Long-time mystery of whale sharks solved

[gnominic]

We have all wondered why Ling hang out with whale sharks. And we still don't know, but this happened yesterday.

We were at this drilling rig in Brazos A-76 when a whale shark showed up under the boat. The wierd thing was this whale shark could talk. Yes, he talked to us. He said, "Hellow [sic.] friendly primates. I am being pestered day in, day out and for thousands of miles by these cobia. Think you could help me out by trying to scare them off?"

Well, I am as supportive as the next guy of the whale shark, so how could I turn down the little guy in need? He was about a year old shark and I judge that based on the size of the two in the Georgia Aquarium. I started to jump in with him, but my hand, pictured, would have mutinied. Plus there was no one else up to operate the boat.

I know these are not spearo pictures, but that's only because my gun is at the bottom of the Gulf. And I didn't get a picture of the shark that came out. I was shooting with my camera phone.

-dennis

[HydroHunter]

Nice fish. Looks like the water has calmed some. See you tomorrow!

[donmoore]

Nice funny story captain Dennis. It was nice for you to relief that whale shark of those pesky cobia. It’s really neat to hear a professional oil industry captain’s perspective.

Could you help us out on rules, protocols, what they may allow, etc., on diving oil platforms. Private property - no moorage signs started appearing on some rigs a few years after 9/11. Some even went so far to say, “no diving, fishing, etc.”. I have tied up to a few rigs that had signs after asking rig workers if it was okay. In those case they seemed interested in watching us dive, apparently to offset the boredom. At a triple platform with a walk way tying it together that is east of Matagordia (sorry I don’t remember the name) they seem to enforce the sign. We asked once and the guy said he really would like to let us, but he couldn’t.

Now there is the question on floaters and semi-submersibles. I heard from a dive shop it was illegal to tied up to these, but on the two I have been to I did not see any signs. Wednesday we went up to a side and started diving and this worker yelled and waved at us to get away. I gestured to him to if we could go to another side and he gestured to get away period. Five hundred feet off the platform there wasn’t any life we could see.

We went to the other side of it and decided to try and drift in. There was one worker that looked pretty concerned and ran out on a walkway and watched until the divers drifted past where he could see than he ran across the platform to another walkway and proceeded to watch again. About that time I got a call on the radio for the “Dive Boat”. I couldn’t hear the guy very good and true fully I wasn’t sure I wanted too. We finally communicated well enough for him to tell me channel 10 and then come to find out he wanted to talk about my boat. I asked him how close we could get to the platform and he said, “gee I don’t know”. About then the guy watching us left.

So in addition to platforms with signs, what about the floaters and semi-submersibles? We could sure get a better chum line if we tied to a corner rather than drift.

Thanks in advance,
don

[gnominic]

There is little in the way of laws, just lots of rules that vary by company.

I recommend respecting the signs and absolutely respect the signs that talk about poison gas. This is more common in the eastern gulf than around here, but there are still some sour gas wells around.

A rig will run you off for three reasons. Some oil companies have a policy of no mooring or no diving. These are usually the big boys, BP, Shell, etc. They will also run you off if they have their own boat on the way there or if they are working over your head. Typically, we come on platforms with plastic boats on them all the time (we affectionately refer to you all as the tupperware fleet), so usually if they are running you off it's because they are working overhead or they just have a rule against it.

Remember that production platforms have grating for deck material, so if a guy drops a bolt or something small it will fall right through. So you should make sure you're tied well off the platform. One of my colleages likes to tie his plastic boat off inside the rig between the legs. Don't do that.

Drilling rigs are another matter. Whether it's a jack up or a floater, you should avoid these if possible. They do all kinds of crazy stuff up there from the truely dangerous to the mearly annoying. You're not likely to witness a bleed off of gas or a large burn off, but they would very likely not give much warning before they did something like that. On the other hand, they dump so much muck in the water, you just don't want to be under them. They may spontaneously dump just about anything, sewage, water or oil-based drilling fluid, hydraulic oil, cooling water, brine, powdered bulk (cement, etc.), you get the idea.

