16/12 – Got the A, got the B, now I need the COL.

After the last few months, I’ve realised that I need a new driver’s license, the one with the code COL, one of the international kind. After hitting obstacles once every five minutes and run over some 20 sets of toes, I seriously considered just carrying it. Controlling these carry on luggage suitcases on wheels is not as easy as it seems. If I’m not bothering my surroundings with my driving skills, I get caught on all sorts of things, which makes the bag come to a full stop. Doesn’t look too smart either. Perhaps I can get an L-plate or some orange rotating light to put on?

12/12 – Offshore moments.

Once every now and then I move out to the different world for a few weeks. The world where weekends don’t exist and where your laundry appears on your door handle every morning. The world where it’s never dark, never quiet and most of all – the world where you are never by yourself. Irrespective of if that's what you would want at that particular time or not.

There are moments to remember though and it’s not all about drill bits, pipes, cranes and Bruce Willis kind of guys. You can get some amazing colours when a rainbow decides to appear during sunset and the Jack Sparrow mystery green light when the sun disappears below the horizon, is not only a myth. You can get to see dolphins playing in the bright blue water just below you and in the evening, metallic green Dorados swim past in couples with their yellow fins cutting the surface.

If you’re lucky during cold winter days, the heat from the platform flare might reach all the way to where you are on the cantilever deck. For a second or two you can close your eyes and pretend it’s a cosy bonfire you’re facing. Bananas for breakfast and avocados for lunch will never be as appreciated as after a week with oranges and carrots. And the night, when you get someone to hold the boxing bag for you, is a winner. If you time your visits to the bridge right, and happen to have a pair of binoculars at hand, you might spot the humpback whales jumping and throwing themselves on their backs in the distance. After a long night of work in August, you can sneak off to the forward leg, where it is as quiet as it would ever get in these places, to get a glimpse of a magnificent sunrise. Other summer nights, a romantic EverGreen burner might be on at full speed on the next-door rig…erhm…ok, getting tragic now, I know…

However, my point is, sometimes you take what you can get and try to make the most out of it.

December 2010 photos