A Quiet Weekend

It has been a nice quiet weekend at sea and quite peaceful. There has been little, or no wind, which is always nice as the sea turns glassy and becomes as smooth as a millpond.  I think I will never tire of seeing the different seascapes, when the wind blows you can sea the power of nature as angry white horses charge towards you. When there is no wind it can be so tranquil.  It has been nice and mild as well which has unfortunately brought plenty of fog banks. These can be quiet eerie and you can understand where some of the old sailors myths originated from when you see them. Yesterday we hit such a bank whilst we were flying, as we had a helo up they guided us back to the clear water to allow us to continue flying. It was quiet strange when we exited the bank though as it was almost sunset and there was a slight pink haze in the sky with a mirror like sea. There just behind us was the thick white wall of the fog bank, beautifully defined. You could almost imagine standing half in and half out of the fog.

 

More fog is forecast for next week so we are calling an early halt to our flying and getting rid of the helicopters tomorrow, it has been a really busy few weeks with them but all sides have achieved quite a bit. We had a bit of excitement during their penultimate sortie today as we had a pan call from one of them. They had been away from the ship and lost one of their engines, there was a flurry of activity as we closed their position and they recovered safely with a running landing, thankfully we have a big flight deck so there is plenty of room for them to do this.

 

Looking forward to tonight as the flight are holding a quiz night in the bar before they disembark tomorrow. I do enjoy quiz nights although I am rarely on the winning team. It makes a nice change to sitting in my cabin/office for the evening. Next leave I must make more of an effort to get to the Quiz at the GD. Last leave Debbie and I went to one of the quizzes and although we only had the two of us in a team compared to all the other teams of six we did reasonably well and were quite high up the leader board until the final few rounds when the rattler finally kicked in and we got lots of questions wrong. Well at least we can relax a bit tonight before things ramp up again tomorrow, we have a very busy few weeks ahead as we move into March but at least the time should pass quickly.

 

 

 

Busy but Mellow

After starting a blog with the best of intentions of keeping it up to date, I am once again being woefully lazy, as I have not updated it for the past two weeks.  I would like to say it is because I have been out partying every night but alas, it is because I spend my day in front of a computer screen and so come the evening I just switch it off and sit in front of the moving picture lantern.  I think the only reason I have managed to sit down tonight and write though is that after just drinking 5 cups of coffee on the trot I am somewhat bouncing of the bulkheads. Goodness knows how I will get to sleep tonight.

 

The last couple of weeks have been hectic with our daily programme changing almost hourly, this certainly makes the days go quickly but makes it very hard for me to produce a decent fortnightly programme. At least longer term things are steadier even if we have a five month programme crammed into three months. The worst bit about it all though is that our visit to Devonport was changed at the last minute to Scotland so my planned night in a hotel had to be cancelled. I had been looking forward to that weekend and spending time with Debbie and the little ones.  Hopefully, though if all goes well I should see them in a little over a week when we go back into port next weekend.

 

Scotland wasn’t all that bad though, first of all the scenery up the lochs was as stunning as usual and it was great to see the snow in the hills. It was really good to have a bit of a break and the chance to get ashore after an extremely busy two and a half weeks at sea. I braved the weather on the Saturday and cycled ten miles into Dunoon to meet up with the chaps. A pleasant time was spent in Sinbad’s but as time marched on, I thought it best to head back to the ship. It was a really hard ride back with a dreadful head wind and frequent hail showers. Saying that it did not deter me on the Sunday as a couple of us headed out for another bike ride clocking up thirty miles and thankfully only coming across one hail storm.

 

Since sailing again, things have been even more hectic as we have tried to maintain flying ops whilst avoiding fog banks. Work wise things have been none stop as we continue to prepare for our forthcoming exercises and work up. The only good thing about this week was that we did actually get to anchor yesterday so we finally had decent phone signal for the evening. It was great being able to read the bed time poem to the little ones and hear everyone’s voices back home.

 

Things are starting to look up for next leave as if everything falls into place we should be going away a couple of times. Also it will be really good to be home for the summer months as hopefully we will be able to have a few BBQs and will definitely be able to go for a few picnics. Last leave I took the little ones out for quite a few picnics and they always thoroughly enjoyed them.

 

Well hopefully the caffeine will start to wear off in a bit but at least I am feeling quite mellow for once, dare I say almost relaxed but then again perhaps that is because I have ignored my inbox this evening. At least being the weekend there will be no work emails from shore side for the next couple of days so I will be finally able to clear down my queue and get ahead of the curve.

 

Well I suppose that is it for the time being until next time.

 

 

All Mended

After a week of bobbing around one engine we have now rectifiewd the fault, or rather we have taken it to bits, looked at bearings, put it back to geather and seen what happened when we started it.  Well it works, for how long who knows but we are back on two engines.  We had been due back into port next weekend on the south coast which was going to be nice, I had a hotel booked and Debbie had sorted out baby sitters for the night so that we could both have a bit of a break.  Unfortunately due to tidal constraints we could not secure a sailing window and therefore our south coast port was cancelled and we are now going North of the North (Scotland)  for the weekend.  Although it is nice to get alongside I just wish it had been the south coast so I could have seen Debbie and the little ones. The hotel is now cancelled and we are all feeling a bit down.

Other than our engine issue things remain extremely busy, there just seems no end to the daily drudgery. On the plus side the weeks are flying by and next week I will hit the 1 month mark since joining. If the next few months go by this quickly it will soon be May and I will going home. It will be good to have a summer leave for once espeacially as the little ones are getting bigger.

Beauty All Around

It has been a hectic few days since I last wrote, the days just seem to blur into one and the last week seems to have disappeared as fast as the Costa Concordia’s Captian heading towards a lifeboat. No matter what is planned the day before inevitably ends up changing and we are certainly back to the old RFA mantra of staying ‘Rigidly Flexible’

 

As always with aircraft embarked the fly pro comes out, the helicopter gets into the air, breaks down and then the flypro is re-written umpteen times, meanwhile I juggle the ship’s programme to try and ensure all objectives are achieved. It has not been helped by the flood of emails and having to plan for later in the year by holding estimate meetings. I now have about six pages of notes to decipher and input into our estimate, I just don’t know where I will find the time. Overlaying all this we have had additional tasking thrown at us from all angles to fit in, but that has been quiet interesting.

 

To top everything we have also broken one of our engines, hardly surprising since they are thirty odd years old. No doubt we will get it mended again soon, it is just lucky that we have two as it is horrible being on a ship with only one when it breaks as you just end up bobing around like an apple in a barrel.

 

On a more positive note one of the chaps onboard has started running a Christian fellowship meeting. Last trip I tried to run one but as I was generally the only one that went it was a bit hard. On here however there are three of us that go which is nice. Just that 20minutes of shutting out the world of work and thinking of more important things is so revitalising. During the first meeting he brought along a prayer which was beautifully worded and reminded me of one of my earlier blogs. I now have the prayer pinned to my bulkhead next to pictures of Debbie and the little ones and during the day whenever I am getting swamped or just need perking I read through it and it does perk me up. So to end today’s blog I thought I would share the prayer:

 

 

There are so many things I take for granted. May I not ignore them today.

 

Just for today, help me, God, to remember that my life is a gift, that my health is a blessing, that this new day is filled with awesome potential, that I have the capacity to bring something wholly unique and good into this world.

 

Just for today, help me, god, to remember to be kind and patient to the people who love me, and to those who work with me too. Teach me to see all the beauty that I so often ignore, and to listen to the silent longing of my own soul.

 

Just for today, help me, God, to remember you.

 

Let this be a good day, God, full of joy and love. Amen