Logging all night :)

First off, the Halliburton truck came in and we ran a caliper log, to see how big the hole is.



I left Chris the wellsite geologist to do the witnessing as I had picked the night shift ( in case I need to work tonight so I can still make the flight back to town). Tried to get some sort of rest between 4pm and 11pm, then up to start my shift at midnight.

By this time, the Boys in Blue had rolled up to take over and so it was just like old times, sitting there all night watching them do their thing.







Chris is on shift now and we are pushing ahead so I should try and get a couple of hours of rest before calling it a day. In the meantime I leave you with a few photos from our (I was going to say little but it's so) big rig and the funny set-up with both Boys in Red and Boys in Blue (couldn't find a good reason/excuse to get them to line up their trucks together lol).



Rig pets:



In theory, it's back to town on the flight tomorrow, if the wind dies down that is! Can't wait for all the meetings..........................................

At the rig :)

Written yesterday (Friday):

After a rather surreal 28 hours, here I am finally on the rig again!

We have been planning some logs for quite a while now (in fact, since that rather hectic week I mentioned a while ago), and as they will take some time we need to have 2 people to witness the logging.

Theoretically, our petrophysicist Leon should have gone but his visa didn't come through-the Libyan Embassy in The Hague is very Dutch about its paperwork and prioritising applications...

Also had a volunteer in the office, Paul, to cover in case Leon couldn't make it but as it is now the weekend he wasn't willing to follow up on this...and I couldn't really push as it was asked of him as a favour.

As a result I had to come out myself-in a way I am very happy to be back on site again, but I am also having to do 2 jobs at once - the office ops job as well as the wellsite one, so things are going to prove a bit of a challenge...

Anyway, having parked the dog with Chris and his dog Snoep, I got a lift into the office yesterday morning to do a quick couple of hours' work before setting off on the lunchtime flight. The flight plan, as always, was to first fly to Brega and drop people going to the seismic crew/gas plant, then on to Amal, the Veba airstrip we use in the middle of the desert.

After a late departure from Tripoli, we flew over some very cloudy and grey skies to Brega (1h45min). After a very wet & windy landing we waved goodbye to the people stepping off...then had to get off ourselves for refuelling. Turns out we also had to get off to wait on the weather...apparently it wasn't raining in Amal but very windy with a huge sandstorm!! As I didn't really want to go to the rig until Saturday (when the job is expected to take place) I had been making sandstorm jokes before leaving...teach me a lesson!!

As there weren't going to be any flights available till Sunday, Charles (friendly logistics guy) called to say he was arranging for some of us to stay overnight in Brega then get driven to the rig in the morning (couldn't make it yesterday as it was already 3pm and wouldn't have arrived before dark).

After a while the pilot called us over and summoned 4 of us (the chosen few, hehe) to come and take our bags off the plane. Everyone else got turned back to Tripoli...with me were Martin, the DSV, Dave, a mud guy who is in Libya for the first time and has only ever worked North Sea, and AbdulKarim, a young Libyan fresh from high school and going to assist Dave and around the rig. A fifth guy ended up joining us, Abduallah, the logistics chap from the rig.





We were met at the airport by Abdul, the Journey Manager for Brega, who had arranged for some cars to pick us up and take us the InterBeton camp, right next to our supply base. At this stage things were starting to feel distinctly odd as it was raining and windy and Brega is an industrial site-all felt a bit like being near the British seaside somewhere in the North East!

We hadn't really had any lunch and dinner was uncertain (Abdul was going to try & arrange some sandwiches) so we made our way from the camp back to an area where we had spotted some shops and a bakery. Ended up in a little fast food shop where we had delicious fajitas with fresh bread from the bakery next door...once more extremely random but a fun little adventure!

People there were very friendly, Abdulkarim made it all easier and it was rather amusing watching Dave adapt to the culture shock AND the randomness (I think this might have been his first time outside Europe). He also loves fresh bread so we had to stop at the bakery and got some of the large flat bread that is often found here. I have never seen anyone so excited about watching bread being made, having it handed to them and wolfing a whole one down in less than 5 minutes (after having consumed 2 tasty fajita sandwiches by the way!!).

