Africa is a great place to work.
I get to spend 200 days a year down here in a nice warm tropical climate with all the new friendly local guys I’ve met. The deck crew are really top guys. I get to share a cabin with 5 of them. Sometimes I wake up and my pyjamas are not buttoned up how I left them, and I feel like I’ve been drinking heavily.
I think its down to the malaria tablets I have been taking though? come to think of it maybe the tablets are the cause of the piles I have recently developed?
I’m glad I’m not in the North sea any more…I never liked it anyway, all those stuffy old "north sea tigers" who wont let me have one of their cakes at 10am and hide them away in boot covers in their lockers that I’m not allowed to leave my boots in , never mind let me use their communal shower when I please.
None of that permit to work business either…I can just get on with my jobs with out all of that paper work nonsense. I had to do a mainlift re-term earlier in the week, after i brought the sub up 1600m in auto head. Instead of taking 3 hours locking off, isolating, filling in forms, blah, blah, blah… I got straight on with the task in hand and just cut straight through the main lift with a hacksaw. A bit of grey smoke escaped out of the wires, but all was well in the end. No need to load test it either. I just pulled the sub and TMS straight into the catcher at full tilt.
today when I was cleaning out the drip tray of 6mm allen keys, 9/16th spanners, and bleed screws from the oil filled harness’s that I’d dropped in there, I seen some of local fishermen trying to come along side the boat in a canoe to greet me. They seemed really friendly and keen for me to get into their canoe, and were even waving a hessian sack at me…I imagine to sit on so that i didn’t end up getting my piles wet. I think they would have carried me aboard their vessel with their enthusiasm alone, if it wasn’t for the fact that it was 1230pm and time for my rice.
We get rice every meal here. its really nutritious. the chef, a really friendly chap by the name of "Goodluck Johnson" cooks it however you want it…boiled, simmered, or even fried and always serves it with chef’s special sauce. On sundays we get to go fishing. Goodluck likes to use fresh produce where ever possible. But its strange that we never get to eat any of the 1500Kgs of tuna we usually catch. one time, I seen it being offloaded into a wagon at the quay side. The chef had a big smile on his face and was saying something about getting himself a new pair of shoes. My trainers that went out of my locker were found the other day by skip outside.
I’ll be sad to leave in 6 weeks, but I shouldn’t miss the guys for long, as they have all invited themselves over to stay at my house after getting my address, which was written in my underpants I left in the communal showers.
Wish you were here. x x x
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