Author Topic: ROV Technician Wanabe (Read 1478 times)

ironore · « **on:** April 14, 2007, 11:17:31 AM »

ROV Pilot Technician Course
IDESS Maritime Centre (Subic) Inc.

8th April 2007 (Sunday)

LCCT – CLARK – SUBIC BAY

Depart from LCCT KLIA to CLARK International Airport (0720hrs – 1120hrs), Arrival was greeted by MIKE the designated driver of a rented Toyota Altis Left Hand Drive pre arrange by IDESS Maritime Center (Subic) Inc to take us to Subic Bay a one and a half hours drive from the airport, we stop at mcdonalds drive thru for a concrete paved, many motorbike modified into a side car, low ride jimmy jeep taxi, larva Mt Pinatubo erupted 1992 dusty rural road. Jem packed road due to long weekend good friday holidays many many cars, 4x4, motocycle on the road.

Arrived in Subic Bay, head straight to IDESS Maritime for orientation and safety briefing, Meet Rose student admin IDESS.

Meet fellow course mates, Steve from England, Rizal from Miri, Peter from Australia, myself and alex five of us self funded for this course. After the half and hour briefing we adjourn to our rooms and freshen up.

Mike took us for a tour de la subic and show us ‘the place’ where all those navy men used to roam the land, many many pubs, bars women, bars, women, women, bars, women, pub still exist from the culture lifestyle of the navy.

Seeing the beach area and some couple of hours later we were back at IDESS and had our Dinner. After we went strolling down the pier area where our class and practical will be held,

Can’t wait to for the course to start tomorrow 9am (owh ya sunrise at 6am), excited and happy knowing everything works out according to plan so far (Insyallah)

Jazakallah

ironore · « **Reply #1 on:** April 14, 2007, 11:20:53 AM »

1st Day
9th April 2007 (Monday)

Awake at 5am by the sound of my alarm. Switch it off and ha ha ha went back to sleep, wake up again at 6am. Shower and had breakfast. At 0830 am meet with our Instructor Miss Melanie Sullivan and another of our course mate by the name of Dave O Hara an ex mariner from British Navy. So its six of us doing the course.

Our classroom is about 500m from the main building so we had to commute by pick up jeep.

Introduction of the facilities we had for the course by Melanie and we went back to class,
She issue to us the relevant paperwork, manuals and we had some video and DVD session all about ROV history, Offshore structures, Oil rigs and some task sheets.

Lunch break and continue with the video session and class adjourn at 5pm. We been told by Melanie that our course session this time will focus more on the practical flying aspect and we would be getting at least 50 hours of flying time. yahooooooooo!!!!!

It was a great start indeed.

ironore · « **Reply #2 on:** April 14, 2007, 11:23:40 AM »

2nd Day
10th April 2007 (Tuesday)

Today wake up early at 5am and went for a light jog and back for breakfast, today we had First Aid class and we did the CPR and learn to use the Mobile AED equipment also the degree of burns category.

Doing our CPR practical of 30 compression and 2 blow of 5 set off we went to next classroom session. Melanie our instructor started the day explaining about the fundamentals of cathode installation and inspections on Oil Rigs. We had our video sessions as well today cause she wants us to see the overall operations of an ROV before getting our ‘hands on’ flying the real thing tomorrow. She adjourn the class at 5pm and we all walk back to the main building. It was a fun day indeed today. Can’t wait for tomorrow.

We were being issued a coverall and safety steel toe safety buts each for onsite working with the ROV’s

Yeeehaaaaa… wanabe rov pilot tech…

ironore · « **Reply #3 on:** April 14, 2007, 11:27:00 AM »

3rd Day
11th April 2007 (Wednesday)

Wake up at 5am. Finishing up the task sheet 1, covering the basic aspect of oil rigs structures. Went to class at 9am. We proceed to the practical site at around 10am.

Started to put together the ROV System. The are two systems currently using
One is the NAVAJO System with manipulator and the other is the SEABOTIX class 1 survey ROV. We started off by doing the pre dive checks on the vehicle we are using the NAVAJO with which 4 thrusters, two camera (b/w and color) with manipulator.

