So much has happened since the last update (which seems like ages ago), I'm not sure where to start. so I'll just dive right in, forgive me for any randomness that might appear. I just had some cookies and feeling the sugar rush. ;)
Well, the plans to go to the Frank Cable in Guam fell through, and I was reassigned to join up with the USNS Mathew Perry, AKE-9. The Perry is one of 15 or so ammunition ships that MSC runs. We also carry fuel and oil onboard for transfer as well. But primarily, we carry stuff that goes boom. The Perry right now is operating as a floating warehouse, moving from place to place transporting missles and explosives from point to point. We aren't doing any underway replenshiment of Navy ships anytime soon in the forseeable future.
So I flew to Japan from Honolulu on a pretty average flight. Though everywhere I went (even at the Honolulu terminal) I could find nobody that could speak English, so I was kinda like, hope this is my flight and hopped on board. At Honolulu there was one sign with about 12 flight numbers for 3 different planes, all boarding at once. I wasn't quite sure which one to go to, so I just kinda followed a crowd which looked like they were going to Tokyo (no, I'm not sure how you can look like you are going to Tokyo, but these people did). When I go on board, I found my seat, it was empty so I thought I was off to a good start.
Then we started taxiing away to take off and they were like 'Welcome to Japan air flight yadda yadda yadda'...they listed off 4 different flight numbers for this one flight....none of which were mine. since After a slight 'oh shit' moment I figured I was at least on a plane to Japan and would figure it out when I got there. To make this long story short, I was on the right flight.. I knew for sure when I found my baggage at the baggage claim. That flight was 12 hours, then I caught a 2 hour flight to Fukuoku, Japan..then a 2 hour bus ride to Sasebo. Then after catching a liberty boat to the ship at anchor I was finally on board at about 3 in the morning.
We were at anchor in Sasebo for the next 3 days I think. I'm not 100% sure, I don't really keep track of the days and weeks. I'm pretty much only good for the current time and what I'll be doing over the next 24 hours or so. Anything before or after that window of time...I'm useless. I got familiar with the ship, met the crew (99 total on board), and got adjusted and moved in.
My room is pretty good sized. I have a queen sized bed, desk and chair, lounging chair, wardrobe, drawers, and still plenty of floor space to have an impromptu dance party when the moment strikes. I also get my own bathroom and shower. Oh, and a stwerards deptartment that cleans and makes my bed. I feel like royalty on this boat.
I mostly socialize with the officers on board. Not so much that I try to avoid the unlicensed the guys, its just how it winds up being. The officers and unliscened guys live on diefferent decks (floors), eat in seperate messes, and have seperate lounges. The only time I see unliscned guys is when I'm on watch or ashore (which hasn't happened much yet).
The officers are amazing...probably one of the best crews in the fleet. Pretty young, everyone is under the age of 40, inluding the Capt. So we all have that 'newer' method of thinking and are a little more laid back and relaxed than some of the old salts who hate electronic navigation doohickies and are all about the old fashioned. Everyone gets along great, and things run like a well oiled machine. I do a lot of work with the 2nd mate (navigator) putting routes on charts and in the electronic instruments, doing chart corrections, etc. He's a pretty comical guy, one of those types who doesn't try to be funny just is. And he can be a bit of a grump, but like mad scientist grump, not I'm an asshole grump.
We left Sasebo just over 2 days go to head for Yokosuka, Japan. We just pulled in a few hours ago in fact. Here we are unloading a whole bunch of explosives (I can't say any particulars to the public). We had them all sitting out on the flight deck for offloading when we pulled in today. Seeing 200 million buckaroos of explosive ordanince out on deck drives home what we are doing on here. Its the real deal now, this isn't the Junior League Amateur Hour.
At sea I stand the 8-12, 2000-0000 watch. I was expecting to be monitored and have the Capt have one of the other mates stand watch on the bridge with me the first few times since this is my first ship and all. I've heard of that being done with friends that have had their first hitches. But he asked me if I knew what I was doing and I said yea...he said call me if things get outta hand and left. Then it was just me...with 100 people on board trusting me to not run into anything and keep the ship safe. Yet another Oh Shit moment occured. Of course, I knew the Capt wasn't just dissapearing. He has repeaters of the RADAR, ECDIS (electronic chart and plotter), engine controls, etc down in his office and stateroom...so I knew he was probabbly down there watching me closely. But knowing that he trusted me enough to be alone on the bridge meant something to me...so that was pretty cool.
On the way we ran pretty close to the coast, staying about 80 mile or so off. The area is pretty high volume traffic, so during all the watches I spent most of it dodging and getting out of the guys that had right of way...and making sure the guys that I had right of way over knew it and acted accordingly. Its almost like solving a big puzzle as you go...and as long as you know what you're doing, its a blast. It really makes me love this job.
So no we are in Yokosuka offloading. We are here for 2 days,then taking off to Chinhae, Korea. There we will offload some stuff and then load some other stuff. But the main thing we will be doing there is repairing one of the engines. Something got loose a while back and tore apart 2 pistons, so those are being replaced. Its expected to take about 4 weeks or so. I'll probably go ashore tomorrow morning and go for a run and check things out. I have the 1600-0000 (midnight) watch so prob wont do anything too crazy. I hear where we are in Korea there are some cool temples nearby to check out so that should be fun. As long as its not Busan again...I could do without that. After Korea we head back down to Sasebo for a bit and then head to Guam for something, though I'm not sure what.
So I think thats about all I got for in the way of an update. I'll probably be underway to Korea for New Years, no big deal, just another day of work...and overtime!! I'm loving the overtime here, it's treating me rather well.
Thats all I got! Take care-
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Going to Guam!
I have gotten official word today that I will be headed to Guam to join the USS Frank Cable as a 3rd Officer. The Cable is a submarine tender designed to assist, rescue, and supply nuclear submarines. However, it also assists and replenishment other ships from time to time from what I hear. A general tender.
Here is a link to look at the juicy details of her...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Frank_Cable_(AS-40)
I will be flying from Hawaii to Guam..although not 100% sure when. All I know that it will most likely be by Friday. I am obligated to stay for at least 4 months, but with the pay and schedule, I'll probably stay longer. I will be in Guam for about a month, and then we start making our way to Portland, OR for the shipyard. We stop in Hawaii on the way. I heard we will be in Hawaii on Jan 23rd. We are probably only stopping for food, stores, and fuel. Then we will head to the shipyard for general repairs, maintenance, and upgrades.
We will probably be in the yard for quite some time, so MSC will most likely rent me a fully furnished apartment and give me a stipened for food (100 a day). Not too shabby to live for free in Portland for possible a couple months. After Portland I'm guessing we will most likely go back to Guam. I don't imagine we would go to San Diego or anything where other MSC ships are.
The ship is a USS ship, not a USNS ship. This means it is staffed mostly by Navy. It has a Navy Capt and all that fun stuff. I'm gonna have to freshen up on my military lingo and what not. I'm not sure what MSC personell are all on there, I know there is a chief mate, second mate, and two 3rd mates, but not sure much beyond that. I'm sure there are at least a few more.
So there ya have it! There are my upcoming adventures. Check out the picture section, I put up a slideshow covering the Cleveland tow. Soooo many pictures I didn't feel like captioning them all. Plus its dinner time and a nice juicy steak is calling me in.
Enjoy!
Here is a link to look at the juicy details of her...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Frank_Cable_(AS-40)
I will be flying from Hawaii to Guam..although not 100% sure when. All I know that it will most likely be by Friday. I am obligated to stay for at least 4 months, but with the pay and schedule, I'll probably stay longer. I will be in Guam for about a month, and then we start making our way to Portland, OR for the shipyard. We stop in Hawaii on the way. I heard we will be in Hawaii on Jan 23rd. We are probably only stopping for food, stores, and fuel. Then we will head to the shipyard for general repairs, maintenance, and upgrades.
We will probably be in the yard for quite some time, so MSC will most likely rent me a fully furnished apartment and give me a stipened for food (100 a day). Not too shabby to live for free in Portland for possible a couple months. After Portland I'm guessing we will most likely go back to Guam. I don't imagine we would go to San Diego or anything where other MSC ships are.
The ship is a USS ship, not a USNS ship. This means it is staffed mostly by Navy. It has a Navy Capt and all that fun stuff. I'm gonna have to freshen up on my military lingo and what not. I'm not sure what MSC personell are all on there, I know there is a chief mate, second mate, and two 3rd mates, but not sure much beyond that. I'm sure there are at least a few more.
So there ya have it! There are my upcoming adventures. Check out the picture section, I put up a slideshow covering the Cleveland tow. Soooo many pictures I didn't feel like captioning them all. Plus its dinner time and a nice juicy steak is calling me in.
Enjoy!
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Hawaiian Times
Well we made it to Hawaii safe and sound on Friday the 9th around noon. I posted a couple of blog entries from the trip over. It wasn't too exciting, everything pretty much went as the first week went.
I am now done with all the training and have my mate of towing endorsement. Since the ship is on a budget, and I'm extra, there really isn't any work for me to do now because the chief mate and capt. don't want me pulling overtime. Aw shucks, I guess I'll just have to get off the boat and go out and have fun in Hawaii.
All I'm doing now is waiting. I'll either be transferred to another ship or sent back to the pool in San Diego or Norfolk to wait around there for another ship. Trying to get a hold of the detailers who are in charge of that though is near impossible, they are notoriously lousy at their jobs. I imagine I'll be sitting here for at least another week or so. I'm ready to get off and either get into a nice big hotel room or get my own state room with a bed that isn't a coffin of a bunk. This boat gets smaller and smaller every day. But until then, I'm enjoying the nice warm temps of the island and the sunny beaches, and the bikinis.
I'll update next when I get word on where I'm going. Til next time,
Flooding
Nothing much new to report, we are still just chug a lugging across the Pacific, still on track to make Hawaii by 12pm local time…prob be all tied up by 5 pm local time. We had a flooding alarm go off on the tow around 5 am this morning. We waited for daylight and then got to work checking it out. Our Mast Diver, Chief Mate, and another Diver hoped into the Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB, think super dinghy) and launched it to go check it out. It was about that time that the seas started to pick up, going at about 12 feet with 16 foot rollers coming in every so often. And since they are coming from directly astern, we were really rolling around…not the easiest conditions to launch a little boat in. But it needed to be done. So they launched it after a few oh SHI#(# moments and headed over the Cleveland . The Master Diver hoped onto a ladder and went up the 50 feet to get on the deck. And the Cleveland was rolling pretty bad too..I’m sure glad I wasn’t the one that had to do it. Though it did look pretty exciting. He went to scope things out and see if we needed more people to go aboard and start dewatering procedures if the flooding was bad enough.
Turns out it was only about a foot of flooding in shaft alley (the part of the boat way down in the bottom where a drive shaft connects to the engine that turns it to turn the propellers. It’s a slow leak, one that we don’t have to worry about. He sealed off shaft alley so just in case it got worse, the flooding would only be in shaft alley and the ship wouldn’t be in danger of sinking. We didn’t need to send any more sailors on board to de water, that can wait till Hawaii . So he crawled back to the RHIB, the motored back on over and we picked them back up. The pick up was easier than the launch because as soon as they were on the hook to the crane they were yanked outta the water and more stable. When they were launched in the water, there were a few moments where they were really be bounced against the hull by some waves. All in all, it went pretty well. The whole procedure lasted about 3.5 hours.
Towing to Hawaii
The first week at sea has been going by pretty smoothly. I stand watch in the tow booth every day from 0800-1000. The tow booth is a booth about the size of a toll both on the stern deck just aft of the towing winch. My job when I am on watch is to monitor the tow and make sure she is behaving properly, monitor the tension on the tow wire, and ensure the proper scope stays out. It’s a fairly simple job. Thank goodness I only have to do it for 2 hours a day.