Walked back to the camp and wondered what on Earth to do...I have been really tired the last few days and all I could think of was going to bed but couldn't really justify it at a quarter to five...! So luckily I brought my laptop this time as I ended up sorting through some photos and reaing a magazine.
Turns out Abdul had managed to convince the camp chef to make something quick for us anyway so he turned up around 7 carrying a tray with a burger sandwich and a slab of apple tart! Feeling rather full, I saved most of it for today and eventually had quite an early night.

This morning it was a different world. The rain had stop and it has been an absolutely beautiful day, probably about 20 degrees with bright sunshine. Turns out the Interbeton camp is pretty nice-they even have a tennis court - how come nobody told me to bring my racket ;), as you can see from the photos.



Had some breakfast then had to wait for the Vito (van) to arrive from the rig to pick us up. When he came we all jumped in then headed along the blacktop rather than the pipeline road, as we were not in a 4x4. This meant a longer trip though, going through the town of Ajdabiya where we stopped quickly for coffee and a milkshake, then on along the big NNW-SSE road to the turn-off for the rig.




The desert gradually changed from low rolling hills with small plants to the empty arid plains that our rig is located in. We saw a few birds and camels on the way, but these soon grew rarer.

The blacktop to the rig:




Abduallah used to be a vibroseis truck operator in the Ajdabiya area and new it pretty well so was pointing out the main sites and seismic lines as we drove along. After a while we all fell asleep :) then woke up when the driver had to take his break, just on the turnoff to the rig. This allowed me to hop out and take a few shots, which I hadn't been able to do last time :)

Road to the rig:






That's it for now, need to sort out some bits and pieces and make sure we are all lined up for the job and just keep everything crossed that it goes well or I might just decided to stay here permanently and not go back to town ;)

Travellers:





From left to right: Abdulkarim, Abduallah, driver, Dave, Martin

A day in Gharyan

A few weeks ago, on a Friday, I headed out to Gharyan, about 1 1/2 hours to the south of Tripoli, for a walk in the hills with Helena & her dog Maddy, and Avantika. We had a great time scrambling up a hill then walking down the old 'Italian road' - the one with the yellow and white edging on the photos. There were quite a few local families out for a picnic and we certainly seemed to give them something to talk about for the next few weeks or so. Pretty funny really. Here are some of the photos, from the walk as well as the berber granary we visited before heading down to buy some pottery :)






Avantika:



My doggy:



Helena and Maddie:



Tripper discovering his roots:

Birthday presents

Well my birthday turned out to be rather exciting!

During the day Mohanned took my car to the alarm system place and got it all kitted out with a central locking system (which had been missing since I bought the car) and alarm system...a really cool one with a range of 1km!! Plus it tells me where somebody is trying to break in or if the car was just hit. Exciting stuff.

Just after that I got a phone call that my container was on the way to my house!!!! 6 months later, finally!!! perfect timing.
So I rushed back in time to see the huge container drive down the road towards me and make it to the end of the dirt track...but not to the front of the house.




Unloading it was rather too busy to take photos, as I stood at the front monitoring the parcels and directing them to where they should go, and Matthew checked they weren't throwing fragile items around or walking off with anything. 9 men on the job meant that all that stuff was offloaded in just an hour...including 3 pianos!!

So I have that to look forward to when I get home...we unpacked a lot of kitchen items before leaving for London, but everything else is still in boxes.

As for the house, well the pergola got put up on Friday 27th...in one day! (after 5months of waiting...anyway). Here are pics of the work as it progressed...



Apart from that, Andre came by as I asked him to check out my stairs to the roof (they looked rusty to me but he jumped up and down on them and are apparently fine) and he checked out the pool tiling and declared it needed re-doing completely as it would leak. And the terrace was badly laid. Well mate, if you'd come round a month ago when I started whingeing about it, it might have been easier to fix!
Anyway, I am intrigued to see what will have happened in my absence...(expectation: nothing)

That's it for now!

Update

Hello everyone,

it's been the busiest few weeks in my working life so far...exhausting but very rewarding!

I finally had my first lie-in since holidays this weekend, not quite caught up yet...


