Tell Me (and Others)

Well, we had a great vacation in Hawaii and had lots of adventures.

We stayed near  Kapaa on the East coast of Kauai for most of our three weeks in Hawaii. We rented a condo at the Waipouli Beach Resort and it was perfect. Lots of activities/sightseeing on the North shore and on the South shore. So, here you are about half way between the two. Plus all the sights up the East coast.

• Zip lining
• Quad bike riding
• Downhill cycle ride
• Rain forest hiking

We did all that, plus the relaxing in the pools at the resort.

There was a family group of 6.

After the Kauai stay, we headed back to Waikiki Beach for three nights. That area of Honolulu is over-run by tourists, but is worth experiencing for a few days. 4 days/3 nights was plenty on Oahu.

Next we flew over to the “Big island”, Hawaii Island and had three nights there. The aim was to see the volcano erupting and the recent lava flows.  The lava was not flowing the days we were there, but had been just a few days earlier. We took a Helicopter flight over the coastal lava flows and could see lots of steam/sulphur fumes emanating from the recent lava. Also there was lots of trees that had been singed by the heat and were dying.

At night we visited the volcano itself and witnessed the firey red glow coming from the crater. Lots of steam, ash and red glow from the molten lava in the volcano tube.

When done there, we headed West on the island to the Kona region. There we relaxed a few days and then headed back to Australia. Thanks again Qantas for some great flights. We managed to use a whole bunch of our Frequent Flyer points for the trip

John

Aloha. We are heading to Hawaii next week and will be there into the new year.

This will be my second trip to “Sandwich Islands” having previously been to Oahu and Maui about 15 years ago for a few days.

This will be a family gathering on Kauai. Hoping to do some zip lines, bike rides and ATV ride. Plus sit back and relax a little, or a LOT!

Mahalo

Ella

Today we travelled up to Paradise on Mt Rainier, Washington. It is only about 1.5 hours drive from Seattle, where we are spending the Northern summer.

I was apprehensive about travelling there, as it is listed as a DANGEROUS volcano. see the wikipedia link. But we did survive the day.

It is a magnificent location. A National park and there are some great scenic views. I did drive there about two years ago, but at that time I did not know it was rated as such a dangerous volcano.

I am assured it is closely monitored and any preliminary signs of the next eruption will be broadcast well in advance so people can flee. If it blew its top with the same force as the nearby Mt St Helens did in 1980, then the local landscapes will change significantly. It was only driving away from the park that I noticed the warning signs showing “Volcano- Evacuation Route”.

But all in all, a great days outing. And I will go again.

John

This week we travelled on the inaugural Qantas flight 7 from Sydney, Australia to Dallas, Texas.

The flight time was about 15.5 hours.

Luckily we managed to get an upgrade to business class using frequent flyer points so the trip was not too bad.

There were some TV crews on-board to record the event and they just happened to interview the flight Captain right alongside Candace’s seat. After interviewing the Captain (About 2 hours into the flight), they then filmed the Captain walking up the aisle and stopping and welcoming Candace on the flight.

Next, the camera crew (Rob Penfold) interviewed Candace about how she felt about the new non-stop service to Texas. Being a Texan, she was naturally very positive that it was a good thing and that we could now by-pass the congested Los Angeles airport.

The interviews were shown live on Aussie national channel 9 on Tuesday evening and friends said she did great.

Upon landing at Dallas, (yes, the 747 made it) as we were taxiing to the gate, we were sprayed with water cannon by the fire service there as a welcoming gesture. Lots of photographers and waves all round.

Then, as we de-boarded and entered the terminal, there was another welcoming party headed up by none other than John Travolta. We both shook hands with him as we passed by. He was dressed in his usual Qantas Captains outfit. He bought one of the original Qantas Boeing 707s and still flies it himself.

All in all, a fun trip with lots of surprisingly good on-board food and drink!

In a few months we will be on a return flight, Dallas to Brisbane, Australia and this reportedly takes about 17 hours due to the prevailing westerly headwinds.

John

I know, You all hate youtube, but here goes.

Recently I was a guest at an oil-gas well frac-ing (Process of fracturing the down-hole rock formations). The location was way out in west Texas not far from a little town of Pyote. This was my first experience at a well during drilling or under development.

