TiMeOFF

Timeoff...this is the best part for an offshore worker. Its the going home part. This may sound like a normal daily-routine to most of you land-lubbers but to us, after being surrounded by the sea for 6 weeks or more, the well deserved rest we call as TiMeOff, is something we really look forward to.

The deal I have for me is that I have to stay on-board and work for 42 days (6 weeks) and get a time off for 21 days (3 weeks). That's the deal I have with the company I am working for. It's a pretty darn good deal too. In total, I have 102 days for time off in a year..unlike you land-lubbers, you probably have 21 days of official leaves in one (1) year..right? Well, I am REQUIRED to take leaves for 21 days every time I have completed my 42 days. And yes, I still get paid when I go home for leaves (time offs). All this is because some clever cunt thinks that if someone stays at sea for more than 60 days, it can effect the person's psychological state. On certain oil field areas offshore, like Brunei as one example, you are required to sign a form to declare that it is at your own will that you had decided to stay longer than 60 days at sea. To mE..this is my time off.

What do I feel about...it is exhilarating. I know I am gonna be fucked up with a lot off booze and a lot of waking up to do. Like really late in the morning to catch up with another day of boozing cum family gatherings and social interactions. Its when I am going to do the normal things I did when I am a land-lubber :)


Hehehe..I am just wondering what I'll be writting for the next farkin' 3 weeks. In fact, I have nothing much to vent while I am on time off, no frustrations and anger...I just want it to be peaceful and to put the cherry on top, drunk... need I more? I do have a good family and a good wife, other than that its nothing much to worry about when I get home...its just rilexsssssss...now. In my mind right now is, hmmm..42 days at sea and then 21 days for time off. Fuck me, I am enjoying it and sticking to this deal for a certain amount of favorable time-lAh!

So take it from me, time offs are something we really look forward to when you are an offshore worker. To me, basically its farkin' Linkin Park, Paramore and Cyprussssss Hills...

The going home part can be a real pain sometimes though. In my case, 21 days starts counting down from the day my foot left the barge to go to back to shore on a crew boat. Sometimes I find myself lucky when it only takes 4 hours back to shore via a crew boat. - I'll be home on the same day. The worst case scenario came to me once when it took 16 hours from the location of the barge to shore. Ouch! I loose 1 day because of that. In this scenario, it is called Travel Time taken for a subject to leave the barge and reach home. Airport scenarios come after that. So its taxi to hotel first, stay a night, taxi to airport and fly home the next day. By now the count is about 3 days. The further an offshore worker goes from homeland, the further distance he have to recover to go back home. For me, I suppose I can say that my 21 days of time offs is more expensive than GoLd. Well, such are our worries..but usually though, the painstaking homeward bound journey isn't that bad. So far, I have been home on the same day I left the barge. These operations are taken care of by some of the best Logistics personnel working as a branch to the main office at the country where the barge might be working.

Its a de-centralised unit from the mother company to take care of their personnel 's movements working over a foreign land. Who else will know about their country's rules and regulations other than the people already living there? From airflight, land transportation , hotel and crew boat arrangements, these guys know how to deal with it. Sounds familiar? Kinda like a tourist agency eh? Well, its kinda work like that..also, they do know customs and immigration laws that is being regulated in that country. Custom clearance is a bitch if you are to do this on your own..trust me. We leave this task to the Agents on the shore.

So no worries...you are after all heading home. Time to rilexs..Peace..

What You Should Bring When You Go Offshore

Travel Light! There’s no point bringing in your entire cupboard and kitchen sink. Packing up to go offshore should be as minimal as it can be and only the essentials should be nicely tucked in that luggage of yours. Here’s the MUST have list and why:

CLOTHES

I thought I should start with the obvious. The clothes you actually need on the barge should be in three pairs. Three pairs of T-Shirts or collar shirts, three pairs of underwear, three pairs of shorts/pants/jeans and three pairs of socks.

Of course, one of them pairs are the clothes you will be using when you travel to the barge and it will also be the same clothes when you get off from the barge to travel home later for time off – so make sure that pair is the ‘stylo-milo’ one. You don’t want to end up looking ancient in the airport with some worn-out clothes. In addition, you should always bring your coverall. One coverall is good enough.