You should never tie to a floater. They are anchored vessels and so will surge on their anchors. Our boats tie off and leave the engines in gear, which keeps us off the structure. In fact, sometimes we may be the cause of the rig surging or swaying on her anchors. In addition, sponsons on the rig often extend out beyond the legs. They are down far enough they will not hit your boat, but they will cause plenty of trubulence that may drag you into the rig or under it.

I wouldn't drift dive them either. Anchor cables have lots of scope that sags down, but when the rig surges on it that scope will straighten out and you don't want to be around it when it slices through the water coming under a strain. In addition, there's not a good way to let service boats know you have a diver down in the area.

The Coast Guard Auxilliary (nut bars that they are) used to advise people to call the platform. Don't bother. They never maintain a radio watch on 16. If you want to talk to them, you can try the channels we usually see used for them: 67 (lp) 68, 69, 71, 72, or 10. Call them by the rig name and if you raise someone it will be the crane operator who has no say over whether you tie off or not. He can call one of the bosses for you, but by the time the boss gets on the radio after being pulled from his work, he will not be a happy guy and not inclined to bend any rules for you.

From the service boat perspective, we try not to bother people if they are fishing. If I can operate at the rig without washing you into it or through it I'll leave the boats alone. Clearly if we're operating you wouldn't want to be diving there. Like any situation, we will be as courteous as you.

It's interesting to note that customs vary. In California most rigs do not let you tie off to them. The dive boats that run rig dives there require divers to swim on the surface into the middle of the platform and decent inside the legs. I think that's because they "drift" dive the rigs and that keeps the divers away from the dive boat wheels (propellers).

I doubt you'll have much trouble here in the Gulf though. I've only been asked to patrol for a platform once when they were bleeding off 900# of gas pressure from a 12 mile x 13 inch pipeline. So like I said, if we say take off, you probably don't want to be there.

Take care.

-dennis

[donmoore]

Thanks Dennis. That is very informative.
don

[donmoore]

Dennis,
What's your take on this, several people who fish the floaters say we should try spearfishing them at night under the lights. I never liked the idea, but after seeing hundreds of yellow fins deeper than we could dive, I’m beginning to entertain the thought. I do have a shark shield that seems to work on bulls and tigers, but there were spearos on deeperblue http://forums.deeperblue.net/showthread.php?p=608159&highlight=shield#post608159 , from the other side of the world, that had personal experiences with Makos while wearing the shields and they felt the shields did not work with makos. Are makos a large threat at these deep water platforms, especially at night?

The yellow fin we saw were about 200 feet off the Northwest corner of Transoceanic Marianas. Do you think that is far enough from the drilling platform to be safe from surge and unannounced dumping of stuff?
don

[gnominic]

I can't comment on the shark threat. We definately see lots of Mako out in water that deep. The best news is that the tunas definately come up at night.

200 feet off the rig is fine. You'll be well out of the way of the cables. I'd say anything greater than 75 ft will keep you in safe water. The spontaneous discharge of yuck is automatically triggered by the proximity of your boat to the rig. Just stay up wind.

Make sure you have a responsible person in the boat with a VHF radio. At night, service vessels will have trouble seeing your dive flag. Light it up as best you can, but don't rely on it. Call any approaching vessel and let them know you have divers in the water. The rig can't tell you not to dive near the rig, but you are not permitted to interfere with their operations either. Just be courteous and you'll be fine.

Remember too that many of the service vessels will display red-over-white-over-red lights. These lights indicate a vessel restricted in her ability to maneuver by the nature of her work and give her right of way priority over you. The rig will display these lights too, though they might be hard to find in the clutter.

I work for Texas Crewboats, a division of Captain Elliott's Party Boats adn we run Tuna Safaris to the floaters. I've run a few of those trips, but I'm not familiar with the rig you mentioned. Tequila and Cervesa ar the two big hauls we typically make. They are both Tension Leg Platforms (TLP) structures and so have no anchor cables that lead to the sides. They aren't too far from the Flower Gardens and the positions should be easy to find online.

Just be careful out there. That's way out in the tall grass.

-dennis

[Southern Cross]

I have done a good bit of Tuna fishing at night. The sharks get pretty agressive when the sun goes down. Could be really dangerous. You would drastically increase the chances of a mistaken identity bite when the sharks can't see like they do in daylight.

No divers in the water from my boat after the sun goes down.