I did some preliminary research on what I might see, and that was very helpful in understanding the tour. The tour lasted about one hour, but seemed much shorter. I was amazed at all the infrastructure in place.

If you want to read more on frac-ing, then head on over to frac-ing at Wikipedia. The description there is pretty much spot on.

The well in question is very deep, drilled down about 12,000ft and then out horizontally to about 4,000ft.

The multi step process.

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1) a series of explosives located along a special piece of drill pipe are lowered and then pushed (in the horizontal section) to the desired position. This section of drill pipe may be 48ft or longer, and the explosives are grouped in batches along about 12ft. Electric wires to trigger the shots run up to a control center at the surface. Once in place at its lowest position, the lower set of shots are fired, and the drill pipe is raised about 12ft or more to the next target zone. this process continues until all shots are fired, and the pipe is brought back to the surface.

2) a complex plug, about 3ft long, is sent down hole and is locked at the lower point of the area to be fractured.

3) a slurry of water and proppant (tiny balls of Aluminum Oxide – smaller than the ball in a ballpoint pen) is pumped at high pressure down the well. This slurry can contain several other chemicals to improve efficiency (such as surfactant) and measurement (isotope tracers). I don’t think there were any tracers used at the site I visited. The slurry is pumped down at a continuous high pressure. This can be 7,000p.s.i and greater. Once started, it needs to continue until certain flow rates/pressure changes are detected in the elaborate control center at the surface.

The aim of the process is to open up small fissures in the rock formations below, to allow greater flows of hydrocarbons into the well. This can lead to better economies and return on exploration and development investment.

The Site

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The Equipment

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Water Tanks

More Water Tanks

Did I mention Water Tanks?

I would estimate there were 60 or more tanks of different shapes and sizes. Water is critical to the process and must not run out during frac-ing. It is stockpiled in readiness to the commencement and then a steady stream of water trucks will deliver more during the process.

The Proppant

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This also is stockpiled and there were several large tanks loaded with the substance. The tanks were very similar to the water tanks, but closer to the slurry mixer and pumper trucks.

This shows one of the trucks that delivers the proppant.

The Pumper Trucks

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There were about 10 of these monster trucks, parked 5 abreast in two rows, each row backing up to the other row. This area was out-of-bounds due to running machinery and noise.

Shot Firing

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This truck is the logging and firing control center.

Here you see the crew arming the explosive charges in the drill pipe, ready to send it down the hole. No cell phones or walkie-talkies in this area!

A partial length of the explosives pipe. It will be more than twice this length when ready for lowering and firing.

Multi Function Pipe Truck

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This truck manages a giant spool of 2inch steel piping. The pipe is a single length of about three miles long. One use is to push the bottom plug down the hole and around the bend where the hole heads off horizontally. As mentioned earlier, this horizontal section is about 4000ft long. The well head can be seen to the right of the photo, as well as in the next…

That pretty much ends the tour. There was one other interesting truck which was not photographed. This was the main control center for the mixing and pumping operations. Mounted on another large truck, it housed around four technical operators controlling such things as water transfer pumps, the slurry mixers and ingredient controls, and the ten large pumper trucks. Lots of computers and screens to monitor in the operations room.

Thanks go to David H Arrington Oil and Gas of Midland, Tx and to Halliburton of Houston, Tx and their staff.

John Griffiths

We have been in Denver now for our summer break and have been very impressed with the city and surrounding areas. One problem we have noticed is the traffic congestion, but that is pretty much the case in all larger cities these days.

The past couple of weeks we have been entertaining friends from South Carolina. We took a road trip to Moab Ut., Canyon de Chelly Az. and Grand Canyon North Az. We all had a great time but some of the travel distances were more than first thought.

The National Parks around Moab were most fascinating and well worth the visit.

John

Having lived most of my life in Australia, I first saw actual snow about 15 years ago on the Swiss Alps. But it was summer there at the time so I did not see snow falling, and had never seen it fall until last month. We were driving up Mt Rainier (just south of Seattle), and it started to snow as we drove higher.

This was a first for me, but Candace had seen it all before!

Hey! What is all that white stuff falling here?

John