by Mims, Lee
“Mom’s back!” Henri shouted from a second-story window. I heard the back porch screen door slam and knew Tulip had nosed it open. I braced for impact as she bounded toward me whimpering with delight. My beautiful twenty-five-year-old daughter Henri gave me a big hug and started helping me unload my gear, asking a thousand questions. “Did you have fun? Did you see any sharks? How was the conference? Did you eat at any great restaurants? Did you meet anyone interesting?”
“Um,” I took her questions and answered them consecutively. “Yes, yes, interesting and informative, yes, and no.”
“Mom!” Will, my firstborn, two years older than his sister, called to me from where he stood in Henri’s Jones Brothers skiff tied at the dock. “Look what I caught for you to cook us!” He bent down and straightened, carefully holding a huge, angry blue crab by its back.
Nice to know I’m good for something. “Great!” I said sincerely. “You clean ’em, I’ll cook ’em.”
By the time we’d finished our dinner of crab, coleslaw, baked beans, and hush puppies—okay, the frozen kind baked in the oven, but still good—we were all caught up on my trip and what they’d been up to in my absence. I even found out that Tulip had a boyfriend, a black lab two doors down who couldn’t get enough of her. No problem, she was spayed. Henri, of course, had also met someone new. But that was a frequent occurrence.
Will, on the other hand was … well, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. He’d always been a very serious young man. He’d even started his own business right out of college, a search engine optimization and marketing company that had prospered despite being launched during the great recession. As I was wiping down the kitchen, I was trying to decide whether his usually quiet demeanor had been more pronounced throughout our meal or if it was just my imagination. I wasn’t certain, but mothers usually pick up on these things. I decided to observe him more closely on our sunset cruise.
We all clambered aboard the skiff, Tulip first. Will ran back for the cooler of iced Blue Moons and orange slices he’d packed earlier, and then we were ready to head east for the Morehead City waterfront and Sugarloaf Island beyond. I looked back in our wake, watching the ribbons of white foam that swirled and spread in the silky, still water that was now starting to take on a golden glow. Overhead, a flock of white ibises headed to a roost known only to them. Except for the discreet drone of the four-stroke outboard engine, all was splendidly tranquil. So why did I have an ominous feeling?
The next morning, a Tuesday, I woke before the alarm on the bedside table had a chance to go off. It was five minutes to six. Refreshed by a full night’s sleep, I hopped from my bed and headed for the bathroom. Tulip raised her head inquisitively from her side of the king-sized bed, ascertained to her satisfaction that she wasn’t missing anything, and snuggled back into the chenille throw she’d claimed as her own. Thankfully the bathrooms in this century-old house had been newly renovated, and—even better— the owner had spared no expense.
The walk-in shower in the master featured a rain-forest showerhead as big as a garbage can lid and walls of block glass. There was even a glass-block window on one end of the shower, high up on the east-facing side of the house. But when a faint red glow from that window greeted me as I stepped into the shower, I understood the reason for last night’s anxiety.
I nearly ran to the window in the bedroom that faced in the same direction, opened the plantation shutters, and saw a sight that didn’t make me one bit happy. Far out over the ocean were wispy clouds tinged with red and gold: a spectacular sunrise one might argue, but not for me. The old sailor’s adage, “red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky in the morning, sailors take warning” was, in my estimation, counsel to pay strict heed to.
I showered and dressed quickly in designer skinny jeans, short-sleeved T-shirt, and field boots—my uniform when I’m working—then called Bud, but only got his voicemail.
By eight o’clock, when he picked me up, the stillness of the morning had evaporated. Though it was still sunny, a slight breeze was starting to kick up. He had on an Hawaiian print shirt featuring saucer-sized, neon-bright orange hibiscus flowers.
“Nice shirt,” I said. “Does it come with protective sunglasses for your companions?”
“For your information, this is my lucky shirt.” He demonstrated by rubbing the front of it as if it was a rabbit’s foot.
