seasonable weather

...woke up from my off-watch nap to find a hard gale blowing outside. Our very busy port schedule just got porked. On the upside, this gives me time to recover from last night's Mexican food, which is cauterizing it's way around my innards, but on the other hand, 13 items are on my 'you go here' list, with no word yet on when the next terminal will open up a loading dock for us when the wind dies down under 35kt.

Long gone are the days of freezing my balls off on bow lookout in weather like this. Instead, I'm mostly sitting, pen in hand, running numbers and chasing after the phone. Not exactly the exciting life of a merchant mariner in the way that I once envisioned, but I guess seniority has a price.

Note the float coat, however. I have to poke my head outside every time I hear a boom or a crash, which is constant with all this wind. We've gotten spoiled aboard with the relatively fine early-winter weather up to this point. Today's gale is merely seasonal, but I feel enervated in a way that was once reserved for days long past when I used to get launched out of my bunk mid-sleep by heavy seas.