DAY 21 - [1st Feb?]

Woke up to a beautiful day. However, we were warned the blows tend to last for a day or so, go dead calm for a day and then blow back the other way. So we’re waiting. Is this the eye of the storm?

Sure enough mid afternnon the wind starts picking up again, and by 5pm is back up to 40mph.

Managed to get a great scene in the can tonight. Robbie our key character was sent up the derrick for his first time on the north slope – the wind was blowing about 40mph and he had to climb out of the monkey house over a windwall to fasten a loose pannel. This basically involves hanging precariously by a thread about 100ft in the air in the middle of a blizzard – no joke.

We got some great build up, as his mentor briefed him and warned him about the life threatening risks, and some even better reaction shots from the guys on the derrick floor watching. Sam went up with him (using a harness) and got some shots form the monkey house itself. Should make for a very dramatic scene – especially since we’ve been building up Robbie throughout the program. This will work well as his climactic scene of redemption, after his struggles to cope before.

The atmosphere was tense, which is suprising because usually these guys are very blasé about any danger at all and totally play down in a very macho fashion.

Big relief to have a decent climactic scene in the can – once you’ve got that it’s a lot easier to work backwards. Robbie and his fellow roustabouts were great, too - loads of grit and unselfconscious swearing whilst hanging off the derrick. The driller, Kevin, 100ft below on the derrick floor – was even better. He’s one of those people who know exactly how much bullshit TV consists of and is happy to serve it up without even being asked. He has a healthy disregard for the reality of the situation, and will say anything to get on TV. Our favourite kind of contributor. He comes up with brilliant soundbites about how desperate the situation is and how much danger they are all in – perfect - , so camped up for the camera that it almost seems like a piss take. And eventhough you think it might be maxing out the cheese-o-meter, in actual fact - nothing, bar nothing - is too cheesy or OTT for US Discovery. Fuck reality, what do you think this is a documentary or something?

Unfortunately, the camera I had on the ground was fucking up in the cold – the usual dirty heads message – and there’s some drop out, which sucks. I couldn’t get the wides from off the rig that we needed and badly wind nipped my ears trying – very frustrating.

These guys were on the nightshift, though and it meant staying up ‘til 3 am or so to get it. We almost went to bed exhausted before they even started, but a bit of coffee and determination saw us through. (Hours out here are weird now we’re trying to cover both day and night towers – 12am -12pm – 12am.)

Got back to camp and checked the helmet cam we sent up on Robbie and found it hadn’t recorded a thing. DOH! Wonder if we can send him up again?

Still went to bed well chuffed, highly exhilarated and dead beat.