However, on my first watch, I was filling out the log book, and accidently leaned on the emergency stop for the two winch. Next thing I know buzzers and alarms were going off and all hell broke loose. I had reset the alarm and by that time the Chief Mate and Master Diver were down at the booth to laugh at me and help me restart the winch. I’m sure glad both have a good sense of humor and shrugged it off. I knew I was going to screw up, but just didn’t think it would come so quick. At least I got it out of the way early.
After I get off watch, I go and see the Chief Mate who then tries to find jobs for me to do. It usually involves inspecting some type of equipment for safety, functionality, and expiration dates. I’ve checked things off like life rafts, eye wash stations, emergency float coats for helicopter ops, etc. I’ve also gone through and inventoried and diagramed all the ammo we have on board, which seems like enough to stage a small invasion of Cuba . Any takers? I also went through the big book of ship certificates for everything (things from wire rope tests to firefighting, to machinery certs) making sure all were up to date and replacing ones that had been updating. Not the most thrilling work, but work that needs to be done, and it beats sitting around doing nothing.
I’m usually done for the day by around 1400. After that I may putter around the bridge and check things out. The Capt says she may have us standing 4 hour bridge watches towards the end of voyage. Then I work out, eat dinner, read or watch a movie, hit up some ZZZZ’s and repeat! I wish I had more work to do for the ship, but there just isn’t all that much to do. I asked the Bos’n if I could join in and do some chipping and painting, which he promptly replied ‘ah hell no! You’ve put in your time, you in the khakis now Mate!’. So I can’t do any of the grunt work around here. I’m slowly slowly getting used to being called Mate and being an officer aboard. I still feel so out of place at times.
Speaking of working out, I got a program called Insanity from a friend that’s on my computer. It’s a crazy work out routine that does nothing but kick your ass. It’s amazing! I also mix in a little P90X (similar program but involves more weights which are hard to come by on board, Insanity is more body weight oriented). I’m crazy sore every day at the end but it feels so good. Gotta get this bod back to a perfect 10 for the Hawaiin ladies. At the end of the Insanity workouts, there is a yoga warm down. Yes Mom, that’s right, I’m doing a bit of yoga. Now let the stream of I told you so’s and yadda yadda yadda begin. I’ll admit, it feels incredible after a grueling work out.
We are somewhere off the Baja Peninsula . We’ve been going South all week and have started are Westward turn toward Hawaii today, making a course of 255 now, rounding up to 270 (due West) in the next couple of days. Weather has been great, mostly sunny with patchy clouds. The first few days were calm seas, but they have picked up quite a bit. Swells are about 15 feet with peaks of up to 20-23 feet. The main swell is off of our starboard bow with a secondary off of our starboard quarter (kinda off our starboard stern). This makes for a pretty bouncy ride. We hit a really good one this morning. I was sitting in the galley watching news (we get the armed forces network on board at sea, Direct TV along shore) and we rolled hard. The galley staff wasn’t ready for it and I heard some monstrous crashing and a few yelps escaping the cooking area. A few of us got a few laughs outta that. We are making somewhere around 6 kts, which could mean we make Pearl Harbor a few days early, which would be nice. But if the seas continue to pick up, which is predicted, and they are continue to be unfavorable (which once we go due West the will almost be abeam and really unfavorable) we will have to slow down to planned speed. No sea sickness on board so far, which is great. A couple of colds, but it seems to be contained. I’ve been doing okay.
The officers (deck side)
Capt- she’s a bit of an old timer, but still can crack a smile.
C/M (chief mate)-She has a Capt license, been with MSC 5 years, I’d say she’s 28 or 29.
2/M-Been outta school for a year, from Brooklyn
3/M-Grad last dec. from CMA, lives in Long Beach
3/M-Hawspiper (worked is way up from non licensed ranks), haven’t been able to talk to him much
3-3/Ms (me and 2 other training mates)
Then non licensed deck we have the Bosun who is the most senior AB and then 10 other Abs.
I’m not sure about the engine side, but it’s comparable to officers and non licensed. We also have a Supply officer, cooks, Navy tech attachment on board (6 guys), and 6 Navy Divers and a Master diver on board. Pretty good sized crew.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Apache Indian Dance
My time on the Apache is over, and hopefully my training time is another two weeks closer to being complete.
What was supposed to be a week-long towing event with for the Navy SEALS wound up being just a really
really really long one 24hr event due to high winds in the area we were going.
We (Jessie and Nick, the two other augment (training) mates) showed up at the Apache last Friday morning. From there, there really wasn’t much of anything to do, we had the whole weekend off. In fact, almost had the whole ship to ourselves. Most of the crew, from all the officers to most of the non-licensed crew live around the area and go home at 5pm and on weekends. It is pretty much just the watchstanders that stay aboard after quitting time. So I watched a lot of movies over the weekend and just kicked my feet up relaxing.
On Monday we did pre-two inspections. This consisted of making sure all the equipment we were going to be using on the Apache as well as everything on the Del Monte (the vessel we were towing) was in proper order and safe to use. Lots of boring but necessary paperwork.
The tow officially started at Tuesday at 4am. We shifted down a couple docks to the Del Monte, backed up to her, and hooked our synthetic Nylon 16 inch diameter towing hawser (like a big rope) up to Del Monte’s chain bridle. After getting the all clear around 6am we scooted on out of the harbor at Little Creek and out to the anchorage.
The trip out went smooth and took about 5 hours or so. We move along at about 6-8kts while towing the Del Monte about 650 ft behind us. With a normal tow (like the one coming up in Hawaii) we would normally tow about 2000 feet behind, but it was a short trip in traffic so we kept it up short.
After we got to the anchorage, we disconnected the tow and Del Monte dropped her anchor. From there we took Apache about a mile away and started doing drills…lots and lots of drills. We had to do them all as it is a requirement for our towing endorsement.
The first drill was man overboard (MOB) Where someone on the stern would throw two 20 gallon jugs tied together overboard and we (training mates) took turns conning the ship to maneuver beside the jugs to pick them back up with a grapple hook. We each did it 3 times. And let me tell you, I ACED it. I got the Apache right along side them at a dead stop every time. I’m becoming quite the ace at maneuvering twin screws. This isn’t really a big surprise, I mean; it is me we are talking about.
After that we practiced anchor drills, where we took turns conning from the bridge and dropping the anchor at the bow. Not a difficult exercise, pretty straight forward. The hardest part about this is letting go the anchor off the brake. When that anchor and chain gets moving, it really gets going. Every 90 feet of chain is called a shot, which is marked by one red painted link with the shot number painted in white links on either side. I.e. One shot is one red with one white link on either side, two shots is one red with 2 white links on either side. We were putting 2-3 shots out and catching those white links (which were pretty faded and rusted out) could be tough. But we did it like champs and moved on.
The next drill was an oil spill drill. We emptied about 200 gallons of black oil over the side of the ship and tried to clean it up. I’m joking, I’m joking! We just went over the equipment and how to use it and what not.
During this time the Navy SEALS were attacking and drilling on Del Monte. I can’t say any details, but it was very cool to watch them when we had the chance. They attacked by land and sea with incredible skill, precision, and equipment.
By the time all this was over it as about 5pm. We anchored for good and went to dinner. We were able to grab a couple hours of sleep and then it was time to get back to work preparing to tow Del Monte back in. We backed up to her around 9 pm and started to make tow. After the connection was made, Del Monte pulled up her hook and we waited for the all clear to proceed from the Navy. We started in about 11pm and disconnected outside the breakwater around 3am.
By that time we were all feeling the time and were pretty tired so we hauled ass to the dock, tied up as fast as we could and you’ve never seen a crew get to the rack quicker. I think I wound up in bed around 5am. A good day of hard work! It felt pretty good to do some hard work after months of really not doing much in other training.
So that was my time on the Apache. The rest of the time was spent pretty much sitting around again. I’m now sitting in the Norfolk airport waiting on my delayed flight to take me San Diego where I will get on the salvage tug Salvor. It is the same type of ship as the Grapple which I’ve done previous training on. We sit around for a week and then are towing a ship to Hawaii, making landfall the on Dec 7th. I’ll try do an update before then and post pictures from the Apache tow.
Til then, take care! Hakuna matata!
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Time To Get Busy
Well, a couple of few weeks have passed since my last posting. There really hasn't been too much going on. I finished my training back in New Jersey (aka armpit of America, I don't care if Bruce Springsteen lives nearby for the millionth time) (and FINALLY!). I'm am back in Virginia Beach, though only momentarily. I sat around in a building on Norfolk Navy Base we call the 'pool'. At the pool, you sit around and wait for your name to be called over a loudspeaker saying you got a ship. We watch a lot of movies and play a lot of cards there. It's pretty much like being in a senior center...which we are surrounded by plenty of. I think they have a padded room on standby...just in case.
It used to be you had to sit around the pool for a month or more before getting an assignment. Not so much now with the Holiday Season approaching. 8 Mates came down on Monday and we all have assignments. Well...5 have real ones and 3 of us are still in training more or less. I'm pretty envious of the 5 that got ships...they are going to Guam and Japan to join 3 different ships and are going to be making some serious bank.
For us unlucky 3? Its back to tow training. We are going to the Apache (mentioned in previous blog posts) for 6 days to do a tow for the Navy SEALS. We tow an old container ship/general cargo ship that the Navy used to operate offshore. Then the SEALS come out and attack with their helicopters and fast assault ships and practice taking over a ship. They also take turns playing good guy/bad guy on board. This all happens while we are towing the ship about 1000 feet behind us so they get a feel what its like to board a moving vessel. Its gonna be pretty cool. Though its gonna be crowded...there are already 2 extra mates on board for training and another one is coming over from another boat to practice towing. This all takes place of the coast of Virginia. The tug and tow ship are stationed in Little Creek, where some Navy SEAL teams are based.
After the SEAL tow, the 3 of us are flying out to San Diego and joining up with a T-ARS Salvage tug called the Salvor. Its the same type of boat that I did training on a few weeks ago. I'm not sure what we are towing, but we are taking something over to Pearl Harbor. Crawling along at about 8 kts or so (standard towing speed), we should make it there in 12-14 days. So that should be a little fun.
Once we get to Hawaii I have no clue whats going on, and the gal that was telling us our schedule has no idea what we are going to do. We will probably sit around in Pearl for a day or two, then one of two options happen. We will get orders to join another ship somewhere in the world, or we will be sent back to the pool to wait for orders for a ship. I have a bad feeling its the later, because 8 more mates are coming down from Jersey to get into the pool next Monday and I think the holiday reliefs are going to start slowing down. Regardless, I'll probably be on a ship somewhere by beginning to mid December.
So that's where I'm at. The jobs are going to be fun, though I'm still just a training/augment Mate. That's pretty frustrating, I just wanna work and do the job I was hired for. I'm about to enter month 4 of training. And I'm not crazy about the 2 I'm travelling with...they are more of the eager beavers that I've talked about previously. But hey, I got a job still and it pays alright. I'll get out there soon enough. Enough complaining! Life is still good!
I'll try to do a post after the first tow, I think that will be pretty interesting. If not, for sure after the second and lots of pics!
Thanks for reading!
It used to be you had to sit around the pool for a month or more before getting an assignment. Not so much now with the Holiday Season approaching. 8 Mates came down on Monday and we all have assignments. Well...5 have real ones and 3 of us are still in training more or less. I'm pretty envious of the 5 that got ships...they are going to Guam and Japan to join 3 different ships and are going to be making some serious bank.