Laundry is done twice daily for both day shift personnel and night shift personnel. It is taken care by the catering crew so you don't have to do it yourself. Even for those cunts with super clean habits, they can get their clothes washed up, dried, FOLDED and sent to their cabin everyday.

CHOCOLATE & MINT

Other than as a good snack, chocolate and mint can be a useful item to bring offshore. Although with all the good food on board, chocolate and mint is hard to come by. With it you can barter trade for something else, like a pack of ciggarettes and other items you might need or as a sign of appreciation to a co-worker when he helps you out with, for example, fixing your laptop problems, internet connectivity problems, urgent expenses claims or even for a piece of good advice. Your money is no good ON the barge - everything from food to laundry services are provided free here anyway.

FOREIGN CURRENCY

....of course before leaving home, you should have ready the right currency for the country you will be travelling to. I find it easier to have them ready at hand because of the rush I have to go through before I reach the final destination. Some offshore workers have to go through 3 transits and the wait can be between 30 minutes to 15 hours in the airport. With the right currency at hand you can skip the money changer hassle and rush to the nearest bookstore to purchase that new edition of FHM magazine.

Shavers and nail clipper is also a must. You should also make sure you bring 2 pairs of tooth brush. One is enough but you can never be sure that you will be going home on time as scheduled so that extra tooth brush will be a blessing at that sort of situation. Did I mentioned tooth paste...no? Ok, tooth paste too. Big ones.

As the accomodation on the barge is fully air conditioned, skin moisturising cream is another essential item you should bring. I know women usually uses these items, but when your skin starts drying up and your face feels like its going to tear everytime you smile, you will know that you need it. You find yourself starting to put a note like "Buy Nivea Moisturiser For Men - Next Trip" in your organiser. In fact, get the whole package, Facial Scrub, Facial Wash and Facial Moisturiser - All in one package which shouldn't cost more than RM100 - Get those written with "For Men..." so that you won't be too embarrased to pay for it on the counter. While you are at it, also take a bottle of Minyak Cap Kapak (Eucalyptus Oil).

What you DO NOT need to bring however are things like, a towel, a blanket, pillows and pillow cases, spoons, forks, knives, plates and soap - All these things are provided free on the barge. Not forgetting also, you do not have to bring any medicine or multivitamins which you can readily get from the Barge Doctor or Medic at the Barge Clinic. Cun eh...?

MOBILE PHONES AND LAPTOPS

Its always good to have these two technologies as your travel companion. But I have to put these two under the "see the circumstances" category. This is because some oil and gas companies allow them offshore while some like Shell and Petronas have a strict regulation against bringing them in. Well, if you can't then you can't. There's always the phone booth on the barge and also the iCafe. So, no worries if you can't bring them. Besides, its not rare that you will be 4 to 10 hours away from land by crew boat, you think you can find a handphone signal there?

Above Deck Crew & Below Deck Crew

I did mentioned about going into details on the different types of barges working in oil fields offshore but for now let me explain the two different categories of personnel on board a barge. Besides, I need more time to do some drawings on the barges to show you dumb duck land lovers what difference are there between each barges, graphically. So stay tune for that topic.

Basically, personnel working on the barge are separated into two categories. One is called Above Deck Crew and the other, Below Deck Crew. Lets start with the Below Deck crew, in which is the category where I belong.

The Below Deck crew consist of the following positions (in no order of heirarchy, we don't fuel Office Politics here):

• Barge Administrator (thats me...)
• Radio Operator (GMDSS Certified)
• Control Tower Operator
• HSE Officer
• Barge Doctor/Medic
• Chief Electrician/Barge Electrician/Electrical Technician
• Barge Mechanic
• Warehouseman & Storeman
• Catering Crew (Campboss, Western Cook, Asian Cook & Stewards)
• Marine Crew (Chief Engineer, Barge Master, Marine Captain, Chief Officer, 2nd Officer, 3rd Officer, Bosun & A.B.)

