Time Off

I really shouldn't call it "time off". "Not on the boat" might be a better description. When I'm at home there really isn't "time off". Catching up on paying the bills, catching up on the yard work, catching up on all of the family things that have happened while I was at work, etc. Of course, there is also the foray into some slap-stick carpentry work as well.
You would think all of those things would take up just about all of my free time. And you would be right. But I have one remaining activity that I like to dabble in when I'm on my "time off". I like to play Semi-Pro Firefighter as well.

Ladder 1. "Big Sexy" as she is affectionately called.

This last time home was no exception. I got to build stuff.

My latest project.

Tried to get my tax returns somewhat organized. Watched my beloved New England Patriots win the Super Bowl. Probably scarring my children for life with my over exuberant celebration at the end of the game.

Yeah, I was excited.

Managed to wrestle out the tall ladder to get the last remaining Christmas lights off the peak of the house, etc. But the highlight of my "time off" had to come on an early, crisp Saturday morning.

Someone had decided that their house wasn't tenable anymore. The exact reasoning is unbeknown to me. All I do know is that they donated their house to my fire department in order to use it for training. Normally, anything fun, exciting, noteworthy, etc. that happens at home happens when I'm at work. Birth of my son, my daughter getting her appendix out, birthdays, anniversaries, that sort of thing. This usually rings true for fun and exciting fire department related things as well. In the last 2 years we have had at least 4 different opportunities to do live burns in donated structures. I have been home for exactly one of them.

Engine 2. Black over red, the best combination out there.

Make that two. The planets aligned, the stars shone brightly, and I was actually around for a training burn.
The following videos are of us honing our craft and refining our skills.
Did I mention that firefighting is a ridiculous amount of fun?

Did I also mention that I do it for free?
My wife says that 'technically' it's not a job because I don't get paid.

At least I get paid to work on boats. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

It's a BIG Ocean

The Earth’s surface is approximately 71% water. Of that, 97% of that water surface is made up of the oceans. While at I’m at work I only need just a minuscule percentage of that in order to operate the boat safely. As we have shown before, bad things happen when two vessels try to occupy the exact same parcel of water at the exact same moment in time. It gets expense. Something that all true professional mariners strive to avoid at all times. This is exactly why I get so annoyed when someone wants to try to invade my particular tiny piece of water that I already occupy.

I have a t-shirt that I made at home that says, “I hate sailboats”. That’s all it says. No fancy graphics. No high tech fonts. Just a simple statement of fact. I hate sailboats. Wearing a shirt like that also happens to invoke random strangers at the airport to query the meaning of my shirt. It’s a conversation starter. When I explain to them that I work on tugboats, an almost sudden realization of the meaning hits them and all becomes instantly clear. It is as if there is a worldwide understanding that people on sailboats are indeed a scourge to waterways.

The offending shirt. Simple. Classy. Okay, simple.

 Anyone who has ever sailed the Ocean Blue, the Deep Muddy, the Inland Rivers, back bays, Sounds, rivers, harbors, etc. has at one point in time come across the ever-despised WAFI. In case you weren't aware, a WAFI, is a Wind Assisted Fucking Idiot. Not to be confused with a MAFI, a Motor Assisted Fucking Idiot. A WAFI, in its more accepted term, is a sailboat. And I hate them.

For some reason, sailboaters are under the impression that the Rules of the Road just don’t apply to them. Or they are just idiots. I happen to lean more towards the side that they happen to be ‘Stupid to the Highest Degree (squared)’. On more than one occasion, I have had sailboats try to cut between the tugboat and the barge that I was towing. Never mind that there happens to be either a giant rope hawser, or a large steel wire trailing behind the tug connecting us the barge. It is, in fact, the exact way that we TOW a barge.  No amount of sound signals, radio calls, or brightly shining spot lights directed at the WAFI should dissuade them to alter their course away from impend danger and/or death. The same can be said for sailboats crossing your bow, impeding you in a confined channel, or any other numerous situations where you just shake your head and silently ask yourself, “Can someone really be this stupid?” The answer is ‘YES’. Yes, they can. And if you were to survey 100 tugboaters and ask them if they had ever experienced a similar situation, 105 of them would answer in the affirmative. It’s going to happen. It’s a fact of life out here on the water. WAFI’s have earned their reputation as a plague upon the nations waterways (as have most MAFI’s).