In the meantime, progress with my house has been incredibly slow...the 'two weeks or else' deadline came and went and everything was still progressing at snail's pace...then the builders stopped coming for a couple of days.

On top of all the work this last week, after a stormy windy weekend there were electricity issues and my house started flashing like a Christmas tree. 20 seconds on, 20 seconds off. Couldn't even run a couple of light bulbs, let alone heating or the water pump...called in the contractor company who couldn't find anything wrong as it had stabilised agin. However, next day, same story. This time they came in time to witness the problem. They managed to get me a stable 200V input, meaning I could have some light but that was it.


At this stage I thought a nice warm meal would cheer me up after a long day's work and a freezing house. Eek! No gas :-(


The electricians were due to come back the next day to fix things properly. My guard told me they had come and said they would return later but never came back. Needless to say, when I got home it was like Christmas all over again. This time a different chap came, fixed my gas and fiddled with my stabiliser for an hour and a half in the freezing cold (well, you know) and fixed it. Not sure if it's a permanent or temporary fix though as the mains seemed to be really low (180V). Anyway, no problems since.


Next day, I came home to the gas alarm beeping away! Gas leak...another chap came to try fix it.


Next day again, got a call from the guard, gas alarm going off again!! This time the proper gas man came around and found that the chap who had changed the bottle had wrenched the pipe too hard and caused a leak!!!


So with this in mind, on top of the crazy workload, I went to the people who are supposed to be helping us with housing here, and 'threw a strop' - not shouting, but next best. I think the chap was a bit shocked as I usually am nice&polite with people in the office, but it was about time.


So he ended up promising to go follow up every day and scuttled off to get things moving...


That day, 3 large palm trees were planted in the garden and lights and filters fitted in the pool! And the path is being re-paved (they has had to rip it all up as they had forgotten to put in cables - duuuhh!). Here are the latest pics of the garden:

Apart from that, work has been this busy because I was duty operations geologist again, meaning I could -and did- get called in the middle of the night if anything goes...not according to plan let's say, at the rig. Of course, the day after I came back from hols was the day we started logging...straight back in at the deep end.

Yvan, the main ops geologist, was at the rig. In fact we have hardly been in the office at the same time in the last 3 months...though we are both full time, we have been back-to-backing this whole time!


I am really enjoying the position of operations geologist. I am also conscious that I still need to get a fair bit of experience interpreting seismic, which I can also gain here. So I really need to specify in my plan for this year how much of each I am going to do and make time for the interpretation, even though I prefer ops!


But for now I need to cover when Yvan is away and I love the fast-paced decision making that comes with the job. And negotiations with the drillers :) And simply the responsibility of making often costly decisions...as you can tell, they haven't gone wrong yet or I might be revising that statement!! ...the big one that I have really pushed for is coming up, just as I go home for a visa trip next week 0:-) good luck Yvan!!!

To be honest, there is a fair bit of pressure to keep costs down at the moment so it has been quite a lot of work presenting to higher management to try and convince them that we do, indeed, need this data. I just hope the logging works...the geology is pretty tricky and there is a high possibility of our not getting any data!


In fact Halliburton, our main contractor, doesn't have the right tool for this so we are now going to run with our back-up contractor, Schlumberger. Whilst I am pretty pleased to be working with them again, they had better deliver!!! They also have a huge amount of pressure to perform from their side, so it's all fun...


Anyway, that's it for now and I can go into much more detail about my work unfortunately but hope it gives a vague idea of what life is like here.


Apart from that, had a housewarming party on Thursday which was good fun, nice to have loads of people round to celebrate finally being in!

No container delivered yet by the way...

Housing etc

Not even going to go into excuses about half-written posts...

Since I got back last week I have been camping in my house which still wasn't (isn't) finished. My company came down hard on the landlord last Sunday and since then things have been happening in the garden.

Here are some photos of the latest update, still quite a bit of work to do...