The Above Deck crew consist of the following positions (in no order of heirarchy):

• Barge Superintendent (my boss..)
• Welding Superintendent/Welding Foreman/Welder/Fitter Foreman/Fitter
• Barge Foreman & Barge Leaderman
• Rigger Foreman/Rigger Leaderman/Rigger
• Scaffolder Supervisor/Scaffolder Foreman/Scaffolder
• Derrick Crane Operator/Deck Crane Operator
• Field Engineers
• QA/QC Engineers
• ROV Supervisors/ROV Pilots/ROV Technicians
• Dive Superintendent/Dive Supervisor/Saturation Diver/Air Diver
• PFM / Line Up Operator
• Hammer Technicians

I guess that sums up almost all I can list down. I may have missed a few, but yeah, most of the major ones are listed. So, whats the difference then? Well, most importantly - expenses and budgets! The Finance people working on the shore have separate budgets for The Above Deck Crew and Below Deck Crew. Can't say I know much in detail, but my guess is to keep track a good budget and records. The more obvious diference is that the Above Deck Crew are those who will be working on the construction sites while the Below Deck crew are those who will be taking care of the barge's well being and keep things operational. Will get a write up done on some of the positions held on a barge on upcoming postings.

In addition, some of the Above Deck Crew may be required to change when the barge goes from one country to another. For example, we might have a Malaysian Field Engineer on board while working in Miri but when we moved to work in Indonesian waters, then we will get an Indonesian Field Engineer, and Thai Field Engineer when the barge goes to Thailand waters. You got the picture right? Below Deck Crew however, usually do not change no matter which country the barge goes.

Daily routine on a Barge

I must say that I have the best office in the world (not to mentioned the best job I ever landed myself with). I mean, where else can you be greeted by the beautiful sunrise as you go to work at the begining of the day and yet again catch the beautiful sunset at the end of the day. Smoking a ciggarette at the designated smoking area as the sun goes down, marking yet another good day had gone by. When they say 'Deep Blue Sea', out here is REALLY deep blue sea. Its quite common to catch sight of schools of fish as they swim gracefully around the barge and occasionally you will see dolphins feeding on them. Oh, the life out here is great...

Commuting is also one of the problem we don't face out here offshore. When working on land, I can say an average of one hour for someone to reach the office, maybe more for those who have to send their kids to school. Yes, I am sure you land lovers would have a list of excuses of why you were late this morning and I am sure they were 'valid' reasons too. I can't blame you really. Too many cars, too many dumb duck land lovers. For me, this picture on the right shows my 'highway' to the office. From my cabin, it takes 3 steps forward, a turn to the left, then 5 steps forward and a turn to the right...bingo! If all goes well, I should be reaching my office within 1 minute. On a heavy traffic day, when too many stupid cunts are standing around the hallway, it will take me 3 minutes. And that will be my office-rush day. My shift starts from 0700hrs and it ends at 1900hrs. The barge works 24 hours per day meaning a full 12-hour per day shift and a full 12-hour per night shift. Of course, shift times varies between different positions on the barge. For example, 1100hrs to 2300 hours, or 0600 hours to 1800 hours. Some even have VARYING hours and no definite shift time.

To have the full strenght and concentration for the next day, I would make sure I have the 8 hour sleep I need and wake up roughly around 0630 hrs every morning. I don't really bother going down to the galley for breakfast since I get breakfast sent to me in the office (for example, the picture on the left shows a beef steak sandwich I had for breakfast) and I have all sorts of hot drinks (Horlick, Milo, BOH teabags & Nescafe 3-in-1). I can have them all ready in the pantry...just in front of me in-fact. Most personnel who don't have this luxury of course wakes up a wee bit earlier than me and heads to the galley after showering and after changing to their coveralls. In the galley, you can have pancakes, the wide variaty of cereals, drink all you can fruit juices and hot drinks of choice, an occasional nasi lemak, nasi goreng seafood telur and mee goreng seafood telur.