Time do pass by so quick and its lunch time and we head back to the main building for lunch and by 1pm we were back with the ROV’s and we complete the pre dive checks for the Surface Control Unit (SCU) and the vehicle itself. After satisfaction that all systems good to go, we launch the ROV manually into the water. And submerge to 13 meters deep and we start to search for the underwater structure place by there. We simulate the survey and inspection job task.

Will get to fly some more tomorrow.

Cheers.

ironore · « **Reply #4 on:** April 14, 2007, 11:39:09 AM »

4th Day
12th April 2007 (Thursday)

Day started a bit late today, wake up at 0530 am and had a shower and did a bit of reading. At about 0650 went for breakfast, had pancake, bread and eggs.
We went to class early today at 0800 am, some reading and Mel pops in and greet everyone (Dave, Alex, Peter, Reza, Steve and Me) and we were shown some DVD of how ROV been use for search and recovery of another ROV, some heavy installation work in North Sea, it was a good and informative show as usual and after that we went straight to the pier and start to prepare for some more flying.
We did the pre dive checks, and a good improvement on it I would say because we did it better than yesterday. We launch by lowering the ROV in the water and guess what.. ha ha ha I got to be the pilot for at least 40 min. Getting the hang of the control (same as the remote control used by Playstation 2) I was all over the place for awhile and after getting the feel and got comfortable with it and was like being hypnotize and in a trance where time really fly so fast till didn’t notice it was already near lunch time. I surface the ROV and they all recover it and put it on deck. We did the post dive checks and head back to the main building for lunch.

After lunch we head back to the pier and did the pre dive checks and launch back the ROV into the water and this time I got to be the tender responsible to slack the umbilical cable. And next to our shack was the site for launching life raft training took place and some of the participants were there to launch the life raft from a height of 20 meter.

At about 330pm I did another go on flying the ROV and did some grabbing with the manipulator and grab the structure we had underwater. I had been given the opportunity to do some search and recovery underwater 13 meters deep. A rope and a hook been toss into the sea and use the manipulator to grab the rope and dive towards the sunken structure to be hoist up back to the surface. Was a bit of a difficulty I had with the controls but with the help of my co pilot buddy Alex, Reza, and Mel we finally got to hook the structure and hoist it back up. Wow that was my very first seach and recovery task. It was exciting indeed.

Had some more time given and I flew the ROV to some designated heading I plot around the training area and maneuver the ROV to some of the structure around the training area.

Am getting the hang of the controls more today. And will be flying even more and logging more hours. After about half an hour flying I surface the ROV and the guys did the recovery and we did our post dive checks. We adjourn the class and head back for dinner and some freshen up.

And again “ can’t wait for tomorrow” for next flying session.

ironore · « **Reply #5 on:** April 14, 2007, 11:42:47 AM »

more reports n pics to share with you guys. But mean time be going out diving come noon with some of the course mates.

Cheers guys. Wish me luck.

[size=16]"in the meantime, pls hold on ur posts until i have finished the course since the thread will be messy if all of u started replying" betul ka ayat ni? (as adviced by bijan)
[/size]

ironore · « **Reply #6 on:** April 21, 2007, 12:27:20 PM »

5th Day
13th April 2007 (Friday)

Day started at around 5am, went for shower and did some reading on the manual given then we went for breakfast.

As usual today we walk to class and we had sumore video session till 11 and head to the pier to assemble the Sub for pre dive checks so we could fly after lunch.

After lunch we mobilize ROV system to dive site and had our practice flying and task given to do the underwater survey on the structure at a certain heading given.

We demobilize system back to base, wash, post dive checks and de-brief.

ironore · « **Reply #7 on:** April 21, 2007, 12:29:52 PM »

14th April 2007 – Saturday

Saturday had no class. We plan to go diving. Dave, Peter, Steve and Mel went to Blue Rock Hotel last night and I’d join them today.

Took a cab (600 peso) and went to Blue Rock Hotel in the Baloy Beach area some 45 minutes distance from IDESS. Arrive at about 9am. They have the 24 hours bar with a WIFI connection available.

