Entering India

I started my journey in DC, from where I flew to London, to Bahrain, to Kochi, India. Once arriving at 3:30 in the morning and waiting outside for quite awhile, I made it to the hotel by 5:15am. I crashed until I was awoken around 1:30 by a call from the ship’s port agent, telling me he was in the lobby, he needed my passport. He took it saying that my security clearance was not through, but he would be back by 4:30 / 5:00pm at the latest. I must have fallen back to sleep because at 4:47 I got another awakening phone call, this time to come down quickly, we had to go to the immigration office before it closed. Here is what I wrote in my journal:

“oh how I felt like I was back in Vietnam again – it was hot, the building was old plaster that was inevitably peeling, there were three people to do the job of one. Instead of shamrock green table clothes in Vietnam, there were floral vinyl coverings. I had to fill out a departures form. I vaguely remembered filling out an arrivals form only 13 hours before. This time for the vessel I wrote “ship” and destination “high seas”. There was another guy, a mechanic, also there going out too. He had had to come in on Thursday because his mother had died. I was really glad to have someone else there. After awhile I was whisked back to the hotel to pick up my bags, then off to a customs guy, but the customs guy was not there, so we had to drive to his home, but he was not there, so we had to drive back. Someone was found to sign off (although I’m not entirely sure money didn’t change hands) As we left the gate guy tried to get a bribe, but the agent told him that he would be back and the gate guy waved us through.
Again, like Vietnam, nothing is clean, there is just dust and stuff everywhere. And finally we made it to the boat – the Pacific Lion II (note this is not my vessel, it is our seismic vessel supply boat). Also, the mechanic told me that I still did not have Indian offshore clearance, but that the port agent had told the immigration officers that he would get it to them in a 2-3 weeks.

To be continued in a day or 2 – stay tuned.
I know most of you are probably wonder what in the world I was doing this fall, besides training in Houston - I'll get that next post, hopefully in a day or 2, along with pictures.