When the clock strikes the hour, usually havoc of the daily work on a barge will start. During a busy day, well..everyday is a busy day like any other, you can almost compare it to those people working with the stock exchange. I say this because good communication is pretty much needed between co-workers on the barge. Communications between the barge office and personnel working on the deck and vise versa is usually done by using a walkie-talkie. In fact, a Standard Horizon Submersible HX3705 VHF radio. Like what this gentleman is using. It doesn't work like a telephone call however and defnitely not as clear with all the noisy construction and machinery noises in the background. It takes practise to converse and listen with a walkie talkie. A mistake in communication can actually lead to someone's death out here. I am not kidding here, nor am I exhagarating. Communications with the outside world is by telephone and YES, we do have INTERNET on-board. We run a 100MB Broadband line using the VSAT technology which feeds enough power to transmit a long distance telephone call and post up this goddamn blog. Thank God for this too, I can't imagine how hard it was for someone to send a message across to shore a long-long time ago by using a TELEGRAM. What I know from my veteran brother-in-arms is that it takes 3 days for a telegram to reach the shore and an extra 2 days for the message to reach his family at home. But that shit was a long time ago, we have better shit now.

In addition to good communication, personnel working on the barge should have a SHARP mind. I said 'SHOULD' because some personnel here are really stupid cunts! This is particularly useful when decisions have to be made in a split second. Of course some one with a sharp mind, like myself, will always gets his facts and strawberry syrups ready way ahead before the day starts. Times equals money on the barge and the more some dumb duck takes his time to think of his choices to later decide on, the more US dollar is being wasted. In view of this matter, lets look at how SLOW land lover workers would be, for example processing a simple form can take from 1 day to a freaking year...right? Come on, give it up...you know I am right. You don't really give a shit too, besides how much can that form cost the company. The worst it can go is some poor fellow waiting for his car insurance renewed.

With all the special requirements like going off early to pickup children from school, groceries and bill payments, I can't really blame you really. We however, do not have that sort of specialty on that department. What could possibly we be needing to do out here in the middle of the sea other than work?

We also do not 'tai chi' our work to our co-workers around here unlike what some of you land lovers like to do in the office on shore. Even after our shifts are over, we make sure our part is completed PERFECTLY and we do something called a handover for 15 minutes or so and tell the personnel on the next shift what had happened today and what important follow-ups should be done. Office politics are hard to come by offshore and we don't intend to start one. We leave that glamorous work culture to the people working on the shore and think how much of a lame cunt they can be.

And this we do during our lunch and dinner time. Day shift personnel goes for lunch between 1000 hrs till 1200 hrs when the galley doors of heavenly food opens. The galley closes between 1300 hrs till 1600 hrs for cleaning and preparing food for dinner which is then between 1700 hrs till 1900 hrs. Night shift personnel would be having their breakfast at this time, then lunch at 2200 hrs and lastly dinner at 0500 hrs.

After shift and handover, a few things you can do..I might have to stress on the word 'a few' here since the options would be, wash up, watch TV (yes, we have satelite TV for each cabin - on a SAMSUNG flat screen TV), go to the gym (yes, we do have a gym on-board. Its free too, no membership fee), surf on WiFi at the I-Cafe or just writing this blog from my cabin in the middle of the sea. For me, I only have 4 hours to do these things for relaxation but not all of them in one single night. Of course then its sleep time and that strikes a day out from the calendar. Good night...cunts.

SAFETY AT SEA - The None Technical Write Up

Here's a very important issue for the post. SAFETY!

To start with, the best way to be run-off from the barge (Official term offshore for getting fired or transferred to another barge) is to break the safety rules on-board. Getting tired of working offshore? Wish to go home earlier then your scheduled time off? - Well, then try smoking next to the safety sign thats says "NO SMOKING". I am pretty sure you will get the 'first class ticket' home. In fact the company would even fire you JUST BEFORE your hit the ground because you were stupid enough to work on un-safe conditions at high places. Pretty straight forward. And like my boss would say, "...this I promise ya"

So whats all this fuss about safety this and safety that?

No doubt about it, the offshore or rather oil & gas industry spends a mother-load of money each year on safety at work and I can't blame them for giving me a scare when I first got here offshore. Hell, they even manage to scare the shit out of me when I was in the Basic Sea Survival course in MSTS (Miri). The videos and pictures of past disasters & accidents were good enough to put me on my toes, no need a second reminder. And glad I am that they did, hell, I know I am out here for the money, but I really don't want to go home in a body back or with one finger less. We keep it safe here, not just for ourselves but for each other. Its a buddy system we call it, you take care of yourself & me, and I will take care of myself and you.

