Grande!

It’s a beautiful day.

Yup, that’s U2 playing on MTV as I write in this cool reading room of Residence Resort Paka, Terengganu. A great place to chill, on couch, online! Wireless baby…!


It sure is a Grande day. I’m safe and still in one piece. Far from any oil and gas related work hazard. The helicopter trip yesterday shrunk my nuts a little. We literally bounced from one platform to another before we were certain that the last take off was to head to shore.

The chopper arrived at about 5.20 pm. It was getting dark. Like GI Joes, we were ecstatic to hear the deafening claps from the propeller and the gushing air blow messing up our hairdo. With excitement we boarded the chopper, all six of us. I’m coming home honey. There were 8 more seats to be filled so I figured there might be crews from other platforms joining us before we head to the airport. The pilot confirmed this and he somehow decided to give us a little joy ride.

So we took off, heading to the next platform, Semangkok B, a satellite platform to Semangkok A, operated by ExxonMobil. The ascend freaked me out. Imagine sitting in a helicopter taking off from a helipad hundreds of feet above sea, wobbling and shaking, slowly and heavily it ascends two meters and then descends half a meter only to ascend again to finally take flight. Couple that with the deafening sound muffled by earplugs and headset and you get a suffocating anxiety attack. I must also add that this is an old, refurbished sikorsky helicopter.

Okay, so we travelled from point A to point B, it took 20 minutes but it felt like two hours to me. From B we flew to point C, Semangkok A, which took another 20 minutes. The 8 personnel we picked up at point B disembarked and off we went to another platform. As it turned out, we went to point B again to pick up the remaining crews to be sent back to point C. They too disembarked.

I wished the pilot did that before picking us up.

Anyway, after that, we finally headed to shore without further stops. It’s our point D, as in darat, which in Malay means the shore. The journey took 1 hour. Aggravating! Apart from fear, we endured the heat coming from above, the engine.

When we finally landed, I felt like dancing.

I’m still alive!
Now, where shall I start kicking?

And as promised, last night we hit a nice seafood restaurant, a halal Chinese joint. After that we had a cuppa at Awana Kijal, Terengganu. Believe me when I tell you, they too provide Streamyx Hotspot facility. Ah, Terengganu, bless you. You are now a happy wi-fi place.

Now, I’m sitting in this reading room, cool and breezy, complete with soundtrack courtesy of MTV. And I’m browsing! God bless the hotel for providing TMNET Streamyx Hotspot facility! I’ve got two more hours till my appointment with a client at 3pm. An available power outlet simply sweetened my day. I’m making hay! Do I sound gay? Most definite-lay!