The West Africa Pipeline

Three seasons offshore Angola and Nigeria taught me more about people than they did about pipe. The work was hard and the conditions harder, but the crews were some of the best I have ever stood beside.

Heat above, current below

West Africa was a different working world. Forty degrees on deck, equatorial sun bleaching the paint off the gantry, and a current under the hull that wanted to take you sideways the moment you left the descent line. We learned to drop heavy and trust the umbilical.

The night shift

We worked nights when the surface chop allowed. Lights from the support vessel made green columns in the water. You could see fish you would never see by day — long, slow shapes that watched the welding arc and then drifted on, unimpressed.

“Long, slow shapes watched the arc and drifted on, unimpressed.”

Leaving the line

The last tie-in took an entire shift. When it was done we surfaced in the dark, drank instant coffee that tasted of diesel, and watched the eastern sky go from black to lavender. The pipeline is still there. So is the memory of that morning.