May UK Trip

Ok so like many of our posts these days, this one is well, months behind. But I suppose better late than never.

Kimber went to the UK for just over a week in late April/early May. Now for all purposes, the weather should have been bad. However, remarkably it was incredible. The sun was out every day and it was wonderfully warm. Here is a picture of a street in Aberdeen.

I went over as part of a team to help review preparations for a shutdown offshore. Because of this I had the opportunity to go offshore to the East Brae Platform. What a group pf top notch people. They are committed to safety and success. I was on East Brae for 24 hours. I was fortunate enough on the flight back to land on our other two UK platforms, Brae Alpha and Brae Bravo, as well as a platform that is not ours, Piper Bravo. Piper Bravo sits very close to where Piper Alpha used to sit. Piper Alpha was destroyed in 1988 in a major offshore disaster that killed 167 men. It was quite humbling to remember that incident and recall why it is I do what I do, which is help Marathon manage major accident risk.



Before I get into my touring adventure, I also thought you might like a couple of these unique pictures. The first picture is the Heerema Hermod, one of the largest semi-submersible crane vessels in the world. This vessel can lift 8100 metric tonnes. The second picture shows the Hermod with several service vessels nearby.

After we returned from offshore, we had roughly a half day to tour the Aberdeen country side. One of the people on the team is from the Aberdeen area so he took us on a bit of a tour outside of Aberdeen.

Our first stop was Dunnottar Castle. This is a ruined medieval fortress near Stonehaven on the Scottish east coast. The ruins are on an outcrop of land and are very much exposed. The ruins vary in age and condition but the site is quite lovely. One of the pictures of the ruins shows another photographer actually using an old fashioned camera for some shots on this lovely day.
A landscape of the castle was chosen as one of the desktop wallpaper images for Microsoft for the "United Kingdom" desktop theme for Windows 7. In addition parts of the 1990 film Hamlet were shot here.

After that we ate fish and chips at the Bervie Chipper in Inverbervie.

Once we were full and content, we drove through the Scottish Highlands along the "Slug Road" over to Banchory. We were glad John was driving as the roads were narrow and windy as well as everyone was going the "wrong" way on the street. We walked along a golf course beside the River Dee and I am sure the golfers thought we were nuts. It was very pleasant being that it was spring.

We also saw the Blackhill War Memorial which was built in 1923. It honors those from the First and Second World War.


We stopped in some little town for dinner before heading back to Aberdeen and work the next day. It was a lovely day with a nice guided tour.