Rio de Janeiro Trip

A couple of weeks ago I made a trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brasil - a business trip to give some software training to one of our customers down there. Rio is one of the most beautiful cities in the world (IMHO) and I really didn't think twice about going down there, even though training is not something I usually do.

Our clients, Odebrecht, put me up in a nice hotel in Niteroi - just across the bay from Rio. I was initially expecting to work in their office but there were rumors that one of their rigs was in port. When I walked out the back of my hotel I was very surprised to see the rig sitting a few hundred yards offshore. The rig was new, having just been built in Abu Dhabi and was undergoing final fitting out before going to work offshore Brasil.

The Norbe VI Rig as seen from my Hotel

The Rig at Night - Note the statue of Christ all lit up on Corcovado

I had not visited a rig in years - it is so difficult these days to get on board without having all the required safety training - so this was a real treat. So off I went by boat to the rig where I was winched up onto the rig in a basket on the end of a crane. The device is actually something called a 'Billy Pugh Transfer Net' - named after its inventor. It's biggest claim to fame outside the oil industry was when it was used to pluck various Apollo astronauts out of the ocean. Anyway it was an interesting way to go to work, particularly with the view of Sugar Loaf, Corcovado and downtown Rio.


The actual work was fine though it morphed from a training session to a software redesign session. I came back with a long list of things that they needed adding or changing. More work for us I suppose.