As this was Steve 1st Scuba attempt (cheers mate u did well) Matt the Dive master took him for the intro dive by the 2 meter pool. As he was all comfortable being underwater breathing compress air we plus another 2 leisure diver head up to the boat.

At 1pm we went to the Grande Island Barges some 30mins distance away by boat and back roll at about 1:50pm with a bottom time of 43 mins in about 10.3 meters max depth on an average of 6 meters deep with water temp 28 deg Celsius we could see the barges surrounding the 400 meter radius with some 5 – 8 meters visibility. We saw 2 barracuda at a length of at least 2 feet long, saw several familiar fish to name a few the lion fish, angel fish and several others, not that familiar with their names.

After at about 40 mins we did our 3 minutes safety stop and ascent back to the boat. Owh btw it cost about 1500 peso for a dive with their equipment (+/-RM80)

We head back to Blue Rock for the day and relax. I didn’t went back to IDESS but spend the night in Baloy Beach. Took up a room at about 800 pesos (same amount to get me to and fro to IDESS) the reception ask with much confusion “ u sleeping alone? U have no partner? No lady for to comfort you?” and I just reply with a tired eyes smile. Went in had shower and hop in the bed and went off to God knows where. Was a great day it is.

ironore · « **Reply #8 on:** April 21, 2007, 12:40:13 PM »

15th April 2007 – Sunday

Sunday morning went for a walk along the beach blending with the philipinos (muka asean maa lebih kurang jer) It really opens my eyes when seeing different culture with their economic situation, political, family, way of thinking, the world they see, their lifestyle, their attitude, their religion and etc.

As I walk along this beach I was attracted to a beach peddler in his boat being crowded by people, upon getting closer I realize that he is actually selling salt water fish to people at between 10 – 50 pesos each and some are even exotic fishes I would say cause one of them are the sea horses the size of a hand and several other fishes like Nemo, way I see it is that those fishes need some really expensive fancy aquarium to be at the exact sea water level for them to be really swimming in. And from the way I saw them kids buying those fishes I would think they buy It for the sake of just buying and owning them for several hours and then the fishes die (what a waste) but what to do?

At about 10, I check out and went to Blue Rock dive centre and had a chat with the other Dive master by the name of Al (a half Filipino half American) about diving the wreck that is available in the Subic Bay area. And he said that he would take us today to the El Capitan a 90 meter length and depth of about 24 meters deep at about 2pm. We were suppose to dive the USS New York an Armored Class Cruiser with a length of 109 meters but been advice that the visibility is low at about 1 -2 meters.

As I got some several hours to pass I went to the bar area and went online and doing some eye cleaning (cuci mata), with all them ex navy man be it british or americans with their Filipino wifey and kids hanging around the area and some with their Filipino companions spending some chat time with beers to sip.

At about close to 2pm we prepare our gears and went to the boat for our first wreck diving in Subic bay, we head east at about 30minutes from Blue Rock and we past by Paul Allen’s Microsoft co-founder blue white yacht name MV Octopus docking in Subic Bay.

As we head to the dive site the boat we were on had trouble with its radiator due to some leaking some where we decided to detour instead of EL CAPITAN we head to LCU a cargo boat at a length of 38 meter in a depth of 24 meters deep. We started our dive at 3:20 pm at a max depth of 23.7 meters with a bottom time of 30 minutes on an average 14.3 meters, it was an interesting wreck dive indeed. With a visibility of at least 6 meters. We ascended and did a 3 minutes safety stops and surface to do our surface intervals of 11 minutes in order to commence another wreck dive of a Japanese Patrol boat next to the dive site 2 minutes away. Length of about 35 meters and at a depth of 22 meters we have with us remaining air of about 120 psi so we did our descend and max depth 21 meters of about 24 minutes bottom time after seeing the wreck we did our 3 minutes safety stops and ascend back to the boat and we had with us a bonus dive instead of 1 wreck dive we had 2 wrecks dive for the price of one.

We head back to Blue Rock for dinner and by 9pm we were back at IDESS and went straight to bed for and early day tomorrow.

ROV Technician Wanabe