Birthday, Shutdown, Offshore

23-30th April 2013

Unlike years before, I did not bother so much about my birthday this year. I guess the exciting in celebrating birthday subsides as we grow older. I don`t know. Perhaps that was only me thinking that way. Nevermind.~

There are so  many things occupied in mind nowadays that diverting the heavy days at work to personal excitement like celebrating small scale of birthday thing seems impossible. It happened that I have to attend for my duty at offshore. What can I do..Shutdown was on 27th April , thus I decided to go onboard sooner.

Our life at offshore starts as soon as the athan for Subuh is calling for prayers. At 6.30 all personnel onboard are summoned for morning meeting followed with breakfast, toolbox meeting and every personnel will disperse to respective worksite.

But during shutdown, these routines are skipped to allow the emergency shutdown process to be triggered earlier. This picture was taken at 6.30am. The emergency shutdown was scheduled to be triggered at 7am, and for the time being, we were pestering at the living quarter, while the platform operation crew busy with their stuff. After a while I joined other colleagues to the control room, where all communications to synchronize the shutdown activities i.e depressurizing the flowing well from all platforms were taking place.

And when the emergency shutdown button successfully triggered, all platform will be blackout for a while, and the flare will boost even higher to the sky, only for a while.

After a while, the operation handed over to us, the maintenance crew, then we proceed with our activities,i.e to change valves, piping replacement and so many activities that only can be executed during shutdown period.

Along the period, I feel blessed to be female engineer for this kind of work. At least I can save myself from getting my hand dirtier than it was supposed to be. Don't get me wrong, I love my work, as much as a my enthusiasm to get everything in my plate are completed successfully as perfect as possible. Hehe..

That was a brief idea on how 12-hour emergency shutdown(ESD) is like, moreover, I will be having major shutdown upcoming in July in fasting month for 14 days. Certainly it will be even tougher and challenging. I pray for the success. amiin..

In the night time, the platform is very peaceful, yes the sound that we may heard only from the generator. But still, it is a peaceful night, even though it is not recommended to stay outside for long. Dusty air..

On the other hand, I never expected that my birthday will be acknowledge even when I was offshore. Let`s forget about other means of communication, be it phone calls, sms, FB, and what not. All are disconnected when I was onboard. But I consider myself as lucky when my roomate, Kjun has been sooo sweet to make this red velvet to me.. Nyumss..!

Perhentian Island,Terengganu

8-9 March 2013

Unlike my previous island trip, this time I chose to follow a group to explore Perhentian Island. So, being one of the participants, my task is just to pay and drive and join the team at jetty.

I have no idea which Perhentian Island that we were heading to until we reached there. Ahh..it's Perhentian Kecil, the smaller part of the island.

The chalet was a few walks from the seaside. We enjoyed every scenery around us.

There was diving center that provides diving gear rental service. As for our group, looks like none of us possess diving licence. Hence, snorkeling it is!

We have 2-day stay in the island, with the activities of sightseeing, snorkeling, eating for the most part of the trip.

And yes, cam-whoring :P

Towards dawn, we enjoyed the sunset by the beach. Super awesome.

During the night, we had barbeque dinner with at the restaurant. And honestly, the service was really dissatisfying. We waiting more than half an hour and when they served the so-called barbeque dish, some of us complained with the unreasonable quantity as compared to the total of us. Some of us even considered to have another shot of maggi-mee afterwards. Hehehe

Yes, the island was full with mat salih here and there. But unpleasant part of being in the island was to deal with the local people. Double-standard was so apparent to us throughout our stay. And I was one of the vocal participants complaining this and that. Not to blame the organizer tho, but I guess he had his lesson learnt not to extend any invitation for me after the trip. He he.