Skating

Well life in basecamp is pretty nice as there is a good bunch of young people on shift at the moment. Sasha, Slava and I are in our own caravan, Radik has been sitting in the main SSFT caravan with Sergey, CJ and Vlada. So a slightly different crew to last time.

End of well report is coming along, with explanations from the PTs which is always good-learning.

The highlight of the day, though, tends to be the hour to 90mins after lunch where we would usually go for a nap. Instead, a bunch of us go skating on the ice rink outside the canteen building :-)

Vlada and I are both beginners and starting up was difficult but it's been great fun.
I have been skating every day since I arrived and I feel a lot more comfortable on the ice now. Yesterday was a struggle, as legs and feet were hurting (exercise? wot?) but I pushed myself and got a lot of good practice in.
Today the ice was not so good as the temperature exceeded 0 degrees today!! Although we did get a thin layer of snow again.

I feel like a young child as I am covered in bruises but it's a good feeling to be doing some sports again. And it's fun to play :-) Here is a video of our train:




I have started to learn hockey...sort of...Sasha is my coach and I can just about skate along with the stick, and hit the puck into the goal (providing the puck is in the right place ;-)

2 days ago, the CPF challenged Basecamp to a hockey match so I went along to watch and support. Poor Sasha, the best player in the team, was completely exhausted by half-time: we had been playing at lunchtime, and the basecamp team only had 4 players, whereas CPF could rotate as they had 7. We almost won ;-)

I am now sitting in the main SSFT caravan as Radik has gone to pad 16 to help the guys out there with Achimov drilling. I am looking at the correlation as they come in with Sergey-it's fun to be on this end too, although it might have been more interesting with Gilles around.

There are curently 4 geologists in pad 16, which is quite a lot! and Well Engineering are getting a little upset about this. Currently out there are Sasha (aka my little brother from the last 2 weeks on rig 4), Simon, who has moved over from pad 3 to do the Achimov drilling, Radik, who was called out for help, and Dina, who arrived on Thursday for her first shift.

I am a little disappointed not to have been able to stay with Dina, as was originally planned, but her arrival was delayed (bad weather in Amsterdam) and plans here changed slightly-I stayed on the rig last week instead, as there was no computer for me here. But she seems to be settling in fine and enjoying here time here, so all is good :-)