Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!
Just a short one for today as not too much has happened. We are officially in the waiting place. The first leg of our journey is a relatively short one up the coast to take on fuel (called bunkering after the days of filling your coal bunkers). The vessel’s fuel tank is not exactly small. We bunkered about 300 tonnes of fuel and that wasn’t to the top. Now that we are officially at sea, meal times have changed to better accommodate the watches. Breakfast and lunch start earlier and run longer. Dinner starts later and was a huge hunk of steak (had curry last night). Most of the day has been spend at a loose end. I’m
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…
…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Jobs are all done, we held the initial science meetings for early planning, and the novelty of boat life prevented any serious attempt at work, although I get my computer integrated into the ships systems. Running off a satellite communications link we have what is effectively one broadband connection to cater for all 54 souls on board. While I write this blog on my laptop at my cabin desk I’ll need to transfer the file to one of only three unrestricted internet linked computers. I can only read my e-mail, keep abreast of weather and explore the NHS or order machine parts from my desk access rights…but that’s it. No social media for me and you can forget skype.
"Fill her up?"
Bunkering was completed early afternoon but we waited for the tide to turn before departure as we are heading through a narrows in the Strait. We are not waiting for water depth but for the current. We can either choose to burn fuel and fight it or wait a bit and ride with the current after the tide turns. The captain chose the latter so we finally leave the waiting place at 17:30 and as I write this at just shy of midnight we are shooting out of the Straits of Magellan and being propelled into the South Atlantic with a boost of 2-3 knots for the current.
The first part of my surprise advent / Christmas survival presents from my family. Yes officer I packed my bags myself and no one has asked me to carry anything…