You should probably imagine a nautical theme playing in the background whilst reading today's brief update, as I seemed to spend most of this week travelling on a ferry back and forth to Curtis Island, just off the coast of Gladstone. Once I finally found the correct ferry, that is.
The plan was to head to the boat ramp at half past 7 in the morning, ready to catch the boat over to the island. Unfortunately through a series of miss communications, I was led to believe that all the boats left the same location at the marina. I got yarning to some other guys waiting for the boat to come, and mentioned where I was destined. They proceeded to inform me that I was in the wrong place to get to where I wanted to go, and my boat left further up the marina. Departure time drawing closer, I loaded all my tools back into my truck and drove to the second ferry location.
Really cutting it fine, as it was now 8:00, the exact departure time for the ferry, I picked up my three bags of tools and ran down the jetty. No boat to be seen. I finally found someone nearby and enquired as to the whereabouts of the vessel, and he informed me that the one I wanted actually left from yet another location. Curses. So, back to the truck again carrying all my tools, and drove to the third location of the day. In an even bigger rush now, as it was after 8, I collected all my tools yet again and ran to the third dock. Still no sign of the boat. Yet again, finally found someone to talk to, and they told me I was still in the wrong place and there was yet a fourth location that the ferry departs from. Curses again. Back to the truck, and drove to the suggested pontoon. Loading up with tools yet again, the entire process becoming somewhat tedious by now, we ran down the pontoon to find that the ferry had already departed. Just my luck. I got talking to a young lass there who then informed me that the induction card I had wouldn't have got me on to this particular boat anyhow, as it was technically for a different site. Although they all have the same name, there are actually three divisions, and you had to have the correct card for the correct division.
A few phone calls later, we found we had to go and undertake a 10 minute induction and quick exam to prove we knew enough to not hurt the loggerhead turtles and the false water rats. (Which is actually a mouse anyhow, not really a rat. Hence the "false" bit.) The next ferry departed at 10:00 so we twiddled our thumbs for a bit and then finally managed to catch it and make our way over to the island. The plan was to install a simple telescopic mast to the roof of a building. When we finally arrived on the island, we then had to undertake yet another induction, because technically we were working for a separate subcontractor underneath the parent company, so we therefore had to abide by their rules and undertake their safety plans etc.
We sat in the induction room for a while, and 20 minutes later the inductor finally showed up. He attempted to start the induction then found he had left his power point presentation at his other office at the other end of the island. So he drove off and we sat there for another 40 minutes while he got himself sorted. When he finally got back, we went through an hour of the exact same stuff we had already done, and then he gave us stickers to put on our hard hats and sent us on our way.
When we finally got up to the actual work site, the little Indian fellow who was supposed to be running the operation started showing us the building that we were going to be installing on. He walked straight underneath some barrier tape, and I asked him if we were allowed to do that as the induction threatened grave repercussions if anyone was caught walking through barrier tape. He assured me he was allowed, and we began to follow him through. "OI! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" a voice bellowed out. Sure enough, the site foreman came striding over and being tearing stripes off this Indian "engineer". Luckily we were sort of half on the boundary so my work mate and I made a hurried retreat before we got caught.
When we finally got that sorted out, we talked to the site foreman ourselves, and he informed us that the cherry picker we were going to use had only just arrived and needed to be certified before we could use it on site anyhow. Then he asked to see our safety plan. I asked Mr Indian fellow where it was, and he informed us that he hadn't organised one, even though he had told us he was going to sort it. Great. 3 hours of handwriting later, we finally had a workable plan. He then informed us that the parent company had to sign off on all safety plans, so that was going to take another day anyhow. We packed up and caught the ferry back to the mainland... no tower for them today.
The next day, we had another crack at it. Somewhat more successful this time, as we managed to go to the correct ferry terminal the first time, and we also had the correct inductions. Some head engineer guy from further up the food chain had made some calls the day before when he heard we couldn't get the mast in, and for some reason there were no problems this time around. We went straight up to the site, our safety plan from the day before had been all signed off and approved, and the cherry picker was ready to go. We got stuck in and 5 hours later the job was done, and we headed back to the mainland.
The next day, I had to go back yet again, to take some photos of yet another building that we were going to be cabling up. I had spent about half an hour waiting for the ferry the day before, and could have easily taken the photos then instead, but of course the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and I ended up having to make a special trip instead. The lady I was meeting to let me on site (also a Kiwi I might add) was already on the island, but on a different site. Unfortunately there is no way to get between sites yet, and she had to get the water taxi back to the mainland, then catch the ferry with me to go back to the island to the site we wanted to inspect. Apparently she considered swimming but her back pack was too heavy.
Island work aside, I had a fairly simple job to do on Tuesday. Which made a change, as my "easy" jobs usually are anything but. I had to drive to a mine, crimp 6 connectors onto some coaxes on a new shovel, and then drive back again. And, for some reason, that's exactly how it went. No trouble, no hiccups, it all just... worked.
The shovel was an interesting one, it was the first diesel powered one I had seen in the flesh. They basically take a big excavator and reconfigure it to shovel configuration. Twin v16 diesel motors to drive the hydraulics burn around 10,000 litres per 24 hour period at full noise. They were throwing some figures around, something like $250,000 per month to run, as opposed to around $15,000 a month for the electric shovel that it is replacing. A mine further up the road but owned by the same parent company wanted the electric one, and as they were the bigger mine, they got it and left the smaller one with the new diesel one.
Anyhow, I shall leave it there, as I have a small job at work to go and take a look at. While I'm looking at that, you can look at these photos.
TTFN!
