From the beginning

We arrived in Ecuador around 5 a.m on April 28, that was only 6 hours late. We flew into the city of Quito. Which has an elevation of around 9000'. Once there we took a bus to the Hotel Republica (nice place compared to some places I have seen). We tried to get some rest before our 4:30 pm flight to our new residence of Coca,Ecuador. Coca is also know as Puerto Francisco De Orellana, he is the original founder.

Coca lies in the convergence of two rivers. The River Napo and the River Coca. Our hotel is located just a little west of where the two meet, living on the banks of the Napo. The town was once a bustling oil town. Lot of money came into Coca, and when the oil companies left so did the money the way I see it.

We are staying in a pretty decent motel. Maybe not to the standards of an American motel, but nice enough. We have A/C and hot water and the food is pretty good. Those 3 things mean a lot.
You will understand this if you have ever traveled to any poorer countries. There is a lot of local animals at the motel from monkeys, birds, cats, turtles, and even a sloth. The monkeys try to join everyone for meal time and are always seeking attention.

As far as are job goes it got off to a pretty slow start and has pretty much stayed that way. We have our good days and our bad. For those of you who do not know we are working 7 days a week 24 hours a day (lucky me I am on nights). We spent several days waiting on everything to get to the location which is about 25 minutes out of town. Depending on how long it takes to get across the bridge out of town. It is only one lane.

Once we got started it took until May 13th to get the pilot hole across. That is where we maneuver 5" drill pipe underneath the river on a designed radius between point A on one side the river entry side as we refer to it, and point B on the the other. We refer to it as pipeside or exit.

Once we got the pipe to the other side we begin the reaming process. Which in the case would begin with opening the hole up to 26". I did not mention on the front of the drill pipe was a 9 7/8" drill bit so we opened it up around 16"

This did not go that well so we took the 26" changed it to a 22" and completed the first pass. We now had a 22" hole from point A to B. I did not mention it was about 4300' between those points with the ground changing from sand, gravel,cobble, to hard clay. Which in the industry we like consistency, and lack there of usually mean a more difficult job. We then put the 26 " back on and completed that pass. Then it was time to move up to a 36", eventually will have a 52" hole all the way across between A and B. Where we will then pull a 36" 4300 and some odd feet pipe through.

Well the 36" went like the 26" went about 66 joints from exit side which is about 2000'. When I say joints they are 30' sections of drill pipe that we add or take off one at a time. We have now taken off the 36" and changed it to a 32" and that is where we currently are in the process at this time.

After this has made it all the way across to entry side we will push 140 sections of the drill pipe over to the other side where they disconnect them in sections of 10 and we will put the 36" in and try to pull it across. Then we will step up to a 42",48" and finally 52".

Well I will be adding more in the future this is up to speed as of early morning June 5, 2009. New to the blogging game, will try and add some photos but Internet connection is currently slow. It is received via satellite and currently the weather is not co-operating.