Lake E Daily News, 2 May 2009
It was our second day in a row with perfect weather -- no wind, clear skies and only -6 C. Eighteen of us (including the dozer, crane and bus drivers) worked all day on the rig demob and we accomplished a lot. Thank goodness for cordless power tools, patience, and good humor. The ceiling was removed and the derrick brought down so we could remove the entire canvas tent, straps and struts over the rig. Then all of the walls and beams came off, each numbered so it can be put back together again someday.
The crane removed the derrick and the CS14 drill rig and the latter was nudged into its own container. Then the heavy casing was removed along with the pipe rack and the iron work bench etc. The entire time some of us continued the clean up aspects -- picking up nails, washers, bits of paper, oil soaked gloves, scraping mud off things. etc There was sorting to do from piles on the open floor of the platform, then into one of the 5 containers on the drill pad. It was a long day.
I have to confess to feeling a bit emotional as I watched the derrick come down. Wow, it hit me...its almost over out here.
We hope the weather holds a few more days so we can get everything off the ice and finalize the clean up of the ice surface on the platform before we get more wind or snow. Then with some leisure over the week ahead we can return to extract the snow fences and bamboo poles and flagging of the ice road.
Good night from Lake E....Julie BG
