How I spent my Christmas day.

At least the overtime will go a long ways towards a housing for my new Canon 20D Shot this at ASA 1600, 1/320 @ f5.6 at 2:20 Christmas morning. Temperature was about 34 degrees F, with freezing rain. (That's COLD for South Louisiana) Hope everyone's Christmas was better than mine.

Wow! Is that a riser failure and fire, or what? Holy cow. Looks like one of those shallow water concrete platforms. Would love to hear more - I work in deepwater.

Cheers

James

It's in a shallow lake south of Houma, LA. We went out about 11pm Christmas Eve. There was a 4" flowline that ruptured about 10 feet from our platform, we have a 10" and an 8" pipeline on this platform. All night and until about noon Christmas Day the winds were keeping the fire away from the platform. The wind then started shifting out of the west with the snow, etc. coming in. At that point the fire started hitting the platform. We left about 1:45 pm to go in for fuel, etc. and had to pass within 100 feet of the platform due to the water depth. At 2:08 my data on the platform stopped communicating and shortly after our 8" riser blew out. We didn't know that until later. A couple of the producer's workers were on a facility about 800 yards away and felt the concussion and heat when it blew. We were very lucky we weren't near the platform then.

Anyway I had received my Christmas present a couple days earlier (Canon 20D) and was glad I grabbed it when I left home. It's so much better than my old Nikon 995. Can't wait for more results on the Ikelite housing and Aquatica, etc. when people get them wet.