"I swear I didn't see the GIANT orange ship"

 Full disclosure: I don’t hate sailboats. A sailboat with beautiful lines that hearkens back to a time gone past is a pleasing sight. The quiet of being propelled by Mother Nature with the only sound being the hull gliding through the water and the wind in your face is something to embrace.

I just hate the people that run them. Poorly.

If you work up in the waters of the northeastern United States, spring time signals the start of WAFI season. We also refer to the sudden emergence of this group of waterborne locusts as the beginning of the ‘Weekend Warriors’. A conglomeration of 9 to 5ers whose expertise of the water doesn’t extend much past the fact that water is wet.

Being that we are currently assigned to the Gulf of Mexico, I was hoping that the year round pleasant boating weather would increase the odds that the water bound populace would be more skilled in the areas of following the Rules of the Road and just general seamanship. And for the most part, not having to cram a whole year’s worth of pleasure boating into 3 months and then forgetting about the water for the other 9, has indeed seemed to have an effect.

Alas, our focus has merely shifted from the relatively well behaved southern Weekend Warriors, to a different group of glaring floating pestilence. Shrimp boats. The WAFI’s of the Gulf of Mexico.

I was of the impression that the shrimp boats, staffed with seasoned mariners such as ourselves, would have more of a grasp of proper water-going etiquette, a mutual respect for those who make a living by plying the seas. I was wrong. Very wrong.

Might as well throw them into the MAFI category. But worse.  At least the assorted _AFI’s would sometimes realize that a tiny fiberglass boat versus a hulking steel barge would lead to a very quick demise. But the shrimp boats could care less. I guess their theory is that their boat would fare better than a sailboat. I would venture that they might do a bit more than scratch our paint, but I’m fairly sure that the end result would be the same. But you can’t even tell that to them because they are either- 1.) Not monitoring their radio to hear our calls that they are heading for danger, or 2.) Their command of the spoken English language is not up to par as to understand that they are acting rather foolishly (cleaned up here for NSFW language).

Shrimp boat Captain? (What is it with this blog and Tom Hanks?)

 Either way, the number of WTF! moments are starting to pile up. Nothing that requires paperwork (or worse), but just enough to get your heart pumping a little faster, your blood pressure to rise, and your focus to narrow. It’s the Gulf’s version of WAFI season. And with the coming of the springtime fog season, which just adds another variable to the equation, it makes we wonder if 3 months of Weekend Warriors isn’t such a bad deal at all.

I just want a tiny, little, itty-bitty, piece of water borne real estate in order to affect my craft. Is it so unreasonable to want to have everyone else do the same?

I guess that I now need a t-shirt that says, “I hate shrimp boats”. And I know that plenty of professional mariners here in the Gulf happen to agree with me.

At a minimum it will spark more random discussions in the airport.

Product Placement

Have you noticed on TV lately that the placement of certain products in the background of a scene have just become blatant endorsements? I'm just waiting for the dialogue to begin to reflect this as well.

"Come on, Jennifer. If we don't get into our 2014 Hyundai Elantra with a six speed variable transmission soon. We'll never make it to Pepsi-co Field on time to stop the terrorists. Even with our stylish Hyundai Elantra getting 38 miles per gallon highway and going from 0 to 60 in 6.8 seconds, not even it's 5 star crash safety rating could save us then."

Yeah, it's starting to get that bad.

But what does Jennifer and stopping terrorists have to do with tugboats?

Nothing.

But I'm about to do a shameless product endorsement and I had to lead with something.

We have been in shipyard for the last couple of weeks.
Hence the complete lack of new, funny, and hip stories on this here blog. Aside from the normal "shave and a haircut" for the boat, Mongo and I were tasked with forming our own construction company in order to rebuild the galley. "Two Morons Construction Company" was founded and most of our time was invested on destroying and then rebuilding the galley to our exacting tolerances. Banging on a computer keyboard at night to relay our tales of joy just was not in the cards.

