Barrow Island

Ok Mom, I’m going to lay the time thing out… Right now its 5:45 pm on Wednesday in Perth. Its 3:45 am on Wednesday in Boise. I don’t feel like today was very productive. I got to the office at about 6:30 am. I finished my Barrow Island training (which took another 2 hours plus the 2 hours that I worked on it the day before). When I go to work, I will fly from Boise to LA (2+ hours), LA to Sydney (14 hours), Sydney to Perth (4+ hours), spend the night in Perth, wake up the next morning and fly from Perth Domestic Airport to Barrow Island (2 hours), grab the helicopter from Barrow Island to the rig (+/- 2 hrs depending how far out we are) Add a few hours in for layovers and that gives us a grand total of approximately 50 hours of traveling time from leaving Boise to arriving on the rig. I will NEVER complain about sitting in traffic on my way to work again. That means I will be losing about 2 or 3 days each way on my days off. So, instead of being home for 28 days, it will be more like 23 days. And, from what I hear it takes about 3 or 4 days to recover from the jet lag on the trip back – and I believe it. But don’t’ worry… I’ll only be doing this for the next THREE OR FOUR YEARS!!!! What the hell am I doing.. ahahah luckily I’m the kind of person that can just zone out and not think about these things too much. That’s why I’m good for this job. I can just not care about it, cuz what am I going to do about it anyways. It’s a major career move right? Right? Haahhaahhaha I pretty much lived offshore for the first two years of my career. This should be a piece of cake. Right?.....
So, back to Barrow Island. Its located North West off the coast of Australia and is a seriously protected Nature Reserve. Barrow Island is an island that is virtually undisturbed. Sounds cool right?.... Well here’s the crazy thing… There has been over 900 wells drilled on this island!!! And, there’s a major oil and gas facility there. Gorgon, the project that I will be working on, will have a huge LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) plant built on the island in 2010 or 2011.) There are 9 mammal species that live on the island and some of them are totally exclusive to the island – meaning, they are not found anywhere else in the entire world. All of the mammals are little fuzzys like wallaby’s. There are also a lot of sea turtles that lay their eggs on the island, and lizards and birds. They’ve done such a good job preserving the island, that no plants, animals, bugs, etc have come to or left the island since the 1960’s. I think its really cool because it goes to show you that you can produce oil without ruining the ecosystem. In fact, I believe that the oil and gas industry has helped preserve the island because they police it HEAVILY! Any person or thing going to Barrow Island must pass through quarantine first. That means, any shipments of equipment or food or whatever are inspected and sealed in quarantined transports before they can be shipped to the island. All planes and boats coming to the island must be free of any rodents, insects, or dirt…. That’s right dirt. You cannot go to Barrow Island if you have dirt on your boots. No flaura or fauna can enter or leave Barrow Island. You’re not allowed to take ANYTHING off the island either. Also, any trash from the camp at Barrow Island is incinerated or removed from the island. I think its pretty cool that they are taking such extreme measures to ensure this little island stays unchanged. Its costing a fortune I can guarantee that. They have a camp for the people that are working there and when the sea turtles come to lay their eggs, they have to keep their blinds closed and outside lights turned off because the lights disrupts the turtles. Here’s a website about Gorgon and Barrow Island: http://www.gorgon.com.au/03moe_barrow.html#frames(content=03moe_barrow_body.html)
Anyways, that’s pretty much been my day. After trying to find the drilling files on the O:/ for about 3 hours I finally got it figured out at 5pm. I guess I’ll have a lot to look at tomorrow. I think I’m going to head out for a walk. It’s a beautiful day out! Oh! Before I go… its really funny about the cross walks. I’m just getting the traffic lights figured out. I’ve been so afraid to J-walk because they told us you get in really big trouble. I look like such a tourist waiting for the light lol …. Anyways, the lights turn and the cars each take their turn going, then all the lights go to red and all the cars must stop. For about 5 seconds, the green walk symbol comes on and you can cross the street. The amazing thing about this is, you can cross any direction you want – just go from one corner to the other kitty corner across from you. After work, outside of our building, its like a mad house with everyone crossing the street in every single way. I don’t know if that really accurately paints a picture of street crossing, you might just have to experience it for yourself.

Love Mitzi