Topaz 30. November - 4. Januar 2002

                 

 Nigeria here we come!  Sunshine and hockey on the heli deck.  Here we are back from a workboat trip in the morning and a group of Dolphins were passing as we were going to be picked up.

      

Other Dolphins, Dauphin from Eurocopter bringing us from Port Harcourt to the Geco-Topaz.  Chief off and Bosun takes care of us when we land.

 We had many helicopters landing during this trip, this was different from what we were used to in the North Sea. 

 

2005: We had to pick up our gear before Christmas that year due to a problem in the engineroom.

If I am not mistaken so many years after, I think it had to do with being able to run both engines at

the same time.  With all the gear out, probably 8 cables each maybe 6km long, it creates a lot of drag.

For safety reasons we had to pull the gear onboard.  If the one engine stops, all the gear in the water will have no direction and will tangle.  We got the important part (spare parts were onboard, but typicaly not the one failing) the 24th of December and we started to deploy.  I remembered it was sad going out on the back deck all night, not being able to talk to my family at home during the shift since as a Norwegian we celebrate the 24th and not the morning of the 25th.  Something that was much worse was that our Chief Navigator lost his wife and if I am not mistaken, though luckily could leave our vessel with the helicopter that came with our spare part (I am not hundred % sure about this, but for some reason this story came back to me now in December 2005).