Two A Days

 So, I know the expression "Two a days" is a sportsball reference, but it's appropos here. I'm not into televised sports. Or organized sports, really.  At all. I reluctantly played football briefly in high school before quitting in relief to go work and make money instead of playing children's games for free. So I participated in two a days for a time over the course of two years. They were awful. The whole thing was awful as I recall. Even as an adult I can't even stand to be around people watching sports. The whole thing is just very very gay. Unnervingly so. 

   But I recall two a days having a particular effect on me as a teenager, and I experienced that same feeling last week. Sick, dehydrated, dizzy, unhappy, uncomfortable, unmotivated. Oh the memories. 

 The US Coast Guard requires that whether or not you participate in fire and boat drills in the course of your maritime career (both being required on every inspected vessel and most uninspected ones too), in order to maintain STCW credentialing enabling you to work on oceans, you have to have refresher training in water survival and firefighting every 5 years. 

 Last week was that day for me. And to save on time and be efficient, participation in water survival and firefighting is done in the same day. The same very long day.  This is good in that it is efficient, and not so good in that it can kick your ass if you were to do these things in, say, South Florida in the summer. 

      So, last week one day I spent the morning in a pool, in a gumby suit, doing things like donning the suit very quickly, racing up a 10' ladder and jumping off a diving board. Which is actually good fun except that doing this in a survival suit meant to keep you warm in arctic  ocean conditions in winter isn't all that much fun on a 95 degree sunny day. While overheating badly, ironically while swimming, albeit in a thick neoprene suit that fit badly, the liferaft exercises kicked my ass.   Flipping over an overturned liferaft, then getting in the stupid thing unassisted, then getting out, repeat, rinse. Kicked my ass, made me nauseous from the heat. Good training. 

           I did this class with the same South FL maritime school I've been using for the past few years. As mentioned in other posts, this is mostly a school for yacht crew, and this was no exception. My classmates were young, fit, inexperienced and attractive people with great hair.  But there were 3 of us who were commercial guys, all far older than the beautiful people. One bosun from an oceanographic ship, one federal mariner from the Military Sealift Command, and me. Arthritis, joint aches, beer bellies, experience. So we got set up by the instructors as 'liferaft commanders' and each of us had to run the group liferaft exercises for our little 6-men teams. It was fine, all of us had been there, and unlike the yacht kids, actually have to drill, rather than have logbooks pencil whipped for fear of chafing the upholstery.  I found my kids pleasant to work with; they took very well to being nicknamed in order to assign tasks (I named them Stick-Bird, Jeorgeous George, Shemp's Nephew, Probably Jailbait and Hot Topic), and when the time came, they were very solicitous of helping my flailing ass get positioned in the door of the raft after I had a hard time getting onto a 4 point stance at the very end of the exercise, where I was starting to see double from the heat.  Anyhow it all went well, other than my being in hell at the time. 

   The afternoon was firefighting, and it was here that the gray-hairs had the advantage- the firefighters all were afraid we'd die on them, and so we got to do all the exercises first. Getting suited up and on air in 95 degree weather wasn't so nice, especially after courting heat stroke that morning. And so, on the last exercise, which was a body recovery exercise done in the dark while on air in a smoke-filled compartment, and sensing that I had only a very few minutes of work left in me before either barfing in my air mask or just dropping, rather than doing a 2-man drag of the weighted mannequin out into the sun from the closed compartment, I tapped my young teammate, said 'help keep me balanced' and threw the mannequin on my shoulder and bulled my way out of the compartment, My teammate was good as gold and steadied me until I could get my balance while duck-walking with the the mannequin like a laptop bag.  I threw that dummy a good 5 feet when we got out into the air, and the firemen, who knew what time it was, obviously, hustled to get me around the corner, got me off air and dumped a bottle of water on my head.  I noticed that they did the same with the other commercial guys. I also noticed that my back said that there was to be no more mannequin tossing. 

      I find that these periodic refresher classes are very useful. Like it or not, I always forget things that aren't always covered in on-board drills. And I enjoy playing fireman.  To that end, I regret than environmental conditions definitely detracted from the class for me