Alt for Norge Daily Journal: Day 17 - May 9, 2012 (Episode 3)

Today was our best day so far! Helicopter flights, a day on the world’s largest oil rig and another victory for my team!

We started the day early, leaving the hotel at 7:15. We immediately went ot the heliport or whatever you call it. After going through security check and hanging out for about an hour, we received our special flying suits. In case the chopper went down, you have to have special suits to protect you in those freezing waters! They looked pretty funny and covered you head to toe, but I’ll sacrifice looks for safety!

Not sure why I feel like a rap artist
in this suit, but I couldn't help the pose!

Looking pretty fly in our special suits!

After a safety video and some prepping by our director that week, Eli (there are three directors and they rotate each week on who is in charge), we boarded the helicopter. All 11 of us and two camera crews on one chopper! It was absolutely incredible! Such a cool feeling and great views! We even had some energizing music to pump us up, playing through our headphones.

One of our three directors, Eli, giving us
final instruction before we set off
on our helicopter ride!

Goose and Maverick!

After about 30 minutes over nothing but blue waters, out of nowhere we started noticing large ships and big oil rigs. Next thing we know, we’re circling one and come in for our landing. Are you kidding me?! Did we just land a helicopter on an oil right off the coast of Norway, in the middle of the sea?! Crazy!

We're on an oil rig!!!

Following landing, we did some filming of us getting off the helicopter, as well as some shots from the chopper of us on the landing pad, meeting with Henrietta. Next, was a security meeting and tour of some of the facilities. It was nuts. I felt like I was in a movie! (Oh wait, I’m on TV.) Finally, we made it back to another ramp and were introduced to our next team competition. I was teamed up with Dana, Tara, Mary Caryl, CJ and Jessica and we would be the Red Team. The Blue Team would be Austin, Amy, Johnathan, Alf, and Barbara. Unfortunately, because we had an odd number of people and I had the Troll, I would not be allowed to participate in the competition. The safety of the Troll is great, but it really sucks knowing I won’t be able to help my team! Henriette than revealed the details of the challenge.

A look at the first challenge and how it was all set up.

There would be two stations, with both teams working one of the stations and the swapping places and doing the other station. The first station, involved a team pumping oil from a huge oil drum and filling 15 buckets as fast as possible. While they are doing that, the other team is at the other station, which involves finding as many Norwegian coins as possible from the bottom of a large container filled with a mud-like substance (that was supposed to resemble oil). You would only have as much time as it takes for the first team to pump the 15 buckets of oil to gather as many of those coins. The team to collect the most money would win and more importantly gets a head start in the next competition.

Mary Caryl getting interviewed. These poor, tall Norwegian directors
had to position themselves lower, so that we would be looking just
outside of the camera lens. Pretty funny when it was Amy or Mary Caryl!

After interviews, the competition got under way. Our team, the Red Team, started on the pumping station with the Blue Team digging for coins. However, because I was exempt from elimination this week and there were an odd number of players, I just had to stand with Henriette and cheer. They gave us the go ahead and off both teams got started. Dana pumped the oil the whole time for our team and did a great job. The rest of the team tried to form an assembly line with one person handing an empty bucket to another member. That person would hold it under the pump and when it was filled to the marked line, it would be handed to another team member who would run it to a designated area. During the competition, I couldn’t stand not doing anything to help my team, other than cheer, so I became the “bucket checker”, checking each bucket to make sure it was filled properly. I actually think I helped us out, because I spotted a couple of buckets that weren’t filled all the way, which may have cost our team a lot more time.

After what seemed like a short amount of time, we had our 15 buckets. It seemed like we went about as fast as we could, thanks to Dana, but it was hard to tell. Although, when we looked over, it looked as though the Blue Team had collected a ton of coins. Of course, they weren’t going to let us know what the total was until after both teams had gone, so they could make the announcement more dramatic.

Alf getting interviewed after the first competition.

After doing some interviews and getting the area cleaned up (that whole process took about an hour!), the teams switched places and it would now be our turn to collect coins. They gave us the go and again we got started (again with me on the side with Henriette). Dana, Tara, Mary Caryl, CJ, and Jessica got to work, digging for whatever coins they could find. The catch was that they had to wear these large, rubber gloves, which made it really hard to grab the coins. Plus, the depth of the “oil” was longer than the length of the gloves, so they started filling with that mud-like substance! The best they could do was to scoop the coins to the edge of the bin and somehow pull them up and over onto one of their gloves. Then, getting them over to the can that holds the coins was difficult as well. Everything was slippery at this point and they were losing balance, causing them to drop many of the coins they had found. Because I had to find a way to help out, I was keeping my team updated on how many buckets the Blue Team had filled. As the Blue Team was getting close to 15, our team felt as though they had exhausted the amount of coins in the bin and started trying to pick up the ones they had dropped. Again, this was virtually impossible to do, seeing that they had to keep their thick, rubber gloves on (Mary Caryl got yelled at by a Producer when she forgot and tried to take her gloves off), and pick up this thin, slippery coin. Before you knew it, the Blue Team had finished their 15 buckets and the time was up. It went pretty quickly, although, it did seem as though we may have had a little more time with the coins than the Blue Team did.

We followed everything up with more interviews and watched as the crew counted the coins off in one of the corners. It was interesting though. We noticed that they recounted a couple of times and then watched as one of the members was showing a piece of paper to some of the other crew members, each time met with a surprised/amazed look on their face. It looked as though this was going to be an incredible blowout or an amazingly close competition.

We got together for results and Henriette fired some questions at us. After doing the typical Q and A, she built up to the reveal. There was the mandatory, extremely long pause, while the cameras slowly zoomed in on each one of us, then she made the announcement. One team had outdone the other by 13 Kroner, the equivalent of $2!! A relatively, incredibly small amount, based on the fact that each team had collected over 3,400 Kroner (or $600)! Wow! That team was……….the Red Team!! We went nuts, knowing that we had just secured a head start in tomorrow’s team competition!

Dinner with the crew of the oil rig.

After doing our final interviews for the day, we broke for dinner. As with lunch, we got to eat in the oil rig’s dining area, along with a lot of the oil rig’s crew. There was pretty good food with a decent amount of options, so we were pretty satisfied. After dinner, we had a little time to kill, so we found the rig’s entertainment room which had a projector used for watching movies or playing video games. Several us stayed there and played some Mortal Kombat for 20 minutes or so, but unfortunately our time was cut short and we had to leave. It was nice having that free time, which allowed us to see the inter-workings of the ship, as well as what those workers do day in and day out. (We found out that all the workers fly in, work two straight weeks, 12 hours on and 12 hours off, then fly home for a four week break! Not bad, considering the starting wage on the ship was $90,000!!)

About to board the helicopter for our flight back.

We boarded the helicopter and made our way back to the mainland, watching as the oil rig and its surrounding ships grew smaller and smaller out of our windows. On the way back, as it was on the way in, they were playing music in our headphones. Although, it was funny that the music changed from the pump-up music that we heard on the way in, to the more somber, Adele-type music that fit the mood of everyone after a long and exciting day. It was a dream-like day, but we were wiped out!

Eventually, we got back to our hotel around 10:00, met for some quick information with our Mama, then off to bed. What a day! I just took a helicopter to an oil rig off the coast of Norway!!! Who gets a chance to do that?! We’ll just have to see what they have in store for us tomorrow! (By the way, found out that the production company was working on getting the show on an oil rig for the first two seasons of the show, but it hadn’t worked out until now. Along with that, we were supposed to stay the night on the oil rig, but some issues came up and they couldn’t make it happen. Too bad! That would have been quite the night!)

Day 17 Over!