But now I'm on my time off. The Christmas lights have been strung around the house, the mud room cabinets that I promised to build the wife have been built, and mandatory tugboat training has been accomplished. So between getting online Christmas shopping done and playing semi-pro firefighter this week, I finally had time to put zeros and ones out into cyberspace.

Oh yeah, product placement. Right.

During shipyard you get dirty. Depending on what project you are doing (i.e. toilet blowing up in your face) you can get REALLY dirty. After getting dirty, you need to get clean. Which sometimes is an issue when the water pipes to the boat are laying in pieces on the deck of the engine room.
For years the old standby for getting you hands clean has been to use "GoJo", the "Natural Orange Pumice Hand Cleaner".

Smells like oranges. Doesn't taste like them.

That was, of course, until this shipyard period.
After one such day of getting way too dirty, there was a new bottle of hand cleaner in the engine room sink. I had already washed my hands with the old standby GoJo, but was less than pleased with the results. I figured that I would try out some of this new stuff and see if my results were any closer to being actually clean.

Enter... CODE RED. I had neither seen nor heard of it before. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained. It smelled of cherries. I passed on the taste testing part. It had a smidgen of pumice similar to the old go-to GoJo. But immediately upon rubbing it into my previously GoJo cleaned hands, it whisked away any of the remaining dirty, grime, wood glue, sandblasting grit, paint, and whatever else was plastered on my hands. I was thoroughly pleased. This stuff was good. For the rest of the time we were on the boat anytime my hands got too dirty to tell that they were still hands, I went with the Code Red. It never failed to get my hands clean from whatever happened to be ground into them. GoJo had to go. It's Code Red for me from now on.

Now that I'm home, where the Honey-Do list never seems to get smaller, and my hands get just as dirty as in the shipyard, I realized that I MUST get some Code Red. Trouble is, I can't find any. Even my online searches have come up empty on when to find a local retailer. I found where to buy a Main Battle Tank online! You would think I could find hand cleaner!
Alas, the search continues. So if anyone happens to know where I can find it, send me a link. Or a sample. Or a bottle. Or a 55-gallon drum of it. The same holds true for anyone who works for the company that makes Code Red. This is good advertising.

"Jennifer, my hands are so clean from using Code Red hand cleanser I know that we can fool the finger print scanner and stop the terrorists."

You know, product placement.

The Captain

Generally, when reading about a post on a blog that concerns the maritime world you would suspect that a post called “The Captain” would be about the head honcho onboard boats. Generally, you would be correct. Today, you’re wrong.

“The Captain” in question happens to be the captain of the New York Yankees, Derek Jeter. If you happen to follow baseball you are well aware that this is Derek Jeter’s last season in the majors. Even if you don’t follow baseball you are still probably well aware that it his last season. Every stadium that the Yankees have played in this year has been essentially turned into a traveling tribute to one of the classiest guys to ever play the game. 

My wife is a Yankees fan, through and through. I happen to be a member of the Red Sox Nation. As she likes to say, “No one is perfect.”

Which is true. We all have our own faults.

However, throughout a storied 20 year career, Jeter has managed to not just play the game with skill and prowess but just as importantly (maybe even more so), managed to keep his name free and clear by not engaging in any bad behavior which so seems to dominate professional sports.

There aren’t many people in professional sports that I would consider to be a role model, both professionally and personally.

For me, Derek Jeter is at the top of that very select group.

Which is pretty high praise coming from a Red Sox fan.

The other night, Jeter played his last game in the hallowed halls of Yankees Stadium.

I was going to try to describe it in my own words, however I think this video captures the moment better than I ever could.

 To say that it couldn’t have been written by a Hollywood movie maker any more perfectly than it did would be the understatement of the decade.

Alas, the season isn’t over. The Yankees traveled to Boston to play out the final 3 games of their season. The Hollywood version would have had Jeter hitting a home run in the bottom of the 9^th in Game 7 of the World Series to win the title. Sadly, for both Sox and Yankees fans, neither team is headed for the playoffs this year.

The silver lining in this story is that the New York Yankees are finishing the season against the hated Boston Red Sox. If there is one team, one group of fans, that respect Derek Jeter as much as Yankees fan do, it would have to be the members of Red Sox Nation.