For us unlucky 3? Its back to tow training. We are going to the Apache (mentioned in previous blog posts) for 6 days to do a tow for the Navy SEALS. We tow an old container ship/general cargo ship that the Navy used to operate offshore. Then the SEALS come out and attack with their helicopters and fast assault ships and practice taking over a ship. They also take turns playing good guy/bad guy on board. This all happens while we are towing the ship about 1000 feet behind us so they get a feel what its like to board a moving vessel. Its gonna be pretty cool. Though its gonna be crowded...there are already 2 extra mates on board for training and another one is coming over from another boat to practice towing. This all takes place of the coast of Virginia. The tug and tow ship are stationed in Little Creek, where some Navy SEAL teams are based.
After the SEAL tow, the 3 of us are flying out to San Diego and joining up with a T-ARS Salvage tug called the Salvor. Its the same type of boat that I did training on a few weeks ago. I'm not sure what we are towing, but we are taking something over to Pearl Harbor. Crawling along at about 8 kts or so (standard towing speed), we should make it there in 12-14 days. So that should be a little fun.
Once we get to Hawaii I have no clue whats going on, and the gal that was telling us our schedule has no idea what we are going to do. We will probably sit around in Pearl for a day or two, then one of two options happen. We will get orders to join another ship somewhere in the world, or we will be sent back to the pool to wait for orders for a ship. I have a bad feeling its the later, because 8 more mates are coming down from Jersey to get into the pool next Monday and I think the holiday reliefs are going to start slowing down. Regardless, I'll probably be on a ship somewhere by beginning to mid December.
So that's where I'm at. The jobs are going to be fun, though I'm still just a training/augment Mate. That's pretty frustrating, I just wanna work and do the job I was hired for. I'm about to enter month 4 of training. And I'm not crazy about the 2 I'm travelling with...they are more of the eager beavers that I've talked about previously. But hey, I got a job still and it pays alright. I'll get out there soon enough. Enough complaining! Life is still good!
I'll try to do a post after the first tow, I think that will be pretty interesting. If not, for sure after the second and lots of pics!
Thanks for reading!
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Grapple Time, Short Update
This will just be a short update about today, or relatively short I suppose.
Today the other 7 mates and I headed back out to Fort Little Creek to join the Grapple and get our hands dirty on some tug maneuvering. The slip where the tug lay was like a U-shape. Two finger piers (about 50 feet wide) jutted out about 300 feet into the water, with a breakwater making the _ of the 1_1 shaped pier.
We were docked on one side and the capt had us bring the tug out into the channel, spin her around 180 degrees and dock her pack on the right side (based on the 1_1 shaped diagram). Then, we had to walk her sideways to the opposite finger pier. At both piers we had to hold her at a stop fore-and-aft wise and keep the bow and stern pinned against the dock with engines, bow thruster, and rudders.
Facing the breakwater with the bow, the ship was on a rough heading of 003. In the morning when we showed up, the wind was blowing steady from roughly 208 degrees. Not too much wind to deal with, but certainly a factor. We were all standing on the bridge when the Capt asked 'Who wants to go first?"... immediately the 5 eager beavers leaped to get the first go. All are from the same school...Kingspoint...and get this feeling that everything has to be a compitition to one up the other. The other 3 of us are kinda just like....we all get a turn, we'll go whenever.
So the 5 went before breakfast. 3 came crashing into the dock and the Capt had to take over to keep it from colliding at too high a speed. The same 3 that thought the simulators were worthless training. The other two did alright. Then we broke for lunch.
During lunch the wind picked up. We got back underway and moving and the wind was coming at us at 25 kts wind gusting to 30. It doesn't sound like much, and 25 kts wind only equals 1 kt of current, but for someone who has never been in charge of a 250 twin screw boat....it might as well been a hurricane
Travis (SUNY guy) went first and did pretty good. I was the next batter up. Travis finished stern-in...so I just walked her to starboard and a put a little forward momentum in to the channel. I spun to starboard and went at the dock at a bit of an angle. I had to keep the bow thruster at 75% strength to port to keep the bow steady. I got about 30 feet away from the dock a little cockeyed and with the wind kicking the stern out (I was bow in), it took forever to walk the stern over without swinging the bow out...and even a harder to keep forward stern way off....but I got her in there.
Then walking the Grappel to to the starboard pier end was a piece of cake. With the wind howling it was just a matter of not getting blown over too fast. I put the engines stopped, flipped the rudder to port, and light thrust to starboard. With the wind on the port/port quarter, we were being blown at about 2 kts to starboard. The wind did all the work for me. When we got about 20 feet from the dock, I put the engine and rudders into a walk to port setting, to slow down the starboard walk...and eased into the dock perfectly at about .1 kts.
The 3rd and final person to take on the wind was Derien. She did a stellar job as well. After we tied her up for the day we all met with the Capt and he said overall the group did well....and said the last three of us did particullary well. He told me I had good common sense an instinct and with more practice I'd be great. So that made me pretty happy.
So that was my first time at the control of a twin screw ship...it was a lot of fun. I look forward to having my hand at the 225 Apache tomorrow. I'm gonna stop now...this has turned into more than a brief! I'll do another update tomorrow on the Apache.
Headed back to Jersey on Sunday!
I've already learned more about ship handling in 2 weeks here than in 4 years of being at A&M. Not sure if thats good. But if its any sign as to whats in store for me.....I can't wait to see where I'll be a year from now.
Thanks for reading....
Today the other 7 mates and I headed back out to Fort Little Creek to join the Grapple and get our hands dirty on some tug maneuvering. The slip where the tug lay was like a U-shape. Two finger piers (about 50 feet wide) jutted out about 300 feet into the water, with a breakwater making the _ of the 1_1 shaped pier.
We were docked on one side and the capt had us bring the tug out into the channel, spin her around 180 degrees and dock her pack on the right side (based on the 1_1 shaped diagram). Then, we had to walk her sideways to the opposite finger pier. At both piers we had to hold her at a stop fore-and-aft wise and keep the bow and stern pinned against the dock with engines, bow thruster, and rudders.
Facing the breakwater with the bow, the ship was on a rough heading of 003. In the morning when we showed up, the wind was blowing steady from roughly 208 degrees. Not too much wind to deal with, but certainly a factor. We were all standing on the bridge when the Capt asked 'Who wants to go first?"... immediately the 5 eager beavers leaped to get the first go. All are from the same school...Kingspoint...and get this feeling that everything has to be a compitition to one up the other. The other 3 of us are kinda just like....we all get a turn, we'll go whenever.
So the 5 went before breakfast. 3 came crashing into the dock and the Capt had to take over to keep it from colliding at too high a speed. The same 3 that thought the simulators were worthless training. The other two did alright. Then we broke for lunch.
During lunch the wind picked up. We got back underway and moving and the wind was coming at us at 25 kts wind gusting to 30. It doesn't sound like much, and 25 kts wind only equals 1 kt of current, but for someone who has never been in charge of a 250 twin screw boat....it might as well been a hurricane
Travis (SUNY guy) went first and did pretty good. I was the next batter up. Travis finished stern-in...so I just walked her to starboard and a put a little forward momentum in to the channel. I spun to starboard and went at the dock at a bit of an angle. I had to keep the bow thruster at 75% strength to port to keep the bow steady. I got about 30 feet away from the dock a little cockeyed and with the wind kicking the stern out (I was bow in), it took forever to walk the stern over without swinging the bow out...and even a harder to keep forward stern way off....but I got her in there.
Then walking the Grappel to to the starboard pier end was a piece of cake. With the wind howling it was just a matter of not getting blown over too fast. I put the engines stopped, flipped the rudder to port, and light thrust to starboard. With the wind on the port/port quarter, we were being blown at about 2 kts to starboard. The wind did all the work for me. When we got about 20 feet from the dock, I put the engine and rudders into a walk to port setting, to slow down the starboard walk...and eased into the dock perfectly at about .1 kts.
The 3rd and final person to take on the wind was Derien. She did a stellar job as well. After we tied her up for the day we all met with the Capt and he said overall the group did well....and said the last three of us did particullary well. He told me I had good common sense an instinct and with more practice I'd be great. So that made me pretty happy.
So that was my first time at the control of a twin screw ship...it was a lot of fun. I look forward to having my hand at the 225 Apache tomorrow. I'm gonna stop now...this has turned into more than a brief! I'll do another update tomorrow on the Apache.
Headed back to Jersey on Sunday!
I've already learned more about ship handling in 2 weeks here than in 4 years of being at A&M. Not sure if thats good. But if its any sign as to whats in store for me.....I can't wait to see where I'll be a year from now.
Thanks for reading....
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Just Call Me Short Straw
Wow I didn't realize how long its been since my last update. If feels like it was just last week or so, but I saw the date and now I'm like damn, that was like forever ago. Here's the lowdown rundown on what I've been up to.
Well, the good 'ol Govt got me. They got me good. I had to cancel my plane ticket home, show up for an unscheduled Saturday class (overtime 2 weeks in a row anyone?) and then take a bus down to Virginia Beach the following Sunday. Even I'm starting to get confused what state I'm in now, so if you're lost that makes a boat load of us. I'm in Virginia Beach, Va...for now.
So I am down here taking classes about Tugboat training. The official document I'm supposed to get is called a Towing Officer's Assessment Record and another called the Mate of Towing. The first one is a big book of things I have to do that a qualified officer has to sign me off as competent. These checklist include such things as backing up to a tow, maneuvering 'at the hip' (tying up alongside underway and moving the tow that way), towing a tow underway a while, etc etc etc. Not too terribly difficult stuff, though it does require a degree of skill.
However, on day one the Capt running the show said with a class as big as we are (8 new mates, 5-7 experiences Capts.) that there is now way we are all going to get all the sign offs. Go MSC! You continue to keep those 4 star employee relationship surveys coming your way....ha.
So for this training we were divided into two groups, the Capts in one and the new Mates in another. The first week the mates went on ship familiarization tours of the two tugs they have down here (more on that in a few) and then spent time in one simulator, while the Capts. went to the another simulator run by an outside company. Nothing real special about the week. Our simulator was an MSC, so low budget and it showed. But it did a good job and really taught us how to maneuver and manipulate a ship using twin screws and rudders and a bow thruster.
This week, the Capts and Mates switched. We (the mates ) went to Mid Atlantic Maritime Academy, an training facility for Merchant Mariners. They have a high end simulator there that we used to further practice driving similar ship that we would be driving later in the week. We mainly practiced docking and picking up tows in various winds and currents. My favorite things is where you 'walk' the tug. You literally make the tug move sideways instead of forward and aft.
If it makes any sense here's how you do it. Go forward on the engine in the direction you are going (so if you want to walk to port, forward on the port engine) and opposite on the other engine. Put the bow thruster on about 25% in the direction you want to go...if the stern starts dragging, rudders over in the opposite direction you want to go. Kinda complicated, but so much fun! Some tugs are balanced enough between engines and rudders that you don't need a thruster...but not the ones we are using.
I was a little shaky at first....but at the end of simulator time on Tuesday...I was acing it. What can I say...I'm da masta..it just comes natural.
I suppose I'll pause and do a brief descrip. on the boats.
The main one we are using is called the USNS Grappel. It is 255 ft long and used as a salvage/rescue tug. This means that towing was designed as its secondary job. Its primary job is to get wrecks of the bottom of ocean, get Navy deep sea divers where they need to go and assist in their job, and rescue ships before they become salvage ships. It handles like a Ferrari and looks a bit brutish.
The other boat is the Apache. It is 225 and 100% meant for towing astern. It tows Submarines, is the designated sub rescue ship on the East Coast, and does general towing for anything the Navy needs. One of the things it does is tow an old out of use MSC ship out a few miles offshore where the Navy Seals come and practice taking it over. It also tows ships out for target practice. I like the Grappel more....smoother ride, sexier boat, funner jobs, and handles way better.
