Helicopter Ride
11/25/05: I finally removed myself from the Bay Of Marchand job, hoping to get on a better job. Which of course didn't happen. I found myself now on the dreaded Devon job. There are divers out there that are hiding from this job. This new job is even shallower than the last one. Still no chance of me getting some depth pay. This job is located in the Main Pass 69 area. This is right off the coast of Venice. The dock at Venice has still not reopened since being hit by Hurricane Katrina. So to get there, I have to take a helicopter. This is going to be the first helicopter ride for me. And what a hellish trip it is. Since our dispatchers are all ways on top of their game, they made the dive crew get to the parking lot, early. In fact about three hours early since they don't want to get two different vans for two different jobs. Actually it was a truck and not a van. So we get to the helicopter "port" three hours early. No one is there and we sleep in the trunk until 6am. This of course leads us to be yelled at by the helicopter dispatcher for being late. The actual helicopter ride wasn't bad, I wished that I had taken out my camera to take pictures though. We had a decent aerial view of Fouchon, Grand Isle and the coast line until we landed at the Devon Base in Main Pass 69.
Ride Home From Venice
12/05/05: We came in during the mourning due to weather being around for a few days. We didn't fly in, but took a boat ride up into the docks at Venice, Louisiana. It is amazing at the amount of damage that is still present after 3 months of cleaning. Hurricane Katrina hit this area on 09/08/05 and the area is still destroyed. The dock was only opened on the 1st of this month. As we traveled through the area I was able to snap some pictures. The pictures can be found here at this link: Venice. This area is a ghost town; we didn't see anyone else on the road. All you saw was this astonishing destruction. I don't think there was one building there that didn't have some form of damage. We saw boats in trees, cars in trees, and houses in trees. The storm's debris trail lasts all the way up until Belle Chase.
Beware of the Cows
12/19/05: As usual we have to drive to the job during the middle of the night. This usually means that I am going to be awake for full 24 fours or more. I usually can't sleep in the vans. Well I was lucky to get a van bench seat all to myself. So I was able to lay down and try to get some shut-eye. Well we were close to Venice and I heard the driver start to curse and the van started to skid down the road. I thought this was it we were going into the ditch. I stayed lying down, dreading not to look up at my final fate. Locally it wasn't a ditch we were heading to, but a herd of cows. The diver was able to see all the light colored cows, just not the dark colored ones. He slammed in to the dark cow as he was trying to evade the light ones he saw. The cow rear hit the front of the van and bounced off. It ran into the darkness at full sped. I am sure the cow received less damaged than the van and the drivers psyche. 
ubi