In the mid-seventies Texaco decided to drill a couple of wildcats offshore Mauritius down in the Indian Ocean. Reading and Bates had just finished building a drillship named “Douglas Carver” that was chartered to drill these two wildcats. New drilling rigs always have a bunch of problems. One in particular was quite unique I thought. The rig was built in a ship yard in Scotland. Some of the Scottish people are drinkers and some of them drink at work, periodically. When we tried to air up the bulk system to move cement from storage bins to the surge tank, we could not move any bulk material from one end of the system to the other because someone had filled the 6 in. transfer pipe with empty beer bottles and welded it to a bulkhead that went nowhere. We had nearly disassembled the entire bulk system before finding this problem. Logistically, this entire project was a screaming night mare. For example, the rig was so far out that we needed to be flown to the rig via helicopter. Court Helicopters out of Johannesburg, South Africa had a Sacorski S 61-N that fit the bill. This helicopter was normally a 21 place chopper meaning 21 passengers. They removed most of the passenger seats to make room for extra fuel tanks located inside of the helicopter. A full load was two pilots and six passengers and the rest was fuel. We would fly from Port Louis, Mauritius to a very remote island named St. Brandon, north and east of Mauritius. We would need to take on new fuel in order to reach the rig on the next leg. The supply boat would get as close to the island as was possible and off load a single 55 gallon drum of chopper fuel onto a small canoe that had paddled along side. Once loaded the fisherman would paddle the canoe over to the island about 300 yards off and offload the fuel and roll it to the edge of the heliport made of bricks that had been brought in the same way. When we landed the fisherman would help fuel the chopper while we wandered around this two or three acre island where a typhoon was recorded at 258 mile per hour winds. The highest elevation is just two feet. When the wind really gets up, the island disappears, no one can stay here during the typhoon season. This place is home for about two hundred men that come here to fish. The rocky beach is littered with huge empty sea turtle shells. There are seven different types of meat in one of these turtles. As we wandered around the island there were four or five cooking fires going. Each small camp offered us food. They gave me a bowl of rice with something like seafood curry poured over the top. There was turtle, octopus and fish in the brew but you couldn’t recognize anything other than the octopus or squid. They had the suction cups on the legs. This stuff really smelled good. We did everything we could to keep from having to eat with these guys. They served it in aluminum pie plate looking deal with rice covering the bottom with the gumbo looking gravy. It was full of very hot and spicy meats with Indian curry. We did not want to hurt their feelings so we ate. Sometimes if you don’t really know what’s in it everything will be alright. The problem was I did know what was in it. I’m sure that this plate had been washed before but I am not sure if it was this week. There was not a fork or a spoon in site. One Frenchman from Schlumberger and two Texans, one mud engineer named Jack, and one Halliburton hand were just introduced into eating with our hands. No wonder these guys’ pants were dirty, they had been wiping lunch off their hands on them. I must admit that this experience was really special. I tasted things that I would never have the opportunity to experience ever again and I was thankful that the damage wasn’t permanent. Curried Octopus over rice is really quite a treat. Soon after eating we looked around and I noticed some squid being dried out. I asked about it. It appeared to be covered with seasoning just like we did deer or elk jerky. I couldn’t believe it when the little dude broke off a tentacle and handed it to me. Yummy, this is great. Sometimes you just can’t look at it but you just have to try it. If I had my rathers, I would stick with Elk jerky but I didn’t tell the little dude. He didn’t speak any English but he did smile a lot just like the rest of them. Hey, nice tooth. They could have fed us the dog food and we wouldn’t have known it. It was all really unique and tasty.
This was such a long flight the pilots would need to sleep on board the drillship and return the next day. This flight was a World Record for flying a helicopter the longest distance over water. It was pretty weird flying off into an ocean of just ocean hoping to find a drillship to land on. I had the same feeling while flying into the Rub Al Khali in southern Saudi Arabia. The sands were just as dangerous as the waters. It wouldn’t make any difference if something went wrong, you would never be found in either case. The thump, thump, thump of the chopper blades get very monotonous after hours of flying. I was so happy to get out of that helicopter. The thump, thump drives you crazy after a while. I was thankful to have made it to the rig in one piece. We were going to set the base plate on the ocean floor then nipple up the BOP’s. Sometimes stuff happens. Today it did, a cable broke and we dropped the BOP’s to the bottom of the ocean. Now they need all of the divers and they do not need me. It’s back to town in the chopper. Life sucks. Thump. We landed back in Port Louis at about 9 pm on Thursday night. It was OilFieldTrash gone wild once again. Green Island Lime Rum cost $1.25 a litter and it taste just like Bacardi mixed with Coke. I got head butted in the mouth, messed up my front teeth, and lost $500.00 playing roulette. This kind of hangover I would trade even for Leukemia. Thump, Thump I was back on the rig Saturday morning.