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.