So now its Wed. The idea was that everyone (Capts and Mates) were going to take turns backing the Grappel up to the Apache and taking it in tow. Since there were so many of us, and the maneuver takes time, only the Capts. were able to get turns. The Mates took turns being out on deck making and breaking tow (doing the actual hook up to the tow line) and taking turns on the throttle and thruster controls. I don't mind not getting a turn, it was blowing about 20-25 kts out in Thimble Shoals and even the Capts were having a hard time battling the wind and keeping the tug steady when they needed it.
It was coming to the end of the day, and the Capt goes 'How 'bout we let one of the new mates take her home'. We have a couple of lets say really eager beavers in our group...who couldnt get to the Capt fast enough and beat the other out for the spot. I was on the throttles busy taking orders from a Capt who was finishing up backing to the Apache (he was one of the Capts. that interviewed and hired me incidently.). I was a little on the fence about getting the chance.
The way I looked at it...I knew I could do it, buuut there were 12 Capts on the bridge, all with 20+ yrs experience and 8 other new mates. Lots of Type A personallities and judgments going on. And the Capt that hired me was there, not really the time I wanna make a mistake. I wanted to save that for tomorrow. Well, the Capt, after taking a step back from the eager beavers decided the mates should draw straws, and the short one wins. And who gets it....THIS GUY. Of course I would get the short straw. It was almost comical. Needless to say, there wee some angry beavers.
The last Capt finished up and the Grappel Capt decided to let person with next shortest straw get us to the channel (a girl who also wasn't the most eager to go in front of all the Capts.) She opened up the throttles and got us to the channel a few miles away, which cruising at 14 kts happened quick. The max speed is about 16 knts. She got us into the channel and did an excellent job of it.
So I take over, put her on the range and start on in. This 250 ft. 'boat' just got big....really big. I just did what I was taught and guided her in, having to compensate for a beam wind and adjoining flooding current. The way we went through a narrow part of the channel, I had to put her at about a 25 degrees cock-eyed in the channel to keep her going forward. So we looked diagonal in the channel going at an angle, but were really going straight. I know, it sounds confusing.
I came roaring in there at 12 knots. The faster you go, the easier it is to maneuver. Once we got into the harbor I dropped down to slow ahead, which got the engines down to about 5 kts. Unlike huge ships, once I slowed the engines, the Grappel was moving at 5 kts in about a 1-1.5 min. I moved her down the harbor, around a narrow bend beautifully. I could feel all eyes on me...I was def started to sweat. I stopped the Grappel in the channel right off the intended dock and right on range....perfect job. From there, Capt Bush (the Capt that interviewed me) took over and backed her in. I was pretty pleased when the Capt said I did a good job. After we got all tied up and called it a day, the crew dragged a cooler full of beer onto the dock and the Capt and crew joined us for a cold one...perfect day! (No drinking on ships, but you can drink on the pier next to it!)
So tomorrow the Mates go on the Grappel and the Capts on the Apache. There we take turns doing 'bump and goes'. Everyone will take turns being in command and practice docking the ship and then pulling away from the dock, without tossing up mooring lines. Just bump up against the dock and go. I'm pretty excited because the ship handles just like I expected and it makes things so easy. I just have to be careful about walking into the dock...I do it more at a jog. I don't move forward or astern, which is what a lot of people have problems at...I just bumped the doc at about 3-3.5 knots. I'd say ideal is no mrore than a knot. It should be an easy fix...especially since the 20 knot wind is expected to hold force and position...which is blowing us off the dock. Friday the Capts and Mates switch boats and I'll do the same thing just on the Apache.
So that is my super lengthy entry. I'll post pics with captions shortly. Amy has to show me how to get it going. I'll post some on FB if you just can't wait!
Thanks for reading!
p.s. I did proof read this one mostly. I hate reading my own writing, so I got about 3/4 the way through and decided it left me a good goal to set to make it all the way next time. Here are a few pics, will post a slideshow when I learn how to!
The first pic is me on the Grappel with the Apache in the distance.
Second is of me on the pier with the Grappel in the background.
Third is of Apache making a pass
The 4th is of the Apache off our stern. We had just finished making tow and were paying out the hawser (tow rope, didn't use wire today). The Apache was about 30-40 feet closer while we made tow. About 20-30 feet of our stern total.
Well, the good 'ol Govt got me. They got me good. I had to cancel my plane ticket home, show up for an unscheduled Saturday class (overtime 2 weeks in a row anyone?) and then take a bus down to Virginia Beach the following Sunday. Even I'm starting to get confused what state I'm in now, so if you're lost that makes a boat load of us. I'm in Virginia Beach, Va...for now.
So I am down here taking classes about Tugboat training. The official document I'm supposed to get is called a Towing Officer's Assessment Record and another called the Mate of Towing. The first one is a big book of things I have to do that a qualified officer has to sign me off as competent. These checklist include such things as backing up to a tow, maneuvering 'at the hip' (tying up alongside underway and moving the tow that way), towing a tow underway a while, etc etc etc. Not too terribly difficult stuff, though it does require a degree of skill.
However, on day one the Capt running the show said with a class as big as we are (8 new mates, 5-7 experiences Capts.) that there is now way we are all going to get all the sign offs. Go MSC! You continue to keep those 4 star employee relationship surveys coming your way....ha.
So for this training we were divided into two groups, the Capts in one and the new Mates in another. The first week the mates went on ship familiarization tours of the two tugs they have down here (more on that in a few) and then spent time in one simulator, while the Capts. went to the another simulator run by an outside company. Nothing real special about the week. Our simulator was an MSC, so low budget and it showed. But it did a good job and really taught us how to maneuver and manipulate a ship using twin screws and rudders and a bow thruster.
This week, the Capts and Mates switched. We (the mates ) went to Mid Atlantic Maritime Academy, an training facility for Merchant Mariners. They have a high end simulator there that we used to further practice driving similar ship that we would be driving later in the week. We mainly practiced docking and picking up tows in various winds and currents. My favorite things is where you 'walk' the tug. You literally make the tug move sideways instead of forward and aft.
If it makes any sense here's how you do it. Go forward on the engine in the direction you are going (so if you want to walk to port, forward on the port engine) and opposite on the other engine. Put the bow thruster on about 25% in the direction you want to go...if the stern starts dragging, rudders over in the opposite direction you want to go. Kinda complicated, but so much fun! Some tugs are balanced enough between engines and rudders that you don't need a thruster...but not the ones we are using.
I was a little shaky at first....but at the end of simulator time on Tuesday...I was acing it. What can I say...I'm da masta..it just comes natural.
I suppose I'll pause and do a brief descrip. on the boats.
The main one we are using is called the USNS Grappel. It is 255 ft long and used as a salvage/rescue tug. This means that towing was designed as its secondary job. Its primary job is to get wrecks of the bottom of ocean, get Navy deep sea divers where they need to go and assist in their job, and rescue ships before they become salvage ships. It handles like a Ferrari and looks a bit brutish.
The other boat is the Apache. It is 225 and 100% meant for towing astern. It tows Submarines, is the designated sub rescue ship on the East Coast, and does general towing for anything the Navy needs. One of the things it does is tow an old out of use MSC ship out a few miles offshore where the Navy Seals come and practice taking it over. It also tows ships out for target practice. I like the Grappel more....smoother ride, sexier boat, funner jobs, and handles way better.
So now its Wed. The idea was that everyone (Capts and Mates) were going to take turns backing the Grappel up to the Apache and taking it in tow. Since there were so many of us, and the maneuver takes time, only the Capts. were able to get turns. The Mates took turns being out on deck making and breaking tow (doing the actual hook up to the tow line) and taking turns on the throttle and thruster controls. I don't mind not getting a turn, it was blowing about 20-25 kts out in Thimble Shoals and even the Capts were having a hard time battling the wind and keeping the tug steady when they needed it.
It was coming to the end of the day, and the Capt goes 'How 'bout we let one of the new mates take her home'. We have a couple of lets say really eager beavers in our group...who couldnt get to the Capt fast enough and beat the other out for the spot. I was on the throttles busy taking orders from a Capt who was finishing up backing to the Apache (he was one of the Capts. that interviewed and hired me incidently.). I was a little on the fence about getting the chance.
The way I looked at it...I knew I could do it, buuut there were 12 Capts on the bridge, all with 20+ yrs experience and 8 other new mates. Lots of Type A personallities and judgments going on. And the Capt that hired me was there, not really the time I wanna make a mistake. I wanted to save that for tomorrow. Well, the Capt, after taking a step back from the eager beavers decided the mates should draw straws, and the short one wins. And who gets it....THIS GUY. Of course I would get the short straw. It was almost comical. Needless to say, there wee some angry beavers.
The last Capt finished up and the Grappel Capt decided to let person with next shortest straw get us to the channel (a girl who also wasn't the most eager to go in front of all the Capts.) She opened up the throttles and got us to the channel a few miles away, which cruising at 14 kts happened quick. The max speed is about 16 knts. She got us into the channel and did an excellent job of it.
So I take over, put her on the range and start on in. This 250 ft. 'boat' just got big....really big. I just did what I was taught and guided her in, having to compensate for a beam wind and adjoining flooding current. The way we went through a narrow part of the channel, I had to put her at about a 25 degrees cock-eyed in the channel to keep her going forward. So we looked diagonal in the channel going at an angle, but were really going straight. I know, it sounds confusing.
I came roaring in there at 12 knots. The faster you go, the easier it is to maneuver. Once we got into the harbor I dropped down to slow ahead, which got the engines down to about 5 kts. Unlike huge ships, once I slowed the engines, the Grappel was moving at 5 kts in about a 1-1.5 min. I moved her down the harbor, around a narrow bend beautifully. I could feel all eyes on me...I was def started to sweat. I stopped the Grappel in the channel right off the intended dock and right on range....perfect job. From there, Capt Bush (the Capt that interviewed me) took over and backed her in. I was pretty pleased when the Capt said I did a good job. After we got all tied up and called it a day, the crew dragged a cooler full of beer onto the dock and the Capt and crew joined us for a cold one...perfect day! (No drinking on ships, but you can drink on the pier next to it!)
So tomorrow the Mates go on the Grappel and the Capts on the Apache. There we take turns doing 'bump and goes'. Everyone will take turns being in command and practice docking the ship and then pulling away from the dock, without tossing up mooring lines. Just bump up against the dock and go. I'm pretty excited because the ship handles just like I expected and it makes things so easy. I just have to be careful about walking into the dock...I do it more at a jog. I don't move forward or astern, which is what a lot of people have problems at...I just bumped the doc at about 3-3.5 knots. I'd say ideal is no mrore than a knot. It should be an easy fix...especially since the 20 knot wind is expected to hold force and position...which is blowing us off the dock. Friday the Capts and Mates switch boats and I'll do the same thing just on the Apache.
So that is my super lengthy entry. I'll post pics with captions shortly. Amy has to show me how to get it going. I'll post some on FB if you just can't wait!
Thanks for reading!
p.s. I did proof read this one mostly. I hate reading my own writing, so I got about 3/4 the way through and decided it left me a good goal to set to make it all the way next time. Here are a few pics, will post a slideshow when I learn how to!
The first pic is me on the Grappel with the Apache in the distance.
Second is of me on the pier with the Grappel in the background.
Third is of Apache making a pass
The 4th is of the Apache off our stern. We had just finished making tow and were paying out the hawser (tow rope, didn't use wire today). The Apache was about 30-40 feet closer while we made tow. About 20-30 feet of our stern total.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Living Fast, Feeling Slow
It feels like two more weeks have past, but its only been one. I guess time finally seems to be slowing down to to warp speed.