“And that has to do with our visit to an offshore drillship how?” I asked, plugging numbers into my iPhone.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but since it’s our first visit to the actual hole we’re both dropping so much money down, I want to take every opportunity to make it a success.”
“I don’t remember the mystic powers of this particular shirt. Or any others for that matter. Since when do you believe in luck?”
“Don’t you think luck plays a role in our everyday lives?”
“What I prefer to believe in can be found between the pages of science books. Speaking of which, I’ve got Weather Underground pulled up here, and the forecast calls for sunny but windy conditions with seas three to four feet,” I said. I switched the screen off and turned my attention to a bright yellow helicopter landing in front of us as softly as a dragonfly on a lake.
“Yeah? Good thing we’re not taking a boat, then,” he said.
“Still,” I said, “maybe it’s too breezy for such a small helicopter.”
“Maybe all the Chinooks were taken,” Bud replied with a grin. “Man oh man, if I’d known investing in a wildcat would be so much fun, I would have done it way before now!” Then, realizing I wasn’t amused, he added, “Babe, it’s a Bell 206. Just looks small from here, wait until you get in it. It’ll be great, you’ll see. Besides, these oil rig pilots are the best in the world. They’re usually ex-military, so their training is second to none.”
“Okay,” I said reluctantly.
Bud gave me a reassuring pat on the back. “You worry too much. Look, here comes our pilot now.”
If a person’s gait was any indication, I’d say the tall, lean man marching briskly toward us was indeed ex-military. Wiry as a winter deer, the guy was as business-minded as the flat top he sported.
“Ma’am, sir,” he said like a drill sergeant addressing raw recruits, “you’ll find your headsets and inflatable vests in your seat. Put them on and buckle in tight, as we have brisk conditions today. If you need to ask me something during the flight, you may do so at any time, just speak through the mike in your headset. Any questions?”
Brisk conditions? I glanced at Bud, who ignored me. No sooner had I pulled my seatbelt tight than the tail of the helicopter rose steeply to a 45-degree angle and we took off in a blur. I resisted the urge to scream but promised myself payback for Bud at a later date. Possibly killing him in his sleep.
The truth was, though, this wasn’t my first helicopter flight to an oil rig. I’d spent time mudlogging for one of the major exploration companies in the Gulf during college breaks. The flights out and back every two weeks were one thing I didn’t miss when I switched to land-based work. The landscape zoomed by under our feet like vacation images fast forwarded on a PC: Beaufort, Cape Lookout Lighthouse, Core Sound, Core Banks, and then a nauseating swoop to the northeast followed by an endless stretch of the Atlantic Ocean. Good thing I didn’t have any questions because my two pals hadn’t shut up since we lifted off.
After what seemed like an eternity—in real time only about forty minutes—our destination came into view.
From the helicopter, the exploration drillship Deep Sea Magellan looked like a CGI Transformer, his head and shoulders just breaking the surface of the deep ocean as he prepared to stride ashore and wreak havoc on the tiny humans. I knew that Global, like most of the major oil companies in the world, didn’t own it’s own fleet of drillships. It had leased this state-of-the-art drillship from another company, TransWorld Exploration, which possessed one of
the world’s largest and most sophisticated fleet of exploration vessels.
Beside the time I’d put in as a mudlogger on a jackup—a drill rig used in water up to 500 feet deep—I’d also done contract work on several semi-submersibles, which were floating rigs mostly used for ultra-deep exploration in water more than 2,000 feet. But this would be my very first drillship. Even more than I wanted to stop flouting the laws of physics and exit this helicopter, I wanted to explore the technical marvel that lay so massively below us.
FIve
The TransWorld Exploration logo on the helipad grew larger and larger until we hovered, buffeted in the stiff wind, right above it. I was prepared for a jolting, hot-dog landing, but our pilot settled us onto the pad like a brooding hen on a clutch of eggs. Our reception committee for the tour consisted of two men: Global’s top executive onboard, Braxton Roberts, and TransWorld’s top executive, Duncan Powell, who was also captain of the ship.
