Ramblings in the South West Monsoon

Since Sunday we have been enjoying the South West Monsoon in it’s fully glory, fighting our way through 35-40kt winds and being bounced around by a steep 5m swell.  As we are heading into it things aren’t that uncomfortable though and we just get the odd shudder when we take a wave at the wrong time.  Because of our tasking we have broken into watches with Navs on the 12-6 and myself on the 6-12. I must say the novelty of doing six on six off soon wears off, especially with work outside of the watches as well.  I must admit though now we are settled into them I have managed to get quite a few jobs squared away which is always good, just ashame that I haven’t managed to get to the gym in my down time. That is just me finding excuses and blaming the weather.

 

I have slowly been running out of ‘Quotes for Daily Orders’, the little one liners I put on each day. It is quite hard to find decent quotes when the internet is slower than a slug in an ice cube. However I have come across some real gems of late and am particularly fond of the one I found today which is attributed to someone called W. M. Lewis:

 

“The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.”

 

I think it is quite powerful as in modern life we can get so distracted by the pressures around us and by entertainment that we forget to live.  We worry so much about money or what the Jones’ have. We all try to conform to what is expected whilst everywhere is amalgamating so that there is no individual character anywhere as the Costa’s, MacDonalds and Starbucks appear everywhere. It is so easy to turn the TV on and lock ourselves away watching other people have adventures. We forget that there is a real world out there.  Then of course we often put things off until tomorrow, and then never do them.

 

In the grand scheme of things we are here for such a short time we need to make the most of every minute, especially in this job when for so much of the year time is not our own. I only hope that I can make the most of every minute so that when the end does come (hopefully many years from now) I can look back and say to myself that I did not wait to long for life to begin.

 

Running From Zombies

It is about ten days since I last wrote my blog, I seem to find it harder and harder to find things to write. Whether that is because I find myself in front of the computer all day or because much of the time days merge into one I am not sure.  All I know is that things have been busy since we have sailed, we have got a lot done in a short space of time with flying and gunnery serials to ensure that we maintain our currency whilst on task.  There have been some notably long days, especially last week when we had a choke point transit and Navs and I ended up staying up for 24hrs. When the morning came we had said that we would have breakfast as we thought that we would finish the transit just after 7 but as we finished at 0600 we both whimped out of breakfast, a fact that father didn’t let us forget as he had stayed up for breakfast.  Mind you it wasn’t that bad as I managed to get a lot done over the course of the transit and for once I felt that I had caught up with everything.

 

This time out the weather has been noticeably more bumpy with the South West monsoon finally setting in across the area. I had forgotten how much I hate rolling around as it does make one feel awfully tired but at least things are better now that we have our stabilisers out.  The rough weather has kept the pirates back in their camps which is good news as well.

 

I just can’t believe how quickly June is going, I definitely feel like I am on the home stretch now with August just around the corner.  I am really looking forward to getting to the airport and seeing Debbie and the little ones. They will have changed so much by the time I get home.  I just hope we have a bit of an Indian Summer so that I can take them to the beach, down the Tarka Trial and have some BBQs.  I am starting to look forward to being able to cook again as the food has got very repetitive on here with stale baguettes generally for Lunch Monday and Wednesday, Spud you dislike Tuesday, over cooked pasta bar Thursday and Battered Grey fish and chips Friday.  Saying that we usually have a nice steak (honest we have had some really good steaks not the normal shoe sole, tough as old rubber steaks that are the norm) and Sunday morning we get croissants which are always nice.  The local sliced bread is horrible, it is like white hairy cardboard, in fact it reminds me of the toy bread that Beth has in her play house.  I have made the mistake of watching some cooking programmes (The last Navs gave me a few episodes of the F Word) and I really want to make some fresh bread, fresh pasta and have a general play in the kitchen.

 

I have decided that I need to be more careful with what I watch and read before I go to bed at night as I have been having some very strange dreams. Yesterday I watched Shutter Island (definitely worth a watch even though it had Leonardo Di Caprio as the main character) which was quite disturbing and then I continued reading the ‘Diary of the Displaced’ which is a very strange book but quite intriguing. Needless to say all sorts was going on in my dreams, running away from Zombies and leaving suitcases in a hotel room which was identical to my cabin.  No wonder I woke up feeling like a bag of wotsit.  I think I will find a gentler book to read when I have finished this one.

 

Well that’s about it for now, off for a bike ride in a bit to read my book. At least if there are any zombies in it I can pretend I am cycling away from them which is much more civilized and far more effective than running from them.

 

Back at Sea

It has now been a week since we escaped from our AMP port, it was nice to have a bit of a stand down and it was especially good to get on Skype and see the little ones.  However after the frustrating weeks over run it was good to get back to sea, well at least until we hit the tail end of a cyclone and got thrown around for a few days. The forecasts had been a little out so the weather was worse than expected. The first night the wires holding the bridge awning parted and spent the night banging against the bulkhead outside my cabin, keeping me awake all night. Thankfully the next morning I managed to grab hold of it and with some help we got it secured. I think the worse bit though was trying to work in the Ops room as my chair is adjustable but with the motion of the ship it felt like I was sitting on top of a pogo stick, which is fine if you want to bounce around but no good if you are trying to type at a keyboard.

 

I have achieved one of my aims for this trip and have managed to save up for a bicycle trailer for the little ones. I only got a cheep one for £70 pounds but it should do the job and doubles as a push chair.  Debbie has put it together and it sounds as if it is really light which is good. More importantly the little ones seem to like it which is good. I am really looking forward to taking it down the Tarka trail, it will be nice to be able to cycle to Instow and watch them play on the beach while we have a nice Ice cream. Instow is only about 10 miles away on the Tarka trail so should be able to do it in a hour easily. I suppose next year little Beth should be big enough to start riding a little bicycle with us, I am looking forward to teaching them how to ride.

 

Well now we are back at sea the work load has gone through the roof again, we seem to be swamped by emails and signals and they come in as fast as we can clear the ques, saying that though I am definitely on the downhill stretch though with two months left to go and a reasonable programme to keep me busy for the next two months.