The crew boat SANDY, is a Lafco built 42 foot boat. She is all aluminum, and can carry 13 passengers, or cargo up to 3500 pounds. The cargo can be a mixture of cargo and crew, not to exceed 3500 pounds. The SANDY is powered by two Detroit Diesel 6-71 engines that develop 225 HP each. SANDY typically runs at 20 kts, depending on wind and tide. On a typical day or night, I usually carry passengers and cargo to the two oil fields that we service. The dock we operate out of is located in San Leon, Texas.

One of the oil fields is located just off of Eagle Point in Galveston Bay. This is a one way trip of 20 minutes. The other field is just off of Umbrella Point in Trinity Bay. This is a one way trip of 60 minutes. You never know what will happen on a given day. I may go to the Umbrella point field first thing in the morning with the production crew and spend the whole day at Umbrella point. I may take the crew out to Umbrella Point, then spend the remainder of the day running tools and chemicals to one or both of the fields. I would end the day by bringing the production crew at Umbrella Point back to the dock.

As you will see from the pictures the two fields are very different. The Eagle Point field was first started in the 80's, the other, Umbrella Point, the first well was drilled in 1954.

The first group of pictures are of the SANDY undergoing some repairs. The day before these pictures were taken, I was rounding a mark, and the rudder bent. Not a good thing. The maintenance crew from Baker came out to the dock. The boat was lifted out of the water with a crane and was placed on special jack stands. As I found out, the normal routine when you pull a commercial boat out of the water, is to fix the problem, replace the propellers, (wheels) check and replace the shafts as necessary, then back into the water. In this case the maintenance crew replaced both rudders, both propellers, and one shaft that was slightly bent.

These three pictures were taken of me and the SANDY while working out on the bay. Troy and Deana, in thier boat STORYVILLE, were heading to Double Bayou in Trinity Bay. I was working the Umbrella Point field, and saw them sailing by. I drove the SANDY over close to STORYVILLE, and they took these photos.

Must apologize, as I could not get away without putting in some sunrises and some sunsets. It seems that Texas has some really beautiful moments.

The next three pictures are of the Eagle Point Field. It is the newer of the two fields. The wells in this field produce both gas and oil, and are called high pressure wells. The numbering for the wells come from the state tract number, in this case 331, then the number of the well drilled or planned within the tract.

This next group of pictures is from the Umbrella Point Field. The Main platform is made up of several sections, that the production crew also calls platforms. There is an office area, the generator platform, the oil platform, the gas platform and the compressor platform. All of these platforms are connected with walkways. There is a dock at the office, the oil platform, the gas platform and the compressor platform. With that many docks, it gives us several options to tie off the boat depending on weather.

This field also produces gas and oil, and a lot of salt water. I do not have any pictures of the wells in this field. This field is referred to as a low pressure field. They use a method called gas-lift to get the oil out of the wells. Because this field is so old, there is not enough underground pressure to force the oil out of the wells. They take gas that is produced from gas wells, compress it, and then inject the gas into the oil wells to force out the oil. The oil, gas, and water comes back to the platform. The oil is seperated as well as the water from the gas. The gas gets put back into the cycle of compression and back to force more oil out of the wells. The seperated water is injected into an old well called a salt water injection well. The oil and some of the excess gas is sold.

As most of you know from keeping up with my updates we and DREAM AWAY survived hurricane Ike in September of 2008. I had just terminated my employment with Baker Energy. One of the other captains sent me some pictures of the Umbrella Point platform on the first trip out after hurricane Ike. I will show some before and after shots of parts of the platform.

One thing to bear in mind here is the first well drilled in this oil field was 1954, so the platform has seen its share of hurricanes. My first thought on seeing the "after" pictures was "Wow what a huge amount of damage". My second thought is where did all of the stuff that used to be on the platform go? The engine that powered the compressor was a 12 cylinder engine that was at least as tall as me, and it is gone!!

First before and after is the oil platform. The second before and after is the generator platform. The large storage tanks are there, but the generator shack is gone along with the two generators. The third and fourth before and after is the gas platform. Operator Rudy is trying to sort things out! The last before and after is the compressor platform. At the left side of the after shot is where the compressor used to be!