Anyways, for those would be offshore workers. It is always a good thing to go through the Basic Sea Survival courses and attached the certificate with your resume when applying. This will be a bonus on to your application. Why? Well, basicly it shows that you have the fitness physically and mentally to work offshore and also it will save the employing company a lot of time and money to send your sorry arse to one. It does cost from RM2800 to RM3500 after all and on top of that the fee for a full medical check-up at authorised clinics. You should however, make sure it is OPITO approved and a full T-BOSIET plus boat transfer and underwater helicopter escape training. Did I say UNDERWATER helicopter escape? Yep..I did.

There is also a friend of mine who is planning to work offshore but he is aquaphorbic (scared of being under water) and thats not because he's cannot swim. It's because he's afraid of being underwater that made him cannot swim. Well, let me re-assure you and all you land lover dumb ducks out there, no matter how hopeless you are in staying a float while in water, ONLY, I say again, ONLY if your weight is 300 kilograms and above then you will probably sink to the bottom while wearing a work vest (see photo below). Most people will just stay a float without even trying to stay a float while wearing one.

Such are our safety accesories offshore. Yes, that work vest don't seem much but if your weight is between 100 to 120 kilogrammes, it will keep you afloat...100 percent. Of course the basic PPE would be the coverall, safety helmet, safety shoes with steel toe and the safety glasses. Its your armour, use it. Its not cheap too, the orange coverall the gentleman is wearing above cost USD35.00...nett, no bargain, bargain.

Coveralls are usually worn while working on-board the barge - no mater its in the office or the deck itself. Well, its kinda cool to wear one because when can we ever wear one and look like a Slipnot band member or those people in hardcore-rap music videos...and actually look normal. Of course, it protects us from the everyday greese, dust and other uncomfortable dirt from our skins. And on an event of abandon ship where you have to float around waiting for rescue, the coverall will help you retain your body heat for about 1 and a half hour (tropical sea areas only) before your body starts to shiver with cold, followed by fatigue and probably die. Your body temperature only needs to drop by 1 degree celcius for this event to start. In the North Sea where the water temperature WILL be freezing cold, you won't be using coverall but a Survival Suit instead, with built in floating device, face cover, insulation and a vomit pipe. [see below picture - The Norwegian Sea Survival Suit] - it looks like a space suit and its hot to wear in tropical regions and only used in the extreme cold part of the sea world.

A Safety Helmet or most commonly called a 'hard hat', is another basic requirement to be worn while walking around the deck. It does protect the head from falling objects like bolts & nuts, small pieces of wood or anything to a certain degree. It won't however, protect us from a 200 ton load falling overhead. Usually when we see those kind of load hanging, we move away from underneath it. Pure logic and simple safety rule.

Lastly, offshore construction companies really do care about their workers offshore and they really spend a lot on safety at work places. Thats why, similar to some companies on land, they have safety officers. They do carry a burden to ensure safety policies are carried out adequately. Now its just up to them to make sure they do the job right. Muthafuckers...they get paid more then me too. Of course, we do have this thing call MANHOURS which calculates the amount of hours a barge worked over the years at sea at different project sites or oil fields. The more Manhour a barge collects, the better chance for it to bid for the next project. When an accident happens on board, usually its a big headache. I remember a 1 week investigation was carried out on-board just because some dumb duck stupid cunt decided to not wear safety gloves and cut-off one of his fingers. However, we got lucky. You see accidents as small as mentioned or worst still bigger ones, will make the barge loses its Manhours and will go down the record when bidding for the next project. A client will see this quite clearly as the clear sky and will question the ability of the barge to work safely, thus compromising a higher chance to win the bid. So yeah, the company do take care of us to work safely, but we have to take care of the company even more not to get hurt.

Terms & Conditions

After much thought, I think I better start this blog with some offshore terms. In other words, its how we talk at sea. Things are after all, very different around here. To be honest, all these terms did freak me out first time I am on-board a construction barge. As you can see on the picture on the right here. This one is called heavy lift barge.

Moving on, here are just a few of the terms I will be using throughout the blog (In lay-man's terms, for you dumb duck land lovers):

Port side & Starboard side [nautical term]

We can't really call the left side or the right side of a seafaring vessel as it is, cos it can really be confusing. After all, we have nothing around us except the sea. So some clever cunt invented these terms to stop all the confusion. Port side then (in general) became the side of the seafaring vessel that comes alongside the wharf or jetty when the vessel comes to port. The starboard side, of course will be the opposite.