At the weekend, went to the beach on Friday with some friends ( a bit windy but 17 degrees and sunny)

and did a huge shop at the huge new shopping mall (Talat) in town so my kitchen is now properly stocked up and I feel a bit more settled (well as much as you can when the only things in the house are a borrowed futon, plastic table and chairs and 3 pans. Oh, and a dog :-)

And finally, a photo of my car!! (rather dirty after driving off-road on the way to the beach)

Wellington & IYDU

After another long flight, we landed in Brisbane for a stopover on the way to Auckland. Unfortunately everyone had to get off the plane for this and even get our bags scanned (and food/drinks stolen by Aussie customs in some cases) even though we were not entering the country…don’t get me started. I was OK but waiting around in yet another airport wasn’t exactly my favourite experience. Anyway, back onto the plane we hopped for another 3 hours then finally arrived in New Zealand!

As we were a bit delayed I had to speed through Auckland airport from international to domestic - after getting rather a grilling from the immigration who asked to see my return ticket (cold sweat-going back to Libya-I could see his whole attitude shift…) but let me go after a few more awkward questions. What is it with these people that you should end up feeling like you have done something wrong when you really haven’t??!?

One last, hour-long flight to Wellington and that was it! Finally at the end of the Long Way Down and rather glad to be there :-)
The airport in Wellington is situated in a bay outside town and flanked by hills, meaning it is a pretty tricky landing due to wind currents etc. This means international flights cannot land here as big jets would just not make it. But it was nowhere near as hairy as Hong Kong or Madeira!




We are staying in serviced apartments which are very nice and modern, and central. Matthew was already here when I arrived so I just dumped my things and freshened up after which we headed out for dinner on Cuba St, one of the two main nightlife streets in town. It was, admittedly, just a Tuesday night but we found town to be REALLY quiet!

Next morning we got up and decided to try one of Raf’s brunch recommendations out in Lyall Bay. Luckily the bus outside our appartments went right there and it was a really great place…definitely makes it on my top 3 brunch places list around the world! Here are a few photos of Maranui and the view from the terrace…the plane pics above were also taken from there.





After that we just spent the afternoon walking around town a little, doing a spot of shopping then resting legs (especially Matthew’s) before the IYDU kick-off at 6.30pm. We just had time to sneak in a coffee and yuuummmmy muffin at Fidel’s (don’t say it-on Cuba street, with the commies) with Donnie before heading off to parliament for welcome drinks with Nicky and , the leader of the Nationals.
Dinner and drinks followed at the Hummingbird in Courtenay Place (the other hip street), which was quite a nice location and thankfully had outdoor heaters.

Next day was a full conference day, but Donnie, Matthew and I skipped the afternoon session and headed up to the botanical gardens.



The gardens were pretty nice, if a little small. To get up there we took the cable car, which was a fun way of travelling. The gardens were well kept and especially the begonia section and the hydrangea valley were the highlights for me. Generally though, it was just pretty amazing to see so many shades of green!





That evening there was a reception at the Beehive (parliament building) with Prime Minister John Key, and Matthew and I got the chance to have a bit of a chat with him-he seemed pretty down-to-earth and it'll be interesting to see how he fares in the next few years.

Dinner and drinks at the Matterhorn, another place to see on Cuba St...another nice evening, with Chialin and Donnie.

Spent all day in the conference the next day, as there were pretty good speakers on that day, then tried to catch a few rays of sun outside parliament before getting ready for the conference dinner at the Backbencher pub, followed by drinks at the seafront. Incidentally the weather has been sunny but it is pretty cool-max of 22 degrees, which apparently counts as 'hot summer' here :-s

The original shoreline, before a whole load of land got reclaimed



'If this were 1840 I would have very wet feet!' - aka downtown Wellington



Finally Saturday morning saw the committee elections etc, which Matthew skillfully avoided but I attended with my vote...one of the longest meetings I have been to in IYDU! Not much time left to have a bit of a rest then head out to the Botanical Gardens for the final barbecue then onto Red Cube in town for the rest of the evening (and to escape the freezing cold and spots of rain!)

That concluded a well-organised conference and nice stay in Wellington. I am pleased to have seen the town but am glad to be moving on now...after spending 3 days of conference locked inside the parliament rooms (Caucus room-can't complain too much, it was pretty nice to be able to roam around inside parliament without restrictions) I am ready to take off and get some sunshine and fresh air! Except, of course, the beautiful sunny weather seems to have disappeared now...