Archive for the ‘Norway’ Category
Hi, I’m Chris, Marks nephew. Seeing as he is currently disabled I thought I would give this blogging thing a try.
A bit about me, I am one of the Second Officer’s on an Anchor Handling tug called Loke Viking. I have been working onboard Loke for 2 years now and love every minute of it.
We recently sailed to a very small town in the southern part of Norway called Flekkefjord. We arrived around lunch time and headed for our berth in the middle of the town. The town its self is about 10-15 miles in land, so we had to sail through a narrow Fjord to get there. Some of the views on the way up the fjord were spectacular.
Flekkefjord its self is a lovely little town with a lot of very traditional Norwegian wooden houses.
We were told by the ships agent who was local to the area that there was going to be a celebration tonight called Midsummer festival. Midsummer is a very popular thing in Scandinavia with some Swedish people going as far as to say it is a bigger holiday than Christmas. Well in Fekkefjord they did it a bit different from everyone else and in the middle of the harbour was a floating barge pilled with wood that they intended on lighting, and then circling with their small boats.
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Spend a couple of days in Stavanger last week, stunning city and well worth a walk around.
This was painted on the wall of our hotel, there is a lot of these about and most are done with taste and don’t make the place look tacky.
Building are also painted very bright.
As are the many bars and coffee shops.
This maybe my last post for a while, I managed to rupture both my biceps and snapped both the tendons that hold them in place, so they are now both up where my shoulders are, if my arms didn’t look so strange I’d be down the beach with my shirt off, showing off my huge shoulders, operation tomorrow with an over night stay, back home on Wednesday, if I can type by then I’ll give an update, kindly my wife is typing this for me but I’m sure she won’t want to do it to often.
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After a very long rig move starting in Norway and ending in Invergordon with cruising around the North Sea in between, I’ve finally managed to get in front on my mac and post, I’m having a bit of bloggers block at the moment, of course I’m still snapping away but because of my restrictions I can’t post any of them, unless of course I work again with the Viking ships.
Another great company Transocean Aberdeen has given me the permission to post about them as long as I get the ok from head office, but as yet I haven’t had a reply from them.
Anyway back to Norway, a country that is stunning in so many ways, after my last post through a taxi window I thought I would do better this time, sailing out through the Fjords I was sure I would get some decent shots, instead we got fog, nothing but damp think fog, and when it did finally clear it was the middle of the night, the next morning it was clear blue sky but nothing to see but sea.
So this was all I could manage.
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When I get back from a Rig move, I normally say how well it went and how hard I worked 😉 but on this occasion I can’t do either, it was one of those, ‘quick get out there as soon as you can jobs’ which isn’t uncommon in this line of work. For some of us only a couple of hours notice and we were on our way, the three of us met up at Heathrow terminal five and after some breakfast we were on a plane to Bergen in Norway. An hour long taxi ride through tunnels and over a bridge we arrived at the Rig, once dressed in full PPE we climbed the 87 steps up the leg, luckily our bags were craned up, once we got our breath back and were assigned our cabins we went to mob our equipment to find out it was all ready to go, all we did was turn it on and do all our checks, what a result!
The time for the move to start came and went several times in the next week until we were told it wasn’t going to happen and we could all go home, a bit disappointed but if you are going to spend a week chilling on a Rig, you can’t beat Norway. I even managed to get a few photos out of the window of the taxi on the way back to the airport.
Have a great weekend.
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Here are two mistakes I made and which would normally be in the trash by now, but then I thought, Hey you learn by your mistakes.
The first is pushing the button by accident, I was on deck late at night to try and capture this Platform we were moving along side, I knelt down to steady myself against a hand rail, took the shot, as I was attempting to get back on my feet I clicked the button, as it worked out it was better than the first shot.
The second is moving out of a cool air-conditioned room and into the heat of a summer night in Israel, then taking a shot of a AHV towing us with my lens fogged up, I could see this through my view finder but thought I’d give it a go.
“And bad mistakes, I’ve made a few” Queen-We Are The Champions.
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It’s nice to be home again, it was a long day travelling yesterday but I did manage to get a great view of London getting ready for the Olympics as we flew into City Airport, which is only a hammer throw from where it all kicks off tonight.
Would like to say good luck to Gemma (my son’s girlfriend) who is dancing at the opening ceremony tonight. ‘Good luck’
I don’t know what today’s photo has to do with any of this, it was taken next to the rundown house so that is the only link I can think of.
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Just a quick follow on from yesterday’s post, this nice boat house was just along the coast from the rundown house, maybe the owner spent more time here than at home. I’m just about to jump on a helicopter so will catch you all later.
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This job is coming to an end, all going well in the next couple of hours and I should be on a chopper to dry land tonight, a night in Stavanger and then home tomorrow, it’s always a shame to leave Norway, it’s such a beautiful country.
This was a shot I took last time I was here, we came into Kristiansund by boat and I saw this old rundown house and I thought to myself, that looks like my house.
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Yes I’m still on this flotel, my colleague left this morning so it’s just me now, just here to monitor the anchor survey and re-lay any anchors if needed, so I’m now in the ‘Sleep until you’re hungry, eat until you’re tired’ mode.
Here is a few photo’s of the rig, all taken with my iPhone and processed with Snapseed.
This was my first view of the Flotel, I arrived just after midnight.
These are the steps I had to climb, carrying my kit, it wasn’t easy.
Once onboard I was met with a typical Norwegian rig, clean and very spacious.
After a good nights sleep I made my way to my fav place, the mess hall.
Stopped off at the shop for some supplies.
Then found this room, not sure what it is but it had a whole lot of equipment in it.
In the evening I relaxed in the cinema, it was nice and dark with comfortable seats, would of been great if they had put a movie on though.
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Finally found an room with wifi that works, just finishing another rig move, we moved a Flotel next to this platform, the Flotel is a large floating hotel, hence the name, it’s sleeps 483 people or double that if you share a room, we’ll move it very close to this platform and extend a bridge so people can work on the platform and rest and play on the Flotel, it’s equipped with a cinema which seats about a 150 people and a great gym with his and hers saunas.
The platform is built into the seabed and has a lifespan of around 40 years, it’s built higher than most platforms due to the fact it’s sinking at 300mm a year, lower the platform shorter the lifespan.
This shot was taken with my iPad though my office window, nice view.
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