Hi Adrienne,

I missed so much of Venice even though I worked there for over 8 months.

I was contracted to run a sub-contract on a Gas platform 17km offshore. It was constructed in Spain, towed out to the sea off Venice and sunk so that its concrete encased storage tank was sat on the sea floor. It was receiving terminal to supply that part of Italy, but because of all the history in Venice they would not allow such an explosive potential to be too close to the city and surrounding area.

I was on a 2weeks on 2 weeks off contract and because the company milked your time and expenses, we were picked up at the airport and taken as quickly as possible to the rig. Sometimes we were flown out by helicopter and other times by boat from Venice port.

We were living on an ex-Norwegian Fjord ferry that was anchored to the rig. There were 2 large boats like that moored with accommodation for us workers, while we finished the construction of the engineering on it.

Sometimes that ferry would come into Venice to re-stock our food supplies but they would not let us disembark unless we had special permission or the end of our leave rotation cycle.

I got the occasional day or two in Venice, but always stuck out adjacent to the port, so only got to walk into the town or the beachside area a few times, where we would party with our local shore-based staff, no time for sight-seeing.

At the time I was living in Thailand so my flight times also governed my movements as they had to pay us for that time to home also and add that onto our leave.

One day I'll get back there to take a look at the history. The most I saw was a few fleeting visits and the view from out to sea!

Thanks for the pics of what I missed. lol.