Once it was safely on deck, the roughnecks once again took control of the decks. High-pressure water was injected down the drill string to blast any debris out of the casings that line the top of the hole. And then the pipe began coming up. From early morning until mid-afternoon, the laborious process of two days ago repeated itself in reverse. The sea is quite rough today, with a long swell.
Whitecaps run to the horizon, blown by a stiff wind.
But the ship remains remarkably steady except for an occasional slow roll. I wonder how many knots we are making to stay in one place. As soon as the last section of pipe is stowed, the heavy blocks that support the cable high up in the derrick are lowered. The rig is rethreaded with fresh cable so that the sections that took the most stress and bending during the lowering and raising operations are replaced. This work is dangerous enough without snapping a cable holding hundreds of tons of steel.