I pegged Powell to be about Bud’s age, fifty. His hawk nose, square jaw, and green eyes gave him a harsh appearance until he smiled. Then his tan face softened and he looked more approachable. Braxton Roberts, on the other hand, was elegant, even a bit haughty. Though he was gym-fit and his unkempt mop of salt-and-pepper hair gave him a boyish air, he didn’t seem to be the outdoorsy type like the captain did.
Bud and I exchanged our life vests and headsets for hard hats, shook hands, shouted greetings over the wind and the revving of the helicopter as it readied for departure, then proceeded to the head of a series of stairs. There we were greeted by a few of Global’s executives visiting from Houston—in particular, Hiram Hightower. He was the last word on every aspect of this well.
Hightower was a Texan, and he looked like my image of one. Tall and barrel-chested with a ruddy complexion, he had permanent laugh lines. His presence today was due only to the historic nature of a wildcat well drilled in a part of the ocean heretofore unexplored. He would not visit the ship again. Hightower ran things from a room at Global’s headquarters building in Houston called the WDEC—Well Design and Execution Center. At eight o’clock each morning, he’d meet with the well executives aboard the Magellan via satellite, along with a group of petroleum engineers, geologists, earth scientists, and geophysicists.
I felt a quick flash of anxiety, hearing the muffled thumping of my ride home as it left me behind. This pang was quickly replaced by awe of the vessel I was now standing on. Stretching 875 feet long and 130 feet wide, the Magellan was so immense that an actual tour would occupy several days. We would only get the highlights.
Every inch of deck space was crammed with machinery and supplies so that it was impossible to amble across the space as one would on a pleasure yacht.
I soon discovered that the interior of the ship was no different. After leading us through a snakelike maze of narrow corridors, Powell directed us through a door into a large room not too far from the helm station. Once we stepped through the doors, however, Braxton Roberts took over. In the parlance of those in the exploration business, he was “the company man.” As Global’s top drilling engineer aboard Magellan, he’d be there until the project was completed. I knew from past experience that every word he uttered would be run by Hightower, who (contrary to his typically Texan appearance) was quiet, soft-spoken, and liked to stay out of the limelight.
About a dozen men were seated around a laminated table, some Global officials and others representatives from different investment groups like Bud’s. They rose as we entered. After Roberts had introduced them, Bud and I were offered chairs at the table. On the wall facing us were three flat-screen monitors displaying various dimensional maps of the seafloor and geologic formations below us. Most of them were two dimensional, except one that represented the target area. For it, funky 3D viewing glasses were in a basket on the table.
Phil Gregson, the senior geophysicist and apparent spokesman for Global’s U.S. offshore development team, stood beside of one of the monitors that showed a basic cross section of our target area.
“Good afternoon gentlemen … and madam,” said Phil, a fortyish fair-skinned fellow with glasses, freckles, and a band of thinning red hair above his ears. “This is our target area. It lies within the buried reef structure known as the Manteo Prospect, twenty-two hundred feet of water and fourteen thousand feet of various layers of rock below us. I’m just going to go over a few quick points about it. In the interest of time, I’ll answer any questions you may have one on one later.”
His bald head shone in the florescent light as he pointed to several bright spots, or areas of high amplitude where sounds waves moved farther apart as they passed through rock layers thereby revealing the possibility of oil or natural gas. “After months of poring over our seismic surveys, our team feels the best plan of action would be to drill one exploration well at the highest point of the reef structure and penetrate the reservoir rock at about eleven thousand three hundred feet.”
He proceeded to the third monitor, where he pointed to several red dots on an aerial map of the coast of North Carolina extending out over the outer continental shelf. “Taking into account logs from exploratory wells drilled back in the mid-eighties, we believe the top of the reservoir to be at that level and bottom out somewhere around twelve thousand seven hundred feet. This fourteen-hundred-foot-thick reservoir—comprised of boundstones and grainstones—is estimated to be approximately thirty miles long and three to five miles wide. Porosity should be good, having been enhanced during times of subaerial weathering, when sea levels were low during the early Cretaceous. The reservoir cap was formed during the Cretaceous and Recent periods, when the reef was buried again by a thick wedge of fine-grained sediments eroded from the continent and deposited across the continental shelf.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Bud check his watch.
