In the desert!

Well, long time no post but if I keep waiting to catch up I will never write again. So, onwards...

I am currently sitting in the desert again, but not on the rig this time.
We are currently acquiring seismic data and I was given the opportunity to come and see what a seismic crew looks like, and finally made it out yesterday!

Unfortunately I am only here till Thursday but a flavour of it is better than nothing, though I would of course prefer to actually get some experience working out here rather than just visiting.

Anyway, so yesterday I hopped back on my favourite (!) flight to the rig then on to Brega, hoping there wouldn't be any issues this time (there weren't :). Got picked up in Brega and headed off on the 3-hour drive to the camp with a planning man on his first visit, and a Chinese mountaineer.

As we were starving, we asked Ahmed the driver to stop somewhere on the way, thinking we could grab a quick sandwich. Ended up eating really tasty Libyan soup and couscous in a random roadside cafe-loved it:) Plus, I got to practice a bit of Arabic with Ahmed and the people in the cafe so that was nice.

Arrived on camp and met up with the 'QCs' - ie the Shell guys whose job it is to check how things are going and assist/advise the operator, BGP (Chinese company) with the work. More on that later but I'd seen all of them in the office before so that made it easier. They are all ex-army chaps and therefore characters-some here to deal with the UXOs (unexploded ordnance), other with safety or technical supervision.

After all the necessary inductions, on of the chaps took me round the camp briefly and I took a few pics to give you an impression of what it is like out here on camp. Here they are, a slightly different set-up than a rig camp, not least because there are about 400 people on site!

The camp:



Dispatcher, who is supposed to monitor the movements of all the cars & trucks:
They use VHF radios through a couple of repeaters, though unfortunately one of the
repeaters seems to be broken and we are not authroised to use direct channels...




The survey fleet - all of them Defenders



The chaps (Steve and John B):




Random chappie walking by:




Living quarters for the junior crew (labourers), 6 men to a tent...



My trailer, shared with John R...client trailers are rather more comfy. Plus, I have control of the mobile phone repeater :)




Oh, and remember this?

Salym temperatures

Well...