Bow & Stern side [nautical term]

Another nautical term introduced most probably by the same clever cunt who made port side and starboard side. This time however, it means the front or the back of a seafaring vessel. Referring to the picture of the barge above, the stern would be where that big 2400 tonnes crane (orange in color) is sitting and the bow would be on the other end where our accommodation, bridge and helicopter landing deck sits.

Personal Protective Equipment

In short, PPE. Everyone must wear them regardless what you do on the barge. Like what this handsome gentleman on the picture here is wearing. The orange clothing is called coveralls not jumpsuits. Jumpsuits are for the fools flying around in the sky and jumping out with parachutes. Of course, that white thing on his head is called a safety helmet. It will protect the head from small bolts & nuts but of course not from a 200 Ton load. We will discuss further about offshore safety in later issues on this blog. Then there's the safety shoes. Lastly, the safety glasses. It does not just make us look cool (like those actors in the Matrix) but also to protect our eyes from sharp objects and the sorts.

P.O.B.

In full, Personnel/Person on Board. Self explanatory actually but for some dumb ducks, it would be the amount of people working and staying on board the barge and not including the cats, dogs or birds that happen to come along with the ride. The POB for the barge I am working on can go up to a maximum of 226. That's a lot of people contributing their bodily waste into the sea.

Barges

I don't think I really need to go all technical on this topic since I have already posted a picture at the beginning of this post as an example (graphically). If you kinda missed it, kindly scroll up and have a good hard look. I will however tell you that there's different types of barge. As mentioned earlier on, we have a heavy lift barge and then there's a hook-up barge, a pipe-laying barge and a riser barge. More write ups will come about these different types of barges in upcoming issues on this blog.

Also, a barge is not a 'tongkang'. I got some dumb duck of a cunt friends thinking I am working on a 'tongkang'. Well, see it for yourself now and compare to that 'tongkang' you see used to transport sand or rubbish up and down the Satok Bridge River (Kuching). I have never been humiliated in my life!

Cunt

A typical swear word we use at sea. Varies in usage and meaning. There's blardy cunt, hopeless cunt, lame cunt, lazy cunt and of course my personnal favourite, stupid cunt. Its merely a word for expression actually, like an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence. LIKE THIS!!!! for example. It is also used quite normally during play or on serious conversations.

Mess Hall or Galley

This is what land lovers will be calling their dinning hall and kitchen area. We eat here and get fed with good food. Of course, when the food degrades, the cook will have to go and we will get a new one. Menus are divided between Asian food and western food. There are 4 meal times in a day starting from breakfast at 0500hrs and supper at 2200hrs. All the wholesome meals to keep up the energy on a hard days work at sea. Now, it may look like we are eating in some school canteen setup, but we do have the best food around like beef steaks, lamp chops, grilled salmon and most of the western food that will cost us quite a lot back in the land. I will be lying and bragging if I say our menu are exquisite cuisines but I will leave this picture showing what this gentleman have to eat for his dinner. You'll be the judge.

Well, I guess that would be enough for now. Thanks for reading this far though. Stay tune for the next post...more to come.

Home at Sea

Hear ye' land lubbers'

So I have decided to start my own blog. As much excitement I get from reading Mr. Ciaklat's blogs (http://www.ciaklat.blogspot.com/ & http://globalprecession.blogspot.com/) I hope to give much excitement to my fellow bloggers on my newly-started blog.

What am I going to write? Well, mostly to answer the million questions everytime I get when I get home for timeoff which usually pretty much about my offshore working experience. Other than that, I suppose I could vent my offshore frustration by writing . Of course this will be entirely my point of view and things can defer from one offshore worker to another.

I must warn all you fellow bloggers though, there WILL DEFINITELY be swear words on this blog so bear with me. Besides, ever heard people always say "Swear Like A Seaman"? I will however, TRY to minimise these vulgarities. But yeah, if you wanna know about offshore employment and how it feels to be working at sea..well...

Stay Tune & Happy Reading, cunts..

Nuff Said.