Phil continued: “There are several faults in the structure that could be migration pathways for hydrocarbons. Moreover, this area, the core of the reef, will have the most mature facies.”
“Facies?” Bud whispered in my ear.
“Rock type.”
“Mature?”
“Not now, Bud.” I shook my head in warning. I could explain later.
Just then a large weather-beaten man—thirtyish, with hard-worn hands the size of baseball mitts—rose from the table and introduced himself.
“I’m David Grant,” he said, “head driller for this project.” He stood in a classic at-ease stance, hands clasped behind his back. His accent was slightly British. “I work under the guidance of Mr. Powell,” he explained. “He, Mr. Hightower, and Mr. Roberts collaborated on the design of this well and it’s my job to see that it is drilled to their specifications. My drillers and I want you to know that even though this is our first experience in the mid-Atlantic region, this well was designed with every contingency in mind and all safety precautions in place.”
Grant paused to sip from a water bottle. He seemed confident and relaxed as he continued. “To add a bit of information about myself, I’ve drilled holes all over the world, starting in the North Sea and most recently in Africa and the Gulf of Mexico. We are not expecting Manteo One to present any challenges we haven’t already faced many times over in the Gulf.” He paused, seeming to invite questions, and, when there were none, continued.
“Regarding temperature and pressure at a vertical depth of thirteen thousand feet or better, the bottom hole conditions will be two hundred degrees Fahrenheit and seven thousand psi. Magellan is used to twenty-five thousand feet and bottom temperatures of four hundred twenty-five degrees, twelve thousand psi. So, no worries there.” He went on to explain the current conditions of the well—that it had been spudded (the well head and support casing had been placed into the seafloor), that the critical cementing process had been completed successfully, and that they were now preparing to set the blowout preventer, or BOP, in place.
I sensed Bud stifling a yawn. Hours
of detailed information to bring me up to speed followed the more general presentation. Bud and the other company officials and investors slipped out, leaving me with geophysicist Phil Gregson. Just as we were finishing inspecting some of the cuttings brought up during the casing process, Powell stuck his head in the door and in a heavy Cajun accent I hadn’t noticed before said, “Would you two care to join us for lunch?”
Phil Gregson looked at his watch. “Good grief,” he said. “I didn’t realize it had gotten so late, Ms. Cooper. I hope I haven’t starved you.” I looked at my watch. Three o’clock. Time flies when you’re having fun.
“Not at all,” I said as we followed Powell. “But, tell me, how’s it going with the wellsite geologist? What do you think of him?”
“I’m glad you asked. Poor young fellow is going to need you to lean on, what with this being his first offshore rig.”
“When did he get here?”
“He was here pre-spud, to get the logging lab settled in. As to what I think of him … he’s such a nervous type, it’s hard to say. Doesn’t seem to have much confidence, which could be a problem since he’s in charge of the mudloggers. I’m afraid they’re going to take advantage of him. It’s a good thing you’ll be backing things up. We’ll go meet him right after we grab a bite.”
Still following Powell, we made our way to the end of another maze of interior hallways, each one exactly like the other, all with gleaming white walls, florescent lights, rounded brushed aluminum handrails, and spanking clean linoleum floors smelling of pine disinfectant.
As he opened a heavy sea door to a third-story catwalk, Powell said, “Weather’s kicked up a little since we started our meeting.”
Barely catching my hard hat before it lifted off my head in the stiff wind, I squinted into the stinging rain. Phil stepped out after me and we did our best to keep up with Powell, grabbing the bright yellow handrail from time to time to keep from being blasted backward. Finally we ducked down more sets of metal stairs, clanging our way to another long and narrow hallway that opened into a brightly lit galley, its aromas a mingled array of rib-sticking he-man food.