Welcome back Mike! Back on board again and boy was it a short break.

We eventually got off after the whole crew change debacle last time on the Wednesday, not the planned Saturday. I still managed to get my guitars though. Oh boy were they lovely. Jaime was well pleased with his. Home then to Spain for just under 5 weeks. And that was supposed to be our long 6 weeker! And now here for Christmas!! Lets not go there. I feel a rant coming on and I have work to do.

So I did some painting at home, got the van fixed, drank some fine wine, got the usual case of gippy-tummy before coming back and came back on a shite Northwest Airlines. Boy are American carriers the worst airlines in the world. They are. They have no class. They must never have flown Air France or KLM.

Then we get back and I find that we are a day early for a startup. SURPRISE!! But at least we had a talk and an exam and I won an iPod Shuffle for my efforts. Hooray! 90 bucks worth. I think the company has gone mad. A year ago they would have said you have to do the exam and thats that. This was optional and with a prize for passing. Are they on drugs? Speaking of, there was word of a D&A test bandied about by the onshore guy that seniors would be doing one as soon as we got on. Haven't heard anything since and I haven't had a drink in days I swear.

So here we are now and we're finding all sorts of problems with the flows and the other crews "good to go" stuff. Good to go to the crapper.....

I have a cold which I got as soon as I got on and am having shivers and chills and savage sweats at night. Much more of that and I'll have to hang out my mattress to dry I tell you. Now it's turning to a nasty cough and sweats. I hate being sick onboard and the medic is going as sparingly on the Ibuprofen as though it were morphine!

So there now. Oh and we're back in the Gulf. Tomorrow I'll write a bit about New Orleans and how it was.