Boston fans are rabid about their sports teams. They are knowledgeable, dedicated, no holds barred, supporters of their teams. They will let their players know when they are playing well. They will let their players know when they are playing poorly. They will especially let their players know when they downright suck. Boston fans aren’t just fans of their own teams, but also fans of the game itself. They appreciate a good play just as much as anyone. Even if it was against their beloved home team.

If there were ever a group of fans that appreciate all that Derek Jeter has done for the game of baseball (other than Yankees fans) it would have to be the ones from Boston.

Jeter may not get the sendoff that he received in New York, but knowing Boston fans, it will probably be pretty close.

And it is well deserved.

Now I would be remiss if there wasn’t at least one way for me to integrate the maritime world into this baseball post.

So here it is…

Talking with two separate pilots that we had onboard this week concerning Derek Jeter’s upcoming retirement led to the discovery that not just one, but both of them, were planning on attending baseball games this week. One of them was traveling up to New York to attend Derek Jeter’s final game at home. The other one was going up to Boston to attend Derek Jeter’s final game, ever. To say that I was jealous would also be an understatement of the decade.

Bribes were considered.

Instead, we are stuck with watching the final games of Derek Jeter’s career on the boat on TV. Not quite the same as being in the crowd, but we’ll take it.

So…

Congratulations, Derek Jeter!

Enjoy your retirement.

I was a pleasure to watch you play the game as well as you did for as long as you did.

RE2PECT.

It's A Small World

Headed up the Mississippi River the other day we were just getting ready to pass a ship that was moored at one of the coal piers that line the river. The ship’s self-unloading boom was extended out over the river and both I and the pilot onboard agreed that passing under the boom would be a poor navigational choice.

The ship in question

Our conversation then shifted to discussing the ship’s particulars and how the pilot had also been onboard that ship for a trip or two on the river.

“It’s a coal fired steam ship. Should the Zombie Apocalypse ever happen they can run the ship with their cargo for like 10 years”, remarked the pilot, “It also has a steam line running from the engine room up to the bridge. The captain has an old-time hot dog steamer up there. He loves hot dogs. In fact, you can’t do a trip onboard without being offered one. Or two. Or ten. They even steam the buns.”

Which I thought was an interesting tidbit of peculiar shipboard engineering. I remarked that a dedicated steam line from the engine room to the bridge definitely showed how different tugs and ships are. Tugboat hotdog preparation methods are slightly less refined.

Complete with bun warmer.

We then shifted our comments from hot dogs to the affore mentioned hot dog obsessed Captain. “He was my roommate at the Academy.”

Turns out, the pilot was a graduate of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Hence, the Captain of the ship was a MMA graduate as well. 

As am I. 

And so is my wife. 

Graduation years were discussed and it was determined that I had “escaped” (please note that both the pilot and I used the term “escaped” from the Academy when referring to graduating) a few years before he and the ship’s Captain had arrived. However, my wife was in her senior year when the two of them had started school. Consequently, the pilot knew who my wife was. She had made him do pushups and “get in the half” on more than one occasion. 

"The Half" Stay there until your arms fall off.

Based on this information, it was also determined that my wife probably knew the pilot’s roommate as well. Innocently enough I asked, “What was your room mates name?”   

“Shane Murphy.”

For those that aren’t familiar with the name, a quick read of this blog post might refresh your memory (selfless promotion).

For those of you who prefer the Cliffs Notes version…

(Now) Captain Shane Murphy, was previously the Chief Mate on a once little known ship, the Maersk Alabama. Perhaps you are familiar with the book, or the movie starring Tom Hanks, concerning said ship. It featured Captain Richard Phillips (also a MMA graduate) and the takeover of the ship by Somali pirates. The exact same ship that Shane was serving aboard as Chief Mate, at the exact time that the pirates decided to take the ship’s lifeboat and it's captain on a brief joy ride. A joy ride that ended with the Somali pirates meeting up with the sharp end of the Navy SEALs broad reaching sword. Long reaching rifles, in all actuality.

Note to pirates.

So while Captain Phillips was out in the lifeboat with the pirates on a 3-hour tour (It's okay to sing the song. You know you want to). Chief Mate Shane Murphy was therefore unceremoniously promoted to Captain in the previous Captain’s absence.

