Last watch...

Well, in  little bit, I'll start the last watch of this tour aboard the HQ. 8 hours, mostly outdoors, and it's gonna rain like hell, which is about right to encapsulate the flavor of the past 4 weeks.

 It's been a real damn grind. At midnight I need to get a ride to Brooklyn (I'll be in Bayonne, NJ) to my office, there to catch a quick nap and then get groceries and a taxi to another refinery, there to board a diesel barge to spend another week wet and uncomfortable.

 And, after that, I go home for only 5 1/2 fucking days. I done goofed.

 Well, next time, end of April, I'll take my full rotation off and recharge then. I'll try not to whine right up until next payday, when it'll be all smiles and sunshine. Hell, I'll be in south FL by then, and hopefully drunk, very probably disreputable, at a minimum.


   I spend too much time here, and have been doing so for the past 18 months. By the end of the year, I'll be slowing down to a more humane pace, God willing. This 35 days on/ 5.5 days off crap is tough. On the other hand, the paycheck is glorious.
   One side effect of all this time aboard, mostly spent with my head stuck in a black oil tank

About 5 years ago. Not much has changed. 

 ...is that I come home with the HFO vapors saturated in my skin. When I sweat, for the first night I'm ashore, the sulfur stink of RMG-380 (The fuel we carry most often) comes out of my pores. My wife tends to hand me a glass of whisky (which also has a smell that comes out your pores) and points at the shower, whereupon I burn up all the hot water in the house with a long, long shower. It helps.

      And that glorious day is just a week away.