown cousin of Joseph Conrad who went with him on the trip who inspired the book...I can neither remember the name of the book nor the name of the author!

The other one is "The Heart of the Matter" by Graham Greene, and I recently just finish this one. I enjoyed it, in a quiet sort of a way. I've only read one other book by Graham Greene ("Travels with my Aunt") and I liked it too.
Even though I could not really relate to the main character, Scobie, who is a very religious police inspector living in a British colonial town on the west coast of Africa, I have to admit that at the end I was eager to find out how he would sort out his life. The book is really about the struggle a genuinely religious man goes through when his life becomes so far from what he believes in.
Apart from the religious aspect of it the struggle of a good man who becomes terribly entangled in corruptions and bribery due to the very fact that he is trying to be good, the story reminded me a lot of "No Longer at Ease" by Chinua Achebe. Both books take place in Africa (in fact both take place on the west coast of Africa) though I think it is a coincidence. I do not think that it is something which is related to Africa. I think it is related to human nature.
Does it not ring true to you that in some circumstances the more you try to be good the less you are likely to end up behaving the right way?
Again I do not think that it is an African problem. I think it is the problem of people who overthink how they should behave to ensure that they do what is right.

The brain cannot be trusted to make the right decision on what is good, is this true?

bits and pieces of the offshore rig

You all know that it is my first time offshore. I know rigs but so far it was always onshore.
In a way offshore is the same, at least in terms of human interactions and work that has to be done but one difference is of course that you can never leave. You cannot walk away for a little break, which I did a lot. The lay out of the rig with many levels, half levels, corners, complicated spots, is such that you can actually be on the rig and never see somebody who is there too. One guy who came on the same helicopter than me left 3 days later and the entire time I never ever saw him. I only realized when I saw him boarding the chopper to leave.

I mentioned earlier that we were lower now, well here it is: this is the side of the rig (with the escape boat) when it was high.


The base of the columns then looked like this

The cross beam you see in the photo above is the same one that you see in the photo below.

I went for a wander about under the rig today. I have to admit that it is very impressive. There is a real sense of massive industrial structure.
The chopper landed while I was underneath I couldn't see it but I could hear it (always very load) and I could see the effect of the wind it generates on the surface of the water and at that moment it really felt like the I was on Mars trying to move onto a planet that isn't ours where all we have that is ours is metal and noise and oil and grease. Weird feeling.
I am not a water person. As I was standing there in all this the only thing beautiful was something that I cannot live in (namely: water). My only "hope" was to cling to the metal and noise and dirt...very unlike the feeling you get onshore.

But it is not really all metal and grease, some of it is quite nice like the blue water in the moon pool (just the name of the open hole where the well center will be).



And some of the reflection in the water.

News from an old place

Remember Ghardaia?

They just had a flash flood and 29 people died!

Such a lovely place Ghardaia. I don't think I will ever forget that one particular moment alone in the abandoned garden of the empty hotel in the middle of the night listening to the call from the two mosques closest to the hotel with the smell of jasmin in the night air.
A perfect moment!

Rig food...always important

The rig I am on was offshore India for their last job and they brought with them their East Indian crew and their East Indian cooks. I'm eating curry every day at every meal. I don't have to because they also have western meals. It is just my choice. Also I think that it is best to eat what they really know how to cook. I tell you their curries are simple but pretty nice.

I wonder if I will get tired of it.

I am still sleeping like a baby for some unknown reason. We have more and more delays so it looks like I could be here for a few weeks but it could be worse.
Everybody is pretty nice apart from the night company man (the night boss. There is a day guy and a night guy) who is a typical jerk...but there is no surprises here!
The day guy doesn't like him either so I am not in a bad situation... and I did the day guy a BIG computer favour this afternoon and I'm hoping that it makes a difference in the long run.

The rig guys have already given me a pair of coveralls eventhough I never asked for one.
I wear it as my "dinner outfit", the clean coveralls to wear in the living quarters, and everybody is all smiles because the company geologist is wearing their company's coveralls!
It tell you it is hard to predict what will make people happy. I would have never guess that this would be one way of pleasing this crew.
Of course the East Indian crews are tickled pink by the fact that I have long black hair in a long braid and apparently they have commented to their boss (the push, for those who know the lingo) that I "even" smile to them!!!!

So generally everything seems OK.

The rig crow

I saw this crow on the rig this morning (we are 70km offshore). When I asked the doctor he told me that apparently this crow stayed with the rig when it moved away from India.
I thought nobody was feeding him and I was wondering how he was surviving since there is really no garbage for him to eat. But I found out that he is being fed a sandwich every morning and extras if he comes and asks for more. The crew thought that he would get on land when they stopped at the Seychelles but he didn't and here he cannot fly to shore in one go and even if he could he would not be welcome there. Crows here are not like this. They look like they wear a white vest.

We also have 2 sparrows, a male and a female. They are also following the rig.

I do have some photos

We can take photos as long as we are not drilling. I was very surprised about that.
These first two were taken by somebody else. The day I flew in the weather was awful with lots of fog and very high waves so there was no chance to take any pictures.
In the second photo you can sort of see how much this thing moves about when it is this high above the water, even when there is no waves....imagine on a bad weather day!!!! The day I arrived it was hard to walk.....never mind walk straight. I don't think anybody was even trying to walk straight.
Now the rig is 70 feet lower and a lot more stable, and honestly you cannot really feel the motion.

Today my office was just about set up so I took the time to "crawl" all over the rig. I went to what is called "the moon pool" which is the open part under the rig where the well will be (under water obviously) and in the shade of the rig the water was the most amazing blue I have ever seen!! I'll try to take some more pictures to show better, but you can sort of see it here.