Ice Cream

[ozonetrooper]

So an offshore drilling platform dispatcher calls the shop and wants a tech to go out and check the walk in freezer on the platform.

I meet the helicopter @ the airport and load up all my gear and away we go. It is my first time in a helicopter and the pilot is talking me through the procedure to use my flotation device. he says, "in the event the craft starts to go down, put one the flotation device under your seat and wait until we hit the water and then inflate the flotation device. Got that ?"

I am shaking my head yes while thinking to myself, "You crazy bastard, if the craft starts to go down I am kicking open the door and inflating my device while jumping out ! ! ! " lol

So we get to the rig and I unload my gear and the helo departs.

This is on a Friday morning.

more to come ...

 

[ozonetrooper]

I am met by the cook and proceed to the kitchen area. He informs me that they just stocked the freezer with a months of grub and it is freezing sort of, but the ice cream is not hard. I go in the freezer and check the content and he is right, some frozen items some not really frozen items soft ice cream.

I tell him, yahno, you just stocked the freezer with hot items and it needs a bit of time to freeze. He then informs me that the ice cream has not been freezing hard for over a week and if they had told the dispatcher that it was working but not freezing the ice cream I would not have been called.

OK then !

I hook up my diagnostic tools to the machine and make a decision that I know will fix it. I start blowing off the refrigerant and the cook asks me what I am doing. I advise him that I am blowing the charge so I can start from scratch.

He starts having a melt down, but but we have over a thousand dollars of food in there, what it you can not fix it, yada yada yada ...

I tell him, buddy you did not call me until you let every mofo on this rig phuk with it and I do not know what has been done or put in the system.

I will blow it off, clean the system and then recharge it back up, then it will work !

He continues his melt down and I proceed with my job.

(more to come)

 

[ozonetrooper]

So I empty the system and clean it out and recharge it with refrigerant. All the signs say it is working and I tell the steward to call the helo to come get me. ( I am already in the party mode and want to get back to the island for the weekend).

He tells me, "Are you sure it is working ?"

I tell him, well we will not really know until it has run for awhile, but I am sure it will be ok.

He says, " well it costs me alot of money to fly you out here and back, and if I let you go and it is not fixed, they will not let you come back out ! How long do we have to let it run ?"

I tell him certainly by tomorrow it should be ok. He says ok, then you spend the nite here and if it is ok in the morning you can go back in.

Huuummmmm, ok !

We have steak and baked potatoes that night and watch VHS movies, no tv that far out into the gulf. I go to bed and when I awake in the morning I get up and head to the galley. I go in the freezer to check the ice cream and ....

(more to come)

 

[ozonetrooper]

The ice cream is so hard it bends the spoon over when I stab it !!!

I then tell them to call the helo so I can go home and the steward returns and says, "well there is good news and bad news"

I tell him to give me the bad news first.

He says, " well the helo is tied up and can not be here until this afternoon but the good news is it is going to be a lovely day to watch the fish going by. "

We were in deep water and the view was almost 50 foot down into the water. The rig was 100 foot above the water so it was like being in a big aquarium.

So as the day goes on I am walking around the outer edge of the platform watching the different fish go by and I come to a 1/4" steel cable tied off on the handrail going into the water.

It is taunt, very taunt, and I can not see what is on the end of it.


(more to come)

 

[ozonetrooper]

I ask what is up with the cable on the handrail and am told it is a several hundred pound Grouper that they hooked.

They were waiting for it to tire out and then was going to haul it up with the crane.

That afternoon the helicopter arrived and I loaded up my stuff and flew back to the island.

I'm guessing that bill from the shop was a whopper !

Remind me to tell the story of the cooler on a supply ship headed for the Desert Storm War, this one is almost as good as the ice cream story !