Travels in the Sea of Okhotsk

Most people wonder what the hell I get up to on my adventures away from home, so I thought I’d write a quick post to give a snapshot of a day in the life of a well engineer (plus I had my camera so was able to take a few pictures to illustrate).

Yesterday was a long day of travel. At around 10am I left my temporary home 16km off the coast of Sakhalin island in the sea of Okhotsk, where I’d been living on a man made island of steel and sand called the Molikpaq. I was transported onto a crew boat via a special basket that is lifted from the deck of the platform onto the deck of the boat via one of the platform’s cranes; if you look closely at the picture below you can just about make it out on the right of the picture as a small yellow pyramid shaped object. Fortunately, it’s not too cold this time of the year, but I still had to wear a thickly padded orange survival suit to protect me from the cold wind and from the icy water should an accident occur and I fell into the sea. The basket is hanging about 30 meters above sea level, so it’s quite a fall is something goes wrong, but fortunately i was safely strapped in.


It takes about four hours for the boat to navigate from the platform to the nearest port, but on the way we stopped off at another vessel called the Jaya Installer 5 to pick up some more passengers. This vessel is a floating hotel with accommodation for about 300 people. It carries out support work for the installation of offshore platforms and is currently carrying out welding operations for Exxon oil company (who operate a similar platform out here called the Orlan).

I spoke to one of the departing passengers and he informed me that the welders are currently working on a pipeline. It’s a tough job, since the divers spend two weeks in a pressurised environment. To weld underwater, they construct a tent on the seabed, approximately 30 meters beneath the surface. After a 12 hour shift, they return to the surface, but have to stay in a small pressured tank to prevent decompression problems. This way, they only have to compress and decompress once during their hitch; they compress when they start and then at then once at the end of their two-week hitch they decompress to re-join the rest of the world. Spending this much time in such a claustrophobic environment would send most people insane!

There’s not an awful lot to see on the way except for an occasional seagull following the wake of the boat looking for food.

The end of the sea journey is marked with the arrival at the port of… (sorry, I'm crap at remembering names, particularly Russian ones) a battered, bleak, run down little port with signs that it was once a major oil export terminal judging by the numerous rusty old oil depots littering its perimeter.


After saying farewell to the crew boat (I’ve never been a big fan of crew boats after being forced to endure three days on one, unable to disembark due to rough sea conditions… I lost about 5kg in weight during those three days and earned the nickname “the jolly green giant” on account of the change in colour of my complexion), so I was not sad to be back on terra firma.

Here’s a picture of the crew boat. Mine was the one in the background, affectionately named “Miss Sybil”. The one in the foreground was similarly named “Miss Vickie”, perhaps after an old college friend of mine who coincidentally is now a teacher, so shares the “Miss” prefix also. Life’s full of coincidences (if you look for them).

After a quick stop over at a base camp in Nogliki (a sterile, characterless place, also enough to send one insane if having to spend anything length of time there) to pick up my passport (never get caught in Russia without your passport!), it was off to the train station to catch the overnight train back to Yuzhno.

Similar to the port, the train station appears to have seen better days, since, as is the fashion in this part of the world, machinery that has come to the end of its useful life is left to unceremoniously rot away in an open grave. At least these abandoned train carriages are now being utilised by a young family of dogs, who have sensibly chosen the less decrepit of the two carriages to be their home.


No expenses are spared on the train travel, as we are treated to relative luxury having our own carriage with 4 berth sleeper cabins. Fortunately, I’ve only ever had to share a cabin with one other person, which is actually a blessing since it gives the opportunity for some human contact on what is otherwise a very lonely experience.

This time, I shared my cabin with a local inhabitant of Yuzhno, who gave me an insight into the way of life in the area. Despite their somber appearance, Russians have an inherent sense of good humor; they are very aware that they live in a tough environment, but are very tolerant and accepting of it and are content just to survive.

As Flo has taken to point out recently, we live in a generation where we expect an awful lot out of life, like it’s our birthright. It’s not until I return to relative civilization back at my hotel when I realize how lucky I am to be able to call my loved ones and catch up life back at home with a half our chat with my wife.