Last week's class of Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Officer Course was pretty rough. We could have covered all the material in 3.5 days but had to beat the dead horse again and drag it out over 6. There is a lot of saying things three different ways, but it really pounds it into your skull nicely. No way I could forget this stuff.
We learned all about the different types of chem and bio weapons that are out there and how to best defend and protect ourselves from them....which there really isn't much you can do except put on a groovy suit and tuck your head between your legs. Its a scary world out there folks. Hopefully I'll never have to use this stuff in real life. On Saturday (overtime!!) we staged a mock drill where we were under attack (the instructors chose VX nerve gas and weaponized small pox). We had to get all decked out in our suits and gas masks, wait for the attack to end, then go out and recover casualties and decontaminate the scene. It was a fun exercise and we learned a lot, but being in that suit for 4 hours was pretty brutal, even for the brutes.
Since we are federal employees, we had Monday off and decided to take advantage of what was left of the 3 day weekend. Liz (a 3rd officer from Mass Maritime), Harry, and I took a train up to New York City, not really sure of our intentions. Liz went off to Queens to see a cousin while Harry and I went in search of something to do. We walked around Times Square and over to Central Park and just kinda mosied around the streets stopping for hotdogs from street vendors every now and then. I don't know how they do it, but those are the best hotdogs I've ever had.
Soon enough it was dark and we decided to go bar hopping and mingle with the local yokals. I decided to see if we could find the bar that is the basis for the bar in the CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother. A quick search on the Googleberry and we found it. I was pretty surprised, and it was close to use too...a few blocks out of Times Square. The bar was called McGee's Pub and was a pretty cozy place, and packed with people too.
Short side note. NYC during the day and NYC at night are two polar opposites. At night its bustling, touristy, and people are going about their business. At night, all hell breaks loose! The bright lights and flashing neon billboards are blinding, there are people everywhere, excitement is in the air and broadway is going on. It's time to party!
Anyways, we went to the bar and started to watch the Rangers-Tigers game and chatted with the locals. A sudden thought popped in my head and I texted Anna Hiort (an old family friend) to see what she was up to. Sure enough she told me to come on out to the Lower East Side where it was going off. We met her, her fiance Sean, and a couple friends at a bar called Verlaines. It was a really classy place, packed with the 20-something generation, and happy hour 'til 11pm. We fit right in. We hung out there drinking potent Lycheetinis (I know weird sounding but so good!) After an hour or so of that we went to another bar a block away to see an indy type band that Anna and Sean new the lead singers. It was a great band, and it was great to jam out to live music. We stayed around and did a little dancing to a few more bands too.
After that it we all called it a night and headed our separate ways. We caught a late night burger and headed back to Jersey.
On Sunday, on a natural high from having the night of nights in New York City, we decided to give Philly a try out. We caught the train up there and pulled in mid afternoon where we met Uncle Brian. The train dropped us smack in the middle of downtown and we were immediately blown away by the gorgeous architecture and thrilled with streets that we could walk down without having to thread the needle with a million other people like in NYC.
Brain walked us down to McGillen's, Philly's oldest pub, founded the year Lincoln became president. Man if those walls could talk! We stayed there and chatted over a beer and Brian went on his way. Harry and I stuck around for cheese-steaks and nachos (a glorious, artery-clogging combo!). We loved it there, but had to get out and do some exploring. So we got off the bar stools and set out on foot with no destination in mind. We walked by the area where the Liberty Bell was and to a few other places that I recognized out of the National Treasure.
Around 9 we started back for McGillen's and karaoke, which I happen to be a semi-professional at. We walked in and were amazed at how busy it was for a Sunday night, and loved it! The bartenders were hilarious, and there were lots of pretty girls that loved to dance...my forte! I think between the dancing and the singing I was on the stage more than I was off. Thankfully, Brian's girlfriend Heather offered us her apt for the night and we graciously accepted. Thank you so much again if you are reading this Heather! We left the bar around 1:30-2am and called it a night while we were still ahead of the game. Philly completely blew us away, we had a great night and can't wait to go back!!
We took the train back to Jersey on Monday (after the fun filled weekend it was a little depressing) and got ready for the week ahead. It was the best weekend I've had since being here.
Today we started OHE (ordinance handling....something? Not sure about that E). Basically, we are learning all about underway replenishment and how to handle bombs and what not. Its a ton of info packed into four days....and its not the most exciting stuff either. Kinda a let down, the course sounded pretty fun.
And here comes the bad news.....
I was SUPPOSED to be flying to Dallas this Friday, but it is all up in the air now. MSC is/was cutting our traiining short here for a week and going to send us to Norfolk Sunday for Tugboat certifications and training for two weeks. No big deal...Harry, Liz, (both had trips booked and were flying into Philly too) and I were going to rent a car back to Norfolk Sunday when we landed.
However, now we are having to come in this Saturday for a Fall Protection Rescue class that we were supposed to do on Tuesday, but its been moved back since we are not going to be here. However, MSC is saying after we go to VA for our weeks of Tug training, we have to come back to NJ to make up for that last week of training we are missing.
Why can't we wait a week and finish here? Why cant we take that class during that week we come back like all the other classes we are scheduled to miss? I don't know. I think it makes way too much sense for them. So 11 of us are sitting in limbo, having no idea what lies in store for the coming weeks....but a trip to Dallas is not looking like its in the cards. That tug class would be the 17th-30th by the way.
Pretty frustrating, they are probably going to wait until the last minute (as usual) to tell us. I have until Thursday night to put my ticket in for an exchange, though it'll cost me 150 bones when I use the voucher to get a new ticket. Oh well, cue the circus music and let the game play on. At least I'm lucky enough to be employed.
I'll update when I know what my future holds.
Smooth Sailing,
Last week's class of Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Officer Course was pretty rough. We could have covered all the material in 3.5 days but had to beat the dead horse again and drag it out over 6. There is a lot of saying things three different ways, but it really pounds it into your skull nicely. No way I could forget this stuff.
We learned all about the different types of chem and bio weapons that are out there and how to best defend and protect ourselves from them....which there really isn't much you can do except put on a groovy suit and tuck your head between your legs. Its a scary world out there folks. Hopefully I'll never have to use this stuff in real life. On Saturday (overtime!!) we staged a mock drill where we were under attack (the instructors chose VX nerve gas and weaponized small pox). We had to get all decked out in our suits and gas masks, wait for the attack to end, then go out and recover casualties and decontaminate the scene. It was a fun exercise and we learned a lot, but being in that suit for 4 hours was pretty brutal, even for the brutes.
Since we are federal employees, we had Monday off and decided to take advantage of what was left of the 3 day weekend. Liz (a 3rd officer from Mass Maritime), Harry, and I took a train up to New York City, not really sure of our intentions. Liz went off to Queens to see a cousin while Harry and I went in search of something to do. We walked around Times Square and over to Central Park and just kinda mosied around the streets stopping for hotdogs from street vendors every now and then. I don't know how they do it, but those are the best hotdogs I've ever had.
Soon enough it was dark and we decided to go bar hopping and mingle with the local yokals. I decided to see if we could find the bar that is the basis for the bar in the CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother. A quick search on the Googleberry and we found it. I was pretty surprised, and it was close to use too...a few blocks out of Times Square. The bar was called McGee's Pub and was a pretty cozy place, and packed with people too.
Short side note. NYC during the day and NYC at night are two polar opposites. At night its bustling, touristy, and people are going about their business. At night, all hell breaks loose! The bright lights and flashing neon billboards are blinding, there are people everywhere, excitement is in the air and broadway is going on. It's time to party!
Anyways, we went to the bar and started to watch the Rangers-Tigers game and chatted with the locals. A sudden thought popped in my head and I texted Anna Hiort (an old family friend) to see what she was up to. Sure enough she told me to come on out to the Lower East Side where it was going off. We met her, her fiance Sean, and a couple friends at a bar called Verlaines. It was a really classy place, packed with the 20-something generation, and happy hour 'til 11pm. We fit right in. We hung out there drinking potent Lycheetinis (I know weird sounding but so good!) After an hour or so of that we went to another bar a block away to see an indy type band that Anna and Sean new the lead singers. It was a great band, and it was great to jam out to live music. We stayed around and did a little dancing to a few more bands too.
After that it we all called it a night and headed our separate ways. We caught a late night burger and headed back to Jersey.
On Sunday, on a natural high from having the night of nights in New York City, we decided to give Philly a try out. We caught the train up there and pulled in mid afternoon where we met Uncle Brian. The train dropped us smack in the middle of downtown and we were immediately blown away by the gorgeous architecture and thrilled with streets that we could walk down without having to thread the needle with a million other people like in NYC.
Brain walked us down to McGillen's, Philly's oldest pub, founded the year Lincoln became president. Man if those walls could talk! We stayed there and chatted over a beer and Brian went on his way. Harry and I stuck around for cheese-steaks and nachos (a glorious, artery-clogging combo!). We loved it there, but had to get out and do some exploring. So we got off the bar stools and set out on foot with no destination in mind. We walked by the area where the Liberty Bell was and to a few other places that I recognized out of the National Treasure.
Around 9 we started back for McGillen's and karaoke, which I happen to be a semi-professional at. We walked in and were amazed at how busy it was for a Sunday night, and loved it! The bartenders were hilarious, and there were lots of pretty girls that loved to dance...my forte! I think between the dancing and the singing I was on the stage more than I was off. Thankfully, Brian's girlfriend Heather offered us her apt for the night and we graciously accepted. Thank you so much again if you are reading this Heather! We left the bar around 1:30-2am and called it a night while we were still ahead of the game. Philly completely blew us away, we had a great night and can't wait to go back!!
We took the train back to Jersey on Monday (after the fun filled weekend it was a little depressing) and got ready for the week ahead. It was the best weekend I've had since being here.
Today we started OHE (ordinance handling....something? Not sure about that E). Basically, we are learning all about underway replenishment and how to handle bombs and what not. Its a ton of info packed into four days....and its not the most exciting stuff either. Kinda a let down, the course sounded pretty fun.
And here comes the bad news.....
I was SUPPOSED to be flying to Dallas this Friday, but it is all up in the air now. MSC is/was cutting our traiining short here for a week and going to send us to Norfolk Sunday for Tugboat certifications and training for two weeks. No big deal...Harry, Liz, (both had trips booked and were flying into Philly too) and I were going to rent a car back to Norfolk Sunday when we landed.
However, now we are having to come in this Saturday for a Fall Protection Rescue class that we were supposed to do on Tuesday, but its been moved back since we are not going to be here. However, MSC is saying after we go to VA for our weeks of Tug training, we have to come back to NJ to make up for that last week of training we are missing.
Why can't we wait a week and finish here? Why cant we take that class during that week we come back like all the other classes we are scheduled to miss? I don't know. I think it makes way too much sense for them. So 11 of us are sitting in limbo, having no idea what lies in store for the coming weeks....but a trip to Dallas is not looking like its in the cards. That tug class would be the 17th-30th by the way.
Pretty frustrating, they are probably going to wait until the last minute (as usual) to tell us. I have until Thursday night to put my ticket in for an exchange, though it'll cost me 150 bones when I use the voucher to get a new ticket. Oh well, cue the circus music and let the game play on. At least I'm lucky enough to be employed.
I'll update when I know what my future holds.
Smooth Sailing,
Monday, October 3, 2011
Two Week Recap
Well, another two weeks has flown by and I'm diving headfirst into my fifth (I think? I've lost track of the weeks) of training here in New Jersey.
Week Three:
Week three was a continuation of the small arms course. We spent most of the week sitting through awful powerpoints over anti-terrorism and how to defend against a hostile threat to the ship. We were drilled over the use of deadly force and the limited circumstances we could use it in.
What we were all waiting for was Friday. Thats when we got to shoot each other! We were divided into teams of 6 and took turns running scenarios where one team were terrorists and the other good guys. We used in a burn house (a simulated house used by firefighters to train putting out fires) to defend/attack. The 'terrorists' would be positioned inside the house while the 'good guys' had to form a plan and attack and take over the terrorists. The weapons we were using were Beretta 9mm and firing 'simunition'. It was a real gun, capable of firing live ammo, but instead we loaded bullets with soap tips that exploded on impact. That way we weren't harmed. We were also wearing heavily padded suits and full face masks for protection. Unless a round it your hand, you could hardly feel yourself getting shot.
I was point man on all our scenarios, first in the door. This means I got shot.....a lot. But I was also able to get my fair share of shots in on the opponents. We ran 4 scenerious, with each team playing good guy/bad guy twice. The fifth and final scenario was the best. We were given permission to do anything we wanted. My team were the bad guys, so we barricaded doors and set up ambushes for the good guys to be funneled into. We also took off our day-glow crossing guard vests which identified us as bad guys. Meanwhile, the good guys were given the go ahead to do anything as well (each team didn't know the other could do anything). So we had to quickly change plans when they started coming in doors and windows we weren't prepared for. It was lots of fun. Its not everyday you get to shoot that annoying coworker that just pushes those buttons!
Anyways, as fun as it was, we still learned a lot about how to defend and attack against opposing forces on ships, something I really hope I never have to do. I'll let the Marines deal with that stuff.
Week 4:
Well, the fun and games of guns are now over and behind us. Time to roll up the sleeves and get to work. Week four covered first aid and survival, something that has been pounded into our brains day in and day out for the last four years. Never such a thing as too much training, right?
Mon-Thru days were brutally dull power points. Its like they are testing the human limit to stay awake and tolerate painful presentations. We went over everything from cuts and cpr...to what do if you are bobbing in the water after your ship sinks. I wish there was something exciting I could report, but there isn't.
On Fri we went nearby to Ft. Dix joint forces base to use their pool. There had to demonstrate proper use of immersion suits (a.k.a. gumby suits), life jackets, and life rafts. The gumby suits are big red suits that are designed to keep a person warm in cold/extreme cold water after abandoning ship. While they don't prevent death from occurring, they certainly buy the user more time while waiting for rescue...ranging from 50-80% more time than without a survival suit. We had to get in the water and form chains and huddles that we would use as a group in real world situations. We did the same thing with the life jackets.
For the life rafts, we had to right an upended life raft by climbing on it and pulling on straps. Then once righted, we all (we took turns doing this with teams of 6) got in and practiced what we would do if this was real. Paddle from danger, set a sea anchor, take sea sickness pills, assign duties, etc, etc. It was a nice change of pace from the classroom, and we got to have some fun in a pool!
So now I'm in week 5. We are doing the Chemical, Biological, Radiological Defense Officer course. We get to learn about all the goodies like nerve gas, blood agents, weaponized small pox, and sorts of goodies that will really mess a person up and how to defend against them. There really isn't much you can do to defend against them except wait it out in a way that is specific to the attack. Then you gotta put on some fancy suits and go and super clean the area. The main thing used to cleans is HGH mixed with a bit of detergent. HGH is like super strong bleach. A few drops of it and it can burn straight through your arm. It's crazy potent and does a hell of a job getting rid of chemical and biological agents. This is one of the most important classes we are taking here.
It is a whole lot of information to absorb at one time, and its one of the few things that are having us perk up and keep the drool from running. We do this all week and then come in on Saturday and stage a mock attack and defend against it and clean up after it. Its stinks we have to come in on Saturday, esp since its a 3 day weekend. It would have been nice to fly to Dallas this weekend. But, at 40 bucks an hour of overtime all day, I'm not complaining to much!
Thats about all I got. On a side note, MSC is putting mates out on ships as fast as they can get them through training. A few people cycled back to the pool over the last few weeks and all are now on ships, waiting around in Virginia for only 2 weeks or less. Its kinda exciting and a little unnerving that I could be on a ship as a 3rd officer in 5 weeks from now! I'm not too worried, I'm gonna be awesome!
Thanks for reading!
Week Three:
Week three was a continuation of the small arms course. We spent most of the week sitting through awful powerpoints over anti-terrorism and how to defend against a hostile threat to the ship. We were drilled over the use of deadly force and the limited circumstances we could use it in.
What we were all waiting for was Friday. Thats when we got to shoot each other! We were divided into teams of 6 and took turns running scenarios where one team were terrorists and the other good guys. We used in a burn house (a simulated house used by firefighters to train putting out fires) to defend/attack. The 'terrorists' would be positioned inside the house while the 'good guys' had to form a plan and attack and take over the terrorists. The weapons we were using were Beretta 9mm and firing 'simunition'. It was a real gun, capable of firing live ammo, but instead we loaded bullets with soap tips that exploded on impact. That way we weren't harmed. We were also wearing heavily padded suits and full face masks for protection. Unless a round it your hand, you could hardly feel yourself getting shot.
I was point man on all our scenarios, first in the door. This means I got shot.....a lot. But I was also able to get my fair share of shots in on the opponents. We ran 4 scenerious, with each team playing good guy/bad guy twice. The fifth and final scenario was the best. We were given permission to do anything we wanted. My team were the bad guys, so we barricaded doors and set up ambushes for the good guys to be funneled into. We also took off our day-glow crossing guard vests which identified us as bad guys. Meanwhile, the good guys were given the go ahead to do anything as well (each team didn't know the other could do anything). So we had to quickly change plans when they started coming in doors and windows we weren't prepared for. It was lots of fun. Its not everyday you get to shoot that annoying coworker that just pushes those buttons!
Anyways, as fun as it was, we still learned a lot about how to defend and attack against opposing forces on ships, something I really hope I never have to do. I'll let the Marines deal with that stuff.
Week 4:
Well, the fun and games of guns are now over and behind us. Time to roll up the sleeves and get to work. Week four covered first aid and survival, something that has been pounded into our brains day in and day out for the last four years. Never such a thing as too much training, right?
Mon-Thru days were brutally dull power points. Its like they are testing the human limit to stay awake and tolerate painful presentations. We went over everything from cuts and cpr...to what do if you are bobbing in the water after your ship sinks. I wish there was something exciting I could report, but there isn't.
On Fri we went nearby to Ft. Dix joint forces base to use their pool. There had to demonstrate proper use of immersion suits (a.k.a. gumby suits), life jackets, and life rafts. The gumby suits are big red suits that are designed to keep a person warm in cold/extreme cold water after abandoning ship. While they don't prevent death from occurring, they certainly buy the user more time while waiting for rescue...ranging from 50-80% more time than without a survival suit. We had to get in the water and form chains and huddles that we would use as a group in real world situations. We did the same thing with the life jackets.
For the life rafts, we had to right an upended life raft by climbing on it and pulling on straps. Then once righted, we all (we took turns doing this with teams of 6) got in and practiced what we would do if this was real. Paddle from danger, set a sea anchor, take sea sickness pills, assign duties, etc, etc. It was a nice change of pace from the classroom, and we got to have some fun in a pool!
So now I'm in week 5. We are doing the Chemical, Biological, Radiological Defense Officer course. We get to learn about all the goodies like nerve gas, blood agents, weaponized small pox, and sorts of goodies that will really mess a person up and how to defend against them. There really isn't much you can do to defend against them except wait it out in a way that is specific to the attack. Then you gotta put on some fancy suits and go and super clean the area. The main thing used to cleans is HGH mixed with a bit of detergent. HGH is like super strong bleach. A few drops of it and it can burn straight through your arm. It's crazy potent and does a hell of a job getting rid of chemical and biological agents. This is one of the most important classes we are taking here.
It is a whole lot of information to absorb at one time, and its one of the few things that are having us perk up and keep the drool from running. We do this all week and then come in on Saturday and stage a mock attack and defend against it and clean up after it. Its stinks we have to come in on Saturday, esp since its a 3 day weekend. It would have been nice to fly to Dallas this weekend. But, at 40 bucks an hour of overtime all day, I'm not complaining to much!
Thats about all I got. On a side note, MSC is putting mates out on ships as fast as they can get them through training. A few people cycled back to the pool over the last few weeks and all are now on ships, waiting around in Virginia for only 2 weeks or less. Its kinda exciting and a little unnerving that I could be on a ship as a 3rd officer in 5 weeks from now! I'm not too worried, I'm gonna be awesome!
Thanks for reading!
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Wrapping Up and Catching Up
Whew- It has been a wild past two weeks. In some ways they have dragged on and in others it has flown by.
The first officially week of training wasn't really anything special, at least from the view of the trainees going through it. It consisted of firefighting and damage control, something that has been drilled into us over and over and over again the past four years of school. We went through all the different types of fires and techniques to extinguish them. After a few days of class (and painfully dull powerpoints) we went out into the compound where there was a mock ship with an engine inside of it.
From there, the instructors lit up the fires and we went in in teams of 4 (two groups of two people on 1 1/2 inch hoses) and fought the blaze and put it out. The worst part of it was standing around the heat in full firefighting gear sweating waiting our turn. Fighting the actual fire wasn't bad at all, my crew and I got it out pretty quick. I have noticed that at every single place I've gone and done firefighting (Cal Maritime, Texas A&M College Station, Texas A&M Galv, and now here) a different air pack called a self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) is used and rigged totally differently. This is kinda frustrating having to learn a new pack everytime, but on the bright side, I think I've learned how to use every pack in use in ship board firefighting.
This past week of training was probably the funnest week we'll have here....we got to shoot guns!! We had to shoot and qualify using the Navy standard test on the 9mm Beretta Hand gun, M14 semi-auto rifle, and the 12 gauge shotgun. We would spend half a day learning the weapon. We had to learn of course how to use it properly, disassemble/assemble the weapon, etc. Then, the next half of the day we spent shooting the gun.
We shot the pistol at ranges of 3, 7, and 15 yards. We were required to draw the pistol from the holster and fire of various amounts of rounds in various time frames. Some of the shooting sequences we also had to reload. I've never shot a pistol before and from what I've heard it can be tough, but I didn't have a problem with it at all. The toughest part was that it was rigged for a righty, and so some the magazine release button and the slide forward switch were kinda tricky and awkward to get at. I qualified with a score of 210 out 280...a sharpshooter on the Navy scale I think. A score of 180 was required to qualify.
The M14 was the gun I was most nervous about, because we had all been hearing it had a horrible kick and it was difficult to qualify for. However, it was quite the opposite. We shot from 25 yards in prone, kneeling, and standing positions. However, the target we were using was scaled down so even though we were 25 yards, the target looked as it would at 200. It made it a tad bit hard to see. We went through the course twice and I think we fired a total of 400 rounds each (we had some freebies to use to get sited in and whatnot). While shooting, I could tell when I missed wide a couple times, but when you shoot inside the rings (there are 2 rings with a dark bulls eye circle in the middle) its hard to tell how well you are doing. In order to qualify, we had to hit the bulls eye pretty consistently. I was pretty nervous when we finished and were standing at the 25 yard line looking at the target. But when we got up close, I saw that I had blown it away. I aced the course with a score of 160 out of 180. To qualify we had to score 140.
The shotguns were the funnest. We had to shoot starting from 25 yards away, and move up the course to 10 yards. Firing at 20 and 15 as well as the 25 and 10. Like the other courses, we were on the clock. We had 3 minutes to shoot off 20 rounds and get 30 hits each on 3 separate targets. We were shooting buck shot. It was so much fun. Just feeling the power of the gun and the boom got the blood rushing. If shooting the M14 was like driving a Lincoln, then shooting the shotgun was like driving a BMW. I blew the target away once again, the shotgun isn't a really hard weapon to aim.
Friday was the big day we've been waiting for since starting on Aug 29th....PAY DAY! Where did I go? Straight to the mall to get myself a fancy pants Iphone 4. I got a heck of a deal, I got the Iphone with all the bells and whistle that go with it for only 230 bucks and no security deposit! The salesman really gave me the hook up, I was expecting to have to lay down another 400 or so. I'm already addicted to it.
On Saturday Harry, Jessica, and I made a day trip to NYC. We were hoping to put it off and make a weekend trip, but Jessica is an engineer (who are always in short supply) and left to go back to Virginia Beach today for a ship assignment. So we took the NJ Transit train at Princeton to Penn Station, which is right next to Madison Square Gardens. Its just around an hour ride. It was pretty cool getting off and bam...you are in the heart of NYC. We mosied on down to Time's Square and mingled among the crowds and took it all in.
We thought about taking in a Broadway show, but decided we didn't have the time since we were wanting to head back to Jersey that night. From there, we walked to the Empire State Building. The line was pretty long, and since I've already gone up once before, I decided to pass. Harry and Jessica went ahead and got in line and I took off for a stroll with no destination in mind.
I stopped at a vendor on the street and got a hotdog for a couple bucks...oh boy was it good! I wound up on 6th Avenue where all the shops are. I went passed a Macy's, but I'm not sure if it was the flagship store or not. From there I stumbled onto Park Avenue and Madison Avenue. I must have been in the wrong part, because I didn't see any fancy shops and what not. It was actually a pretty quiet part of town where there didn't seem to be any tourists...just actually NYC'rs. So I ordered another hot dog and did some people watching on a bench. From there, Harry and Jessica still hadn't finished, so I spotted a whole-in-the-wall Irish pub and ordered a brew and chatted it up with some locals and some Irishman. It was the first time I met and Irish person in and Irish pub!
When we grouped back up together, Harry and Jessica wanted to go back to 6th Avenue and do some shopping so that's just what we did. From there, we caught the subway and headed down to the financial district on the lower west side. We got off and went down to the World Trade Center sites. It was a pretty somber experience. It was so hard to believe what had happened there 10 years ago, and the fact that we were standing right there. The Freedom Tower is quite impressive. We of course weren't able to get into the actual sight were the memorial is being built, but just peeking through the gates was enough. After a few minutes of gazing and pondering at the WTC we stopped at a rally going on for Ron Paul. I think every officer in the NYPD was there ready to keep things in check. It was just crazy.
From there we walked over to the water front, where we could see the Statue of Liberty from the docks where some colossal multi-million dollar yachts were docked. From there I could see the Brooklyn Bridge as well as the anchorage where I anchored while I was on the tug/barge a few winters back. And I think I saw the general area where I spent time on Skybird anchored right outside the city. Good memories came flooding back from both trips.
After that, we started our way back to the subway and NJ, stopping off for dinner. We walked by the Battery and up into Tribecca for some pretty good NY style pizza and a couple of beers. It felt good to be off our feet after walking all day long. After pizza we caught the subway back up to Penn Station where we caught the NJ Transit line back to Princeton in just the nick of time. A few minutes later and we would have had to wait an hour. HOWEVER, we all crashed on the train. I woke up and looked behind me where Harry and Jessica had been sitting and they were gone. I looked over to a girl next to me and she told me they had taken off. A few seconds later they came snaking back. They had woken up a few seconds earlier and saw the Penn Station logo outside the train and darted for the doors....to just miss them. So off we went to the next station in Hamilton, a few minutes away. We got off and hailed a cab back to East Windsor and the Holiday Inn. Our little snafu on the train cost us 10 extra bucks on the cab fair, but it could have been far worse. Lesson learned! We made it back and all crashed from a long day of adventuring.
And now it is Sunday. We woke up and ate breakfast with Jessica and the rest of the engineers and saw them off on the bus back to Virginia Beach. We all felt pretty jealous. Its gonna be a long 5 weeks here, especially now that one of the funnest weeks is behind us. Our numbers are down from 30 to about 12, but there will be more new hires coming in a couple of weeks.
This next week I have quick reaction force training. We take turns dressing as terrorists and SWAT members and have to find the terrorists on the mock ship, subdue them, and put them in handcuffs. The best part.....we get to shoot each other with the Beretta! Only, we will be using soap bullets. Every effort is made to make all the training as realistic as possible.
The first officially week of training wasn't really anything special, at least from the view of the trainees going through it. It consisted of firefighting and damage control, something that has been drilled into us over and over and over again the past four years of school. We went through all the different types of fires and techniques to extinguish them. After a few days of class (and painfully dull powerpoints) we went out into the compound where there was a mock ship with an engine inside of it.
From there, the instructors lit up the fires and we went in in teams of 4 (two groups of two people on 1 1/2 inch hoses) and fought the blaze and put it out. The worst part of it was standing around the heat in full firefighting gear sweating waiting our turn. Fighting the actual fire wasn't bad at all, my crew and I got it out pretty quick. I have noticed that at every single place I've gone and done firefighting (Cal Maritime, Texas A&M College Station, Texas A&M Galv, and now here) a different air pack called a self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) is used and rigged totally differently. This is kinda frustrating having to learn a new pack everytime, but on the bright side, I think I've learned how to use every pack in use in ship board firefighting.
This past week of training was probably the funnest week we'll have here....we got to shoot guns!! We had to shoot and qualify using the Navy standard test on the 9mm Beretta Hand gun, M14 semi-auto rifle, and the 12 gauge shotgun. We would spend half a day learning the weapon. We had to learn of course how to use it properly, disassemble/assemble the weapon, etc. Then, the next half of the day we spent shooting the gun.
We shot the pistol at ranges of 3, 7, and 15 yards. We were required to draw the pistol from the holster and fire of various amounts of rounds in various time frames. Some of the shooting sequences we also had to reload. I've never shot a pistol before and from what I've heard it can be tough, but I didn't have a problem with it at all. The toughest part was that it was rigged for a righty, and so some the magazine release button and the slide forward switch were kinda tricky and awkward to get at. I qualified with a score of 210 out 280...a sharpshooter on the Navy scale I think. A score of 180 was required to qualify.
The M14 was the gun I was most nervous about, because we had all been hearing it had a horrible kick and it was difficult to qualify for. However, it was quite the opposite. We shot from 25 yards in prone, kneeling, and standing positions. However, the target we were using was scaled down so even though we were 25 yards, the target looked as it would at 200. It made it a tad bit hard to see. We went through the course twice and I think we fired a total of 400 rounds each (we had some freebies to use to get sited in and whatnot). While shooting, I could tell when I missed wide a couple times, but when you shoot inside the rings (there are 2 rings with a dark bulls eye circle in the middle) its hard to tell how well you are doing. In order to qualify, we had to hit the bulls eye pretty consistently. I was pretty nervous when we finished and were standing at the 25 yard line looking at the target. But when we got up close, I saw that I had blown it away. I aced the course with a score of 160 out of 180. To qualify we had to score 140.
The shotguns were the funnest. We had to shoot starting from 25 yards away, and move up the course to 10 yards. Firing at 20 and 15 as well as the 25 and 10. Like the other courses, we were on the clock. We had 3 minutes to shoot off 20 rounds and get 30 hits each on 3 separate targets. We were shooting buck shot. It was so much fun. Just feeling the power of the gun and the boom got the blood rushing. If shooting the M14 was like driving a Lincoln, then shooting the shotgun was like driving a BMW. I blew the target away once again, the shotgun isn't a really hard weapon to aim.
Friday was the big day we've been waiting for since starting on Aug 29th....PAY DAY! Where did I go? Straight to the mall to get myself a fancy pants Iphone 4. I got a heck of a deal, I got the Iphone with all the bells and whistle that go with it for only 230 bucks and no security deposit! The salesman really gave me the hook up, I was expecting to have to lay down another 400 or so. I'm already addicted to it.
On Saturday Harry, Jessica, and I made a day trip to NYC. We were hoping to put it off and make a weekend trip, but Jessica is an engineer (who are always in short supply) and left to go back to Virginia Beach today for a ship assignment. So we took the NJ Transit train at Princeton to Penn Station, which is right next to Madison Square Gardens. Its just around an hour ride. It was pretty cool getting off and bam...you are in the heart of NYC. We mosied on down to Time's Square and mingled among the crowds and took it all in.
We thought about taking in a Broadway show, but decided we didn't have the time since we were wanting to head back to Jersey that night. From there, we walked to the Empire State Building. The line was pretty long, and since I've already gone up once before, I decided to pass. Harry and Jessica went ahead and got in line and I took off for a stroll with no destination in mind.
I stopped at a vendor on the street and got a hotdog for a couple bucks...oh boy was it good! I wound up on 6th Avenue where all the shops are. I went passed a Macy's, but I'm not sure if it was the flagship store or not. From there I stumbled onto Park Avenue and Madison Avenue. I must have been in the wrong part, because I didn't see any fancy shops and what not. It was actually a pretty quiet part of town where there didn't seem to be any tourists...just actually NYC'rs. So I ordered another hot dog and did some people watching on a bench. From there, Harry and Jessica still hadn't finished, so I spotted a whole-in-the-wall Irish pub and ordered a brew and chatted it up with some locals and some Irishman. It was the first time I met and Irish person in and Irish pub!
When we grouped back up together, Harry and Jessica wanted to go back to 6th Avenue and do some shopping so that's just what we did. From there, we caught the subway and headed down to the financial district on the lower west side. We got off and went down to the World Trade Center sites. It was a pretty somber experience. It was so hard to believe what had happened there 10 years ago, and the fact that we were standing right there. The Freedom Tower is quite impressive. We of course weren't able to get into the actual sight were the memorial is being built, but just peeking through the gates was enough. After a few minutes of gazing and pondering at the WTC we stopped at a rally going on for Ron Paul. I think every officer in the NYPD was there ready to keep things in check. It was just crazy.
From there we walked over to the water front, where we could see the Statue of Liberty from the docks where some colossal multi-million dollar yachts were docked. From there I could see the Brooklyn Bridge as well as the anchorage where I anchored while I was on the tug/barge a few winters back. And I think I saw the general area where I spent time on Skybird anchored right outside the city. Good memories came flooding back from both trips.
After that, we started our way back to the subway and NJ, stopping off for dinner. We walked by the Battery and up into Tribecca for some pretty good NY style pizza and a couple of beers. It felt good to be off our feet after walking all day long. After pizza we caught the subway back up to Penn Station where we caught the NJ Transit line back to Princeton in just the nick of time. A few minutes later and we would have had to wait an hour. HOWEVER, we all crashed on the train. I woke up and looked behind me where Harry and Jessica had been sitting and they were gone. I looked over to a girl next to me and she told me they had taken off. A few seconds later they came snaking back. They had woken up a few seconds earlier and saw the Penn Station logo outside the train and darted for the doors....to just miss them. So off we went to the next station in Hamilton, a few minutes away. We got off and hailed a cab back to East Windsor and the Holiday Inn. Our little snafu on the train cost us 10 extra bucks on the cab fair, but it could have been far worse. Lesson learned! We made it back and all crashed from a long day of adventuring.
And now it is Sunday. We woke up and ate breakfast with Jessica and the rest of the engineers and saw them off on the bus back to Virginia Beach. We all felt pretty jealous. Its gonna be a long 5 weeks here, especially now that one of the funnest weeks is behind us. Our numbers are down from 30 to about 12, but there will be more new hires coming in a couple of weeks.
This next week I have quick reaction force training. We take turns dressing as terrorists and SWAT members and have to find the terrorists on the mock ship, subdue them, and put them in handcuffs. The best part.....we get to shoot each other with the Beretta! Only, we will be using soap bullets. Every effort is made to make all the training as realistic as possible.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Week In Recap
Wow...it's been a very fast, busy, whirlwind kinda week.
As far as job training has gone, there hasn't been anything too special to report on. We were given a mountain of paperwork to fill out and chose benefits, sat through company policy briefings, etc. The East coast Port Captain took us out to lunch at the O-Club on base and that was pretty fun.
On Friday Mark showed up to get his car from me. Mark, Harry, Jessica and I went out for sushi that night and drinks at a local cantina type place on the boardwalk. It was pretty fun to spend one last night on the town before heading to Jersey.
On Saturday morning, Mark took off in his car and the rest of us jumped on the bus to Jersey for a long bus ride. The ride was only supposed to take 5-6 hours and wound up being 9 because of traffic...yuck. I pretty much slept the whole way.
We are staying at a Holiday Inn in East Windsor, NJ. Its a very small town that doesn't have a lot too offer. We walk about 3/4 mile to get to the closest diner or bar for food, which there aren't that many. Its an old historic place that was founded in the 1700's. It has that feel of your typical 80's movie town.
Anyways...tomorrow we start the fun training. I'm here until Oct 22...so might as well get comfy here. Here is what I'll be training in:
Week 1
Damage control, Basic firefighting/first aid, high voltage
Week 2
Security watch advanced
Small Arms
Week 3
Security watch basic
SRF (more security stuff)
Week 4
Fall protection, personal survival, first aid, personal safety and social responsibilties
Week 5
Chemical, biological , and radiological disease officer training
Week 6
Ordnance handling equipment training
Week 7
Hello Firefighting
Fall protection rescue
Environmental protection
Ordnance Hazard Awareness
So thats the training schedule. The bus takes us to Freehold where the facility is everyday at 6 am and brings us back at 7pm. I have some long days ahead of me!!
Thats about it for now. Oh, we had the most amazing pizza ever. We ordered Buffalo Chicken with extra chicken....I cannot begin to tell you how good it was. It was made by real Italians at this place called Dante's. I'll do another weekly recap next week.
Hope y'all enjoyed...
Mike
As far as job training has gone, there hasn't been anything too special to report on. We were given a mountain of paperwork to fill out and chose benefits, sat through company policy briefings, etc. The East coast Port Captain took us out to lunch at the O-Club on base and that was pretty fun.
On Friday Mark showed up to get his car from me. Mark, Harry, Jessica and I went out for sushi that night and drinks at a local cantina type place on the boardwalk. It was pretty fun to spend one last night on the town before heading to Jersey.
On Saturday morning, Mark took off in his car and the rest of us jumped on the bus to Jersey for a long bus ride. The ride was only supposed to take 5-6 hours and wound up being 9 because of traffic...yuck. I pretty much slept the whole way.
We are staying at a Holiday Inn in East Windsor, NJ. Its a very small town that doesn't have a lot too offer. We walk about 3/4 mile to get to the closest diner or bar for food, which there aren't that many. Its an old historic place that was founded in the 1700's. It has that feel of your typical 80's movie town.
Anyways...tomorrow we start the fun training. I'm here until Oct 22...so might as well get comfy here. Here is what I'll be training in:
Week 1
Damage control, Basic firefighting/first aid, high voltage
Week 2
Security watch advanced
Small Arms
Week 3
Security watch basic
SRF (more security stuff)
Week 4
Fall protection, personal survival, first aid, personal safety and social responsibilties
Week 5
Chemical, biological , and radiological disease officer training
Week 6
Ordnance handling equipment training
Week 7
Hello Firefighting
Fall protection rescue
Environmental protection
Ordnance Hazard Awareness
So thats the training schedule. The bus takes us to Freehold where the facility is everyday at 6 am and brings us back at 7pm. I have some long days ahead of me!!
Thats about it for now. Oh, we had the most amazing pizza ever. We ordered Buffalo Chicken with extra chicken....I cannot begin to tell you how good it was. It was made by real Italians at this place called Dante's. I'll do another weekly recap next week.
Hope y'all enjoyed...
Mike
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Training Update
Hello Everybody-
There hasn't been anything to crazy to write about relating to work, since orientation hasn't started. Last week were bused over to Norfolk Naval Base and sat through meetings about the meetings we'll be having this week and got our medical clearances. It was pretty dull, but needed to be done.
Next week we have New Employee Orientation at the naval base. It will pretty much consist of filling out mountains of paperwork involving 401ks, benefits, insurance, etc. Next Saturday we go up to Freehold and begin the fun stuff with helicopter fire fighting, arms training, chemical/radiological/biological defense training, and other stuff I can't remember. I'll walk away with a big stack of certificates saying I know stuff after about 5 weeks.
As you all know....Hurricane Irene hit VA beach, with the eye passing us about 30 miles offshore. Harry and I went out to Skybird on friday and fixed her up for Irene. Lashed the boom down, wrapped line around sail covers, took the dodge off, folded the bimani, and took off the canvas. I'm sure she made it through without a scratch, we did a good job.
I was pretty disappointed in Irene, it seemed like just a bad thunderstorm, which I guess is a good thing. I've been primarily hanging out with 2 other people going throuhg training with me. Harry (frm Hawaii) and Jessica (frm California), who both went to Cal Maritime. We stocked up on booze (priorities!), food, water, and got some board games to party it up. And thats what we did. Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday we sat up in the room watching movies and making drinking games out of anything. Needles to say, the mornings were a wee bit on the rough side. Ironically, none of us touched our water supply, we are going back to Target to return it all.
We went out and walked the beach this morning. The ocean is absolute flat calm. Besides the boarded up windows and one building that had a little part of its roof blown off, you wouldn't be able to tell a hurricane was here, pretty impressive.
So now its time for the post Hurricane party! Hahaha...just kidding...slightly. I feel pretty lucky to have made such quick friends out of Harry and Jessica. I'm the only Texas grad here and the only one who didn't know someone else. Its nice to have someone thats going through the same thing you are and can relate too. Esp when going to work for the same company and what not.
The other people here, which are all from Kingspoint and Mass Maritime for the most part are well...a bit off I suppose. We've tried to hang out and party with them a few times, but we just have a different mind set and it gets a little awkward. But what you going to do? It happens. We have been having an absolute blast hanging out in Virginia beach.
Thats about all I got right now. I'll do a post at the end of next week with the shenanigans and training stuff that happened. Thanks for reading! Hope y'all are enjoying.
Til Next Time,
Mike
There hasn't been anything to crazy to write about relating to work, since orientation hasn't started. Last week were bused over to Norfolk Naval Base and sat through meetings about the meetings we'll be having this week and got our medical clearances. It was pretty dull, but needed to be done.
Next week we have New Employee Orientation at the naval base. It will pretty much consist of filling out mountains of paperwork involving 401ks, benefits, insurance, etc. Next Saturday we go up to Freehold and begin the fun stuff with helicopter fire fighting, arms training, chemical/radiological/biological defense training, and other stuff I can't remember. I'll walk away with a big stack of certificates saying I know stuff after about 5 weeks.
As you all know....Hurricane Irene hit VA beach, with the eye passing us about 30 miles offshore. Harry and I went out to Skybird on friday and fixed her up for Irene. Lashed the boom down, wrapped line around sail covers, took the dodge off, folded the bimani, and took off the canvas. I'm sure she made it through without a scratch, we did a good job.
I was pretty disappointed in Irene, it seemed like just a bad thunderstorm, which I guess is a good thing. I've been primarily hanging out with 2 other people going throuhg training with me. Harry (frm Hawaii) and Jessica (frm California), who both went to Cal Maritime. We stocked up on booze (priorities!), food, water, and got some board games to party it up. And thats what we did. Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday we sat up in the room watching movies and making drinking games out of anything. Needles to say, the mornings were a wee bit on the rough side. Ironically, none of us touched our water supply, we are going back to Target to return it all.
We went out and walked the beach this morning. The ocean is absolute flat calm. Besides the boarded up windows and one building that had a little part of its roof blown off, you wouldn't be able to tell a hurricane was here, pretty impressive.
So now its time for the post Hurricane party! Hahaha...just kidding...slightly. I feel pretty lucky to have made such quick friends out of Harry and Jessica. I'm the only Texas grad here and the only one who didn't know someone else. Its nice to have someone thats going through the same thing you are and can relate too. Esp when going to work for the same company and what not.
The other people here, which are all from Kingspoint and Mass Maritime for the most part are well...a bit off I suppose. We've tried to hang out and party with them a few times, but we just have a different mind set and it gets a little awkward. But what you going to do? It happens. We have been having an absolute blast hanging out in Virginia beach.
Thats about all I got right now. I'll do a post at the end of next week with the shenanigans and training stuff that happened. Thanks for reading! Hope y'all are enjoying.
Til Next Time,
Mike
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
I've Made It
Hello All-
This is the site I will be using to update everyone on my adventures and travels while working as a 3rd Mate in the Merchant Marine, presently with Military Sealift Command (MSC).
I pulled into Virginia Beach, Virginia on Saturday for new employee orientation (NEO). MSC has put us up here at the Double Tree hotel. There are around 35-40 people here for NEO. I'm not sure how many of us are licensed officer out of academies. About 20 of us had medical yesterday, where they pricked and prodded and all the good stuff to get us medically cleared to work. The other half had medical today.
Actual training starts on the 29th. We go through a week of paperwork and HR fun here in VA beach and then will go to Freehold, NJ. There we will have 7-9 more weeks of training in areas such as firefighting, small arms, radioactive/chemical/biological defense, etc. It's not the most exciting stuff, but just part of the process to get to a ship, which hopefully will happen by January.
Until training starts on the 29th, I'm just enjoying the town with a few fellow mates going through NEO as well. I'm the only Texan/TMA grad here. The two people I've been hanging out with the most are from Cal Maritime (CMA). Most of the others seem to be from the Merchant Marine Academy (Kingspoint) and Mass Maritime.
Thats about all I got for now....there really isn't anything too terribly exciting going on. We did get an earthquake earlier, as you've probably heard on the news. It was a 5.9 with the center about 60 miles north of us. I was in my hotel room and the whole building started rocking and swaying....it was a pretty weird feeling.
Thats about all I got...hope y'all enjoy following the blog! Many thanks to Amy Trammell for setting this up and doing all the designs!
-Mike
This is the site I will be using to update everyone on my adventures and travels while working as a 3rd Mate in the Merchant Marine, presently with Military Sealift Command (MSC).
I pulled into Virginia Beach, Virginia on Saturday for new employee orientation (NEO). MSC has put us up here at the Double Tree hotel. There are around 35-40 people here for NEO. I'm not sure how many of us are licensed officer out of academies. About 20 of us had medical yesterday, where they pricked and prodded and all the good stuff to get us medically cleared to work. The other half had medical today.
Actual training starts on the 29th. We go through a week of paperwork and HR fun here in VA beach and then will go to Freehold, NJ. There we will have 7-9 more weeks of training in areas such as firefighting, small arms, radioactive/chemical/biological defense, etc. It's not the most exciting stuff, but just part of the process to get to a ship, which hopefully will happen by January.
Until training starts on the 29th, I'm just enjoying the town with a few fellow mates going through NEO as well. I'm the only Texan/TMA grad here. The two people I've been hanging out with the most are from Cal Maritime (CMA). Most of the others seem to be from the Merchant Marine Academy (Kingspoint) and Mass Maritime.
Thats about all I got for now....there really isn't anything too terribly exciting going on. We did get an earthquake earlier, as you've probably heard on the news. It was a 5.9 with the center about 60 miles north of us. I was in my hotel room and the whole building started rocking and swaying....it was a pretty weird feeling.
Thats about all I got...hope y'all enjoy following the blog! Many thanks to Amy Trammell for setting this up and doing all the designs!
-Mike
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