This illustration is of a watercolor I completed of an imaginary fish species. After I decided to write about a couple of my fishing adventures, I realized I did not have any fishing cartoons- at least in my cartoons series. I do have some with political themes in my editorial cartoons, which I have yet to scan into my computer, much less dig out of the storage shed. While the fishing stories may be amusing, it would be hard to sum them up in a single humor panel.
Before I tell the story about one of our cooks, I do want to mention that we had some great cooks. Anybody that has spent anytime offshore will attest to that fact; the oilfield eats well. That is, as long as the price of oil justifies the expense of keeping a cook. Our cooks for Pennzoil went to some of the most prestigious cooking schools in the South. Most of them graduated from one of two schools, and a few from both of them. The Huntsville TDC School of Meat and Potatoes and/or the Angola LDC School of Gumbo. Regardless of their training they were great cooks. Thanks guys, I appreciate it.
A foghorn on a platform does not look like any type of horn. There are no brass trumpets extending from it, warning everybody to stay away or it will rip your eardrums out with a sudden blast. It is more of tall cylinder with about 4-6 stacks of circular devices on it extending about 8 feet in the air. To a civilian, or cook as the case may be, it just looks like another piece of the multitude of equipment stacked around a platform. The offshore foghorn does not make your stereotypical sound, like most of us have heard in an old Sherlock Holmes movies. I imagine some scientist somewhere figured out that a higher pitched tone travels further than a lower tone. I actually just web searched that and the higher frequencies travel in a more direct path. How about that? We old dogs can learn new facts. The problem with being an old dog is that we will not remember them tomorrow. The Pennzoil foghorns were high pitched and could be heard for several miles in all directions. Image the intensity of that type of sound if you were standing beside it, without earplugs I might add.
One of our cooks decided he wanted to do to a little fishing. After all, we had a community fishing reel. All he had to do was supply some bait and time. The cook came onto the production deck with the proper PPE, hardhat and steel toed boots. He looked like he was ready for a work shift, with the exception of his work whites. (I have worked with a few guys in my time that could work a whole hitch in whites and still use them as street clothes. It does however give a new meaning to the phrase “work”.) He had borrowed a pair of steel toed boots and donned a hard hat. He searched around until he found what appeared to be the perfect fishing location. It was a spot that extended out a little further than the rest of the deck. This allowed him a very strategic view of anything he might catch and limited the possibility of his catch getting hung up on the platform.
I am sure that to the cook it looked like the perfect fishing spot. It was, with the exception of one small fact that the cook did not consider. That stacked eight foot tall cylinder he was standing by just happened to be the platform foghorn. That in itself was enough to deter anybody else from ever fishing in that one spot. I have mentioned before that sometimes, the perfect opportunity arises and you just have to react. I would like to think that in my mature state of being an old dog I would refrain from reacting to such perfect opportunities, but in truth I doubt that even today I would bypass that chance. It was the perfect prank, all I had to do was walk by and hit the switch. Which in itself was perfect. Did I mention that the foghorn's activation switch has a time delay? A time delay, designed to give the person activating the foghorn time to retreat to a safe distance before the initial blast of the high pitch warning. Imagine if you were designing a prank, and you could include a time delay. You could pull the prank and have time to be a safe distance away, so you would not get the blame and would be able to stand back and observe the whole thing as it takes place. The only thing that could possibly make it better was if you could whip out your cell phone and video record it.
A common prank to pull on anybody fishing was to sneak up on them and tap on the end of the rod sticking out behind them. A salt water rod has a counterbalance that extends about 18 inches behind the reel. This portion is placed under your arm and is exposed behind you. As you’re concentrating on your tight line, waiting for the tug of a fish sampling your bait, you can set the hook and start reeling up your catch. The last thing you’re thinking about is somebody standing behind you tapping the opposite end of your rod. I can assure you it can feel just like a bite on the bait, which is in over 300 feet of water.
When I saw the cook take up his fishing location I knew the opportunity was too good to be true. I walked in the well-bay and found my work partner for the night. I waved at him and requested his presence. We strolled over to the cook and tapped the end of the fishing pole. The cook jerked the rod up trying to set the hook in the imaginary fish that was tapping the wrong end of his rod. We let him know it was us and had a good chuckle about it. We both then turned to leave, and of course in passing I just had to reach over and turn the foghorn on. We had 3 seconds to clear the area, so we both causally walked over and took up an observation post, far enough away not to be stunned by the blast of the horn. As a precautionary measure, we put in our hearing protection. We were also close enough to observe the new fisherman.
The cook had lowered his line back to the bottom and was intently waiting on a bite. He had his rod pointed toward the water. This is the common position so that when the fisherman sets the hook he jerks the rod in an upward motion to where it is pointing in the sky. This motion sets the hook in the fish’s mouth, thus allowing you to reel the fish all the way to the surface. I remember the cook’s knees were slightly bent as he was waiting on a bite. When the fog horn went off, he was within eight feet of it, and he jerked his pole to the sky- his whole body tense, legs extended straight and with his face contorted in surprise and pain. He stood in that position as the rod violently shook as it was extended to the sky. You would think he was fishing with copper wire and had just hooked an electric eel with 1200 volts in it. He stood like that and shook the whole time the initial blast was sounding. As soon as the horn paused, he dropped the rod and reel and shouted “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!”.
I hardly managed to make it back to his fishing location to turn off the foghorn, I was laughing so hard. I did manage to disable it before it started its warning cycle blast. Of course, in doing so I also admitting to being the culprit. Had I spent anytime planning the event I would have made it a point to pick a better target, but then again everybody else knew and avoided the risk of fishing by the foghorn. There is something to be said about pranking the guy that fixes your meals, even if he is from the prestigious Huntsville TDC School of Cuisine. Not long after that, I noticed he never ate his own cooking. Now that worried me.
Next week I will be at the Shell Training Center in Louisiana. I doubt if I will have time to post anything. However, when I do post again I will cover why you do not use bailing wire for snapper hooks.
May your boots be dry, your coffee fresh, and your gloves new. Kybree.
Steve
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