Shane did not take over for Tom Hanks.

Now Shane has his own ship to command. A ship that is totally zombie proof. Which is good to know. That has a hot dog steamer on the bridge. Also, good to know.

This brings us back to the title. 

It’s a small world. 

You never know who you are going to meet out here. The maritime community is a small place to begin with. Just how small, happened to be highlighted quite nicely this week. 

Besides, it’s nice to know that if I ever want to work on a certain ship I know the Captain’s weaknesses. Hot dogs and the fact that my wife made him do pushups while he was in school.

All good things to know.

It really is a small world.

Feel free to sing this song as well. 

***Those dolls are creepy. Why has no one made a movie with these dolls coming to life and going on a murderous rampage? Perfect, right? If anyone does make a movie I want partial credit. You saw it here first.

Folding Paper

Seems simple enough.

Heck, even the Origami stuff looks relatively easy. But we aren't talking about Origami or making paper airplanes. 

We are talking about trying to fold brand spankin’ new nautical charts. Which sucks. And isn't easy. And isn't simple. Did I mention it sucks?

Chart #11309 Corpus Christi Bay

For the less than nautically inclined, nautical charts are maps of the ocean. But they aren't maps. They are charts. They are the same thing. Except that they aren't. Maps are for roads, charts are for the water. See, in the maritime world we have a lot of different names for things that already have names. Keeps the non mariners from really understanding what is really going on. Walls are bulkheads, floors are decks, ceiling are overheads, port is left, and starboard is right. The list goes on and on. So, maps are charts and new ones suck.

As a general rule, I have no issue with charts. It's just the new ones that are the subject of my ire. Every week the Feds come out with a list of corrections we have to do our to our chart portfolio. Buoys get moved. New navigation lights get put up or taken down. Changes in the hydrography. And of course, wrecks happen. And all the changes have to get put down on the chart in order to make sure the information is as current and as accurate as possible. So every week we get to do "Arts and Crafts" on the boat. We get to use markers, colored pencils, tape, scissors, rub on transfer sheets, and stickers. It's all very preschool. But every now and then there are enough changes over the years to a particular area that a new chart is issued. Now you would think that a brand new chart would be nice. You would be wrong.

Arts and Crafts. Nautical version.

I hate new charts. Hate them. Not as much as I hate Corpus Christi, TX. But it’s definitely right up there.

To begin with, your old tired beat up chart had all of your courses laid out. It had all of your distances and average speeds put down. You had all kinds of notes and hints and local knowledge of the area written in the margins. Areas to avoid and good holding anchorage spots were meticulously maintained on that old chart. A new chart has none of that. And the only way to keep that information updated is to break out the pens, colored pencils, and highlighters and transfer it all onto the new chart. But that isn't really my biggest gripe. The thing that irks me the most about brand new nautical charts is folding them. How could folding a piece of paper into a couple of squares be so difficult? First of all, have you ever tried folding a circle into a square? Yeah, not so easy.

Our new charts come to the boat all rolled up in the tightest cylinder ever made possible by machines.

Then the charts sit in this nice tight cylindrical form for about 2 months so the paper builds up a very nice memory of its current shape. The mere act of trying to get this paper from a circle to a square is where the paper and I no longer are friends. 

Six charts. Rolled up nice and tight.

The more I try to unroll the chart and make it lay flat, the more it rolls itself back up and mocks me. I've tried rolling it up the opposite direction. I've tried leaving it alone unrolled for a week in high humidity. I've let them hang over the wheelhouse railings to let gravity do some of the work. I've tried leaning both of my arms on it, putting books at the corners, using a ruler to straighten out the edges. I think I've tried just about every method ever known to mariners. I even contemplated just leaving them for the other crew. And since they are paper, where would you be without the mandatory paper cut somewhere along the way. Needless to say, new charts and I just don't get along.

Unrolled. And rolled right back up again.

Perfect!

 After a tirade infused 15 minutes of fighting with a piece of paper, it’s one chart down, 12 more to go. It’s going to be a long afternoon.

I WILL CRUSH YOU !!!  Put the new charts under a giant stack of old charts and let them sit and think about what they have done for a week before even thinking about touching them again.