Summer of 2003 at Ship Shoal 229
After completing my third (and very memorable) year at LSU, I went to work as a petroleum engineering intern for Taylor Energy on an offshore production platform located 90 miles south of Fourchon in about 120 ft of water. This would mark the beginning of my career in the oil patch.
Ship Shoal 229 was actually two seperate platforms connected with a steel grading catwalk that spanned about 100 ft between the two structures. Operations were fairly routine throughout the summer and much of my time was spent pressure washing and cleaning out compressor ditches. This is not to say that I had a routine summer on SS 229.
As it turned out, my new home on the ocean was an unbelievably fertile fishing ground and sleep became an afterthought after I borrowed a rod and reel from my good friend Rob St. John. After knocking off around 5PM, I would catch and cut hardtails for bait and position myself across the catwalk on the bottom deck of the unmanned platform. On an average evening, I would pick up several red snapper, a few strawberry grouper, and an amberjack. As I reeled in a snapper on one such evening, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye and looked over to see a giant sea turtle about 10 ft away on the surface of the water directly in front of a beautiful sunset. He seemed to greet me as a fellow fisherman before making a dive back into the deep blue.
On a several occasions, I was lucky enough to accompany a single foreman on a day trip to one of the dozen or so unmanned satellite platforms that were located within sight and connected to the main structure's compression system via seafloor pipline. With a newspaper and a brown bag lunch in hand, we would load into the chopper for the short flight. These trips were more like vacation than work as I was not allowed to actually work on any equipment. One such platform had a school of Mangrove Snapper that would swarm by the dozens on surface for just about any kind of edible food scrap you could find. This was quite a sight to see from the main deck 40 ft above the water. My finest memories from these trips were those of early morning naps on the bottom deck with the clear emerald gulf crashing against the barnacle-covered rig below.
At some point about halfway through the summer, it dawned on me that it might be possible to spear fish from the deck of the rig. After observing the many monsterous barracuda patrolling the rig perimeter and collaborating with the rig welder, I readied myself for the initial toss. With a small crowd of onlookers, the very first projectile hit its mark on the rear of a medium sized fish and was quickly bent in half and pulled out as the fish swam under the rig....back to the drawing board we went. After several days of modifications and dozens of missed throws later, I found myself staring down at the largest cuda at the rig, nearly 6 ft long and approaching 100 lbs. I reared up with the spear and threw down with the force of an olympic decathlon champion only to feel no tension in the attached line as if the spear had missed the target. A few seconds later the massive fish had floated up the surface of the water completely motionless as the spear had perfectly hit its target and left the fish paralized. I was in complete shock at the size of this fish and hurried to raze the viatnameze paint crew to hand over the fish for cleaning. Needless to say, they were excited and greatful for the gift. It was a summer of adventure that I'll never forget.
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