In this chapter, we’ll learn about what happened on my first day on the oil ship! Well actually, it was half a day.
Before we jump in, if this is your first episode in the series, feel free to checkout the prologue and catch up before reading this chapter! Click here.
Similar to how my cabin looked, except there was less space and there was also a bunk bed.
The cabin room was slightly smaller than the dorm I stayed in while going to University of Alaska, Fairbanks. There was one desk against the left wall that was accompanied by a large comfy chair. Getting up from the comfy chair and taking a right there was a bathroom with brand new interior design, a tiled floor, a small shower and a vacuum styled toilet. There were also cabinets on either side of the mirror. There was a sign warning people not to sit while pressing the vacuum button on the toilet, as it could leave a large hickey where the sun doesn’t shine. Returning to the main room there was a small sofa opposite the desk, sitting down the cushions gave little resistance. On the left wall next to the desk there was a bunk bed with curtains and a sleep blinder. Across from the beds there were two dressers. There were also many outlets strewn across the room. These outlets also included American outlets, it was the first time I had seen them outside of the US in Europe or Asia. I wondered how crowded this cabin would be with two people, especially the desk. Luckily for me, I would be the only one staying here, the rest of the crew had to share rooms.
It’s almost three fifty.
I waited until my cell phone’s clock read “two fifteen” and then I tried to find the area I had just been in. I walked around for a few minutes and then asked where “Steffen” was. They had told me my safety briefing would be with him. He came a few minutes later. He was a guy from Scotland, yet he only had a slight accent. He had giant eyes and in a matter of moments I could tell he cared a lot about safety. I sat down with him and the teacher I was meeting who I would replace as the English trainer for one month named Darren. Steffen went through many slides, he played a couple of sounds that represented alarms for abandoning the ship or dealing with different gas leaks or fires. It was an abundant amount of information and I instantly forgot most of it.
Similar to what our lifeboats looked like. We never got to see them in the water (luckily) though.
That ended up not being too bad, as much of it didn’t apply to me anyway. Then he took me on a tour around the ship, he showed me where my lifeboat was and what I should do when I got there. I had to turn my card around, grab a life jacket, find the last number and stand on it. All the numbers for each lifeboat were painted in circles on the ground. If I was the first person there, I should stand on one, and if someone was standing on one, then I should stand on two. It all seemed simple enough.
H2s Gas. It’s dangerous. Worse than burrito night.
After Steffen was done with me, I met another Scottish guy. This guy was called “Gale”. His Scottish accent was much thicker than Steffen’s. I followed him up the stairs to the helicopter deck and had to repeatedly ask him to repeat things three or four times due to his accent. He brought me to a room where he struggled with the TV for a while and then taught me all about H2S gas and the dangers and what to do if certain things happened. He showed me the equipment and had me practice opening and closing the oxygen valve I would use to connect my mask to if there were a serious H2S leak or incident. The further he went along the more I got used to his accent and by the time he was done I felt like I was ready to go to Scotland.
Dinner on the ship was pretty good. Okay it wasn’t this good. (but close)
After Gale, I was finally able to meet with Darren. We ate dinner and he showed me more of the ship. We talked a lot about how to do all the paperwork associated with the job. There was an attendance list on the computer, a daily attendance sheet for the students to sign, a lesson notes file for every class of every day, a lesson plans file for the same, and there were the books. There were also four different crews to track and the crew shifts to track and the shift changes to track with each crew change.
One of the books we used.
Now back to the books. There were the Oil and Gas books, and English exercise books. The English exercise books also had workbooks for the students and a teacher’s book that had lots of interactive activities in it. There were two whiteboards on either end of the room and across from the teacher’s chair you could see through the windows and look at the sea.
What our real classroom looked like. The table is a little bit curved due to the panoramic photo.
There was a long table with a TV monitor mounted on the end near the teacher’s chair. The TV was also connected to the laptop and there was a printer behind the TV, resting on a chair. After several hours of talking about paperwork and how things worked, he let me know that I would need to plan the lessons for the following day because he would be leaving at eight thirty in the morning. We spent an hour or so working on the lessons for the next day and then I went back upstairs.
NAV deck, short for “Navigation deck. We called this deck “the bridge”. This is a photo from google and not the actual Osman NAV deck.
My main piece of luggage was still in the radio room so I went up to get it. The radio guy was busy, so I just grabbed it and left. Then I walked around this deck called “NAV deck”, which is short for “navigation”. I kept looking at the signs trying to find the stairs to head down to my cabin, but I couldn’t locate it. Finally, after my fourth or fifth time around a square shaped hallway, a guy came out of one of the rooms and asked me if I was lost. He directed me to the stairs; the sign was obstructed behind two other signs. In the coming weeks I would learn – go left, then left to get to the radio room, then go right, and right again to get back to the stairs. My cabin’s floor was just below the NAV deck, so I carried my twenty-kilogram bag back down the flight of stairs and found my cabin again. Inside, I only unpacked what I needed and then slumped onto the sofa.
One of the perks of being on a ship.
It had been an eventful day. I had woken up on the PSV ship and spent most of the day there. Then rushed through two different Scottish guys giving me safety briefings. Then I had gone over all the paperwork and planned lessons for the next day. I sat on the sofa in my cabin for ten or twenty minutes, planning the next day. I thought about how I would plan my weekly schedule, when I would write, go to gym and eat as well as plan my lessons and do all that paperwork. Then I wasn’t sure I even remembered how to get to the classroom in the morning. I would have to wake up early. I hated waking up early. I could wake up at five thirty, take a shower and shave, then go to breakfast at six am and be in the class by six thirty. I could also just sleep until six, have a shower and a shave, skip breakfast and be in the classroom by six thirty. As I lay in my bed thinking, I decided to go with the latter plan.