Longest Hitch and the Inspiration

I should say, FINALLY I'm back to civilization... I just had my offshore longest hitch, from 19 Feb 2011 till 27 March 2011, a total of 37 days.  

It's been challenging and testing my endurance both mentally and physically.  I think I did pretty well here, could still go on for at least another week.  Haha.  

Need to thanks all friends who chatted with me during this duration and family supports.  To be honest, I was a little bit more enlightened about what I want and what to do with my life in the future.

Over there on the rig I spent so much time creating spreadsheets for my bank loans, possibility for new properties investment including purchase a land then develop it (build houses etc), learned about EPF withdrawal, different types of home loan.  It all started when I tried to search for houses in Kuching.  At the beginning I only searched for houses below RM400K, then I increased the 'unthinkable' to RM500K, then RM600K... ehh, I thought I could still afford it, and if I couldn't I could get others to joint venture with me.  Then I looked into investment in shophouses, which I could never dreamed of due to the over the moon prices.  The first shophouse I looked at is the Uni Square right opposite UNIMAS, RM830K... normally I would pengsan and just forget about it.  This time I put the number into my spreadsheet, and of course the result was unfavourable to me lah, but at least it opened my eyes and mind that it's not impossible leh.  

From there onwards, I planned and planned and planned.  My colleague was so fed up of me because I looked at my spreadsheet and searched for information on internet most of the time.  Haha.  Need to thank him as well as he shared lots of information with me.  

Well, I do hope all my plan will come true one by one.  Step by step I will make sure I make my plan happens.  Hehehe.   

And all of you, believe it or not, my mind started to 'open up' after I started playing a computer game called 'Plants vs Zombies'.  Who said game is not good?  I taught my nephews tricks to play and logic behind every move.  They become smarter... wuahahaha... Games can be good, we adults have to know the games then we can guide our children properly.  Well, that''s just an opinion from an unmarried single.  I hope life is as simple as that.  

Incident on the rig, 14 March 2011

I'm now on a tender rig, T9, which floats on the water with 4 anchors that pull this rig at its location.  We stay on the rig but the drilling activities are all happening on the platform.  The platform is accessed from the rig by a bridge, which is called the access ramp.  There are few other names given to this access ramp, Widow Maker is one of them.  There is a ladder that we need to climb from the bow deck to the access ramp, which itself is a hazard to safety.

Rig, Access Ramp and Platform

On the day I arrived, a tragic accident happened.  There was a big white man, he was going up the ladder but somehow he lost his footstep and grips, he fell flat on his back, knocked his back of his head hard of the floor.  Later on I found out that he actually weighs 300 lbs, which is about 140 kg, and he is 63 years old.  

He laid on the floor for quite sometimes before he managed to sit up.  People rushed to him, the medic went with a big bag with medical gears trying to help.  He was bleeding at the back of his head.  His hearing was temporarily lost and his was weak.  Imagine, 140 kg object fell from 6 feet high, the impact was quite intense. Really felt sorry for him.  

From the bow deck to the hospital in the accommodation, stretcher was used and crane was used to lift him up from the bow deck to the hospital in the accommodation.  Town was alerted, special chopper was arranged with doctors and specific medical gears to come to the rig immediately.  The incident happened at about 10.30am, and he was medivac to Kuala Terengganu at about 2.00pm.  It's efficient and effective medivac effort from ExxonMobil.  

Accommodatioin

The company man later was saying, "guys, if you think it's unsafe, don't do it.  It's not worth it".  Yup, I totally agree with him.  Since safety is prioritised above the rest, we all have the rights to stop to do job if we dont feel safe.  It's not worth it.  Our love ones are waiting for us back home, we want to go home to them safe and sound, alive and kicking.  

At the age of 63 years old, I really hope that I would have the luxury of enjoying my life.  And pray hard, I will not weigh as much as 80 kg.  

Me on supply boat Setia Teguh, 14 March 2011

Been A While

Hello everybody, it's really been a while since I last updated my blog... It's only because I'm still on the rig, offshore... Exact location :

Latitude: 5 (deg) 27 (min) 49.71 (sec)

Longitude: 105 (deg) 23 (min) 58.02 (sec)

Rig: DD3

Field: Seligi H

Day offshore: 20

Basically somewhere in South China Sea.  Haha. 

The rig network actually blocks blogspot.com website, I just don't understand why the management needs to do that.  That's the reason it's been a while I couldn't access to my blog.  At the moment, I'm in the SLB Wireline unit with internet access, thankful for this facility.  We just finished a survey run about 45 minutes ago, now standing by for run #2, which will be on in another half an hour, I guess.  By the way, it's 2.45am on 10 March, 2011.

I somehow enjoy the moment right now.  Not so much of distraction.  I have good time for myself, think a lot, reflects on the past, think of all the possibilities for the future.  I used to think small, a little coward and lack of confidence I should admit.  This past week, I tried to think in a bigger picture.  What if this, what if that.  I think I like what I found in me.  Waking up the giant in me LOL.  Quickly, I must write this down, in case I forget in the future.  This piece of 'masterpiece' will remind me of this moment and the new found me. 

If we love what we do, we will have the confidence to execute it, endurance to last till the end, passion to influence others to join you and most importantly, we will be at ease with who we are, have a peace of mind and satisfied with our life at the end of the day.  I just realised no matter how hard we try to reduce the regrets in life, a life path I have been following, but at the end of the day, this is an imperfect world.  There will be lots of regrets in life.  At this stage, I think I'll put that slogan behind me for a while and just live a good life, think bigger and seek the 'big' me inside me.  I think I've found it, just need to drag 'me' out totally.  Hahaha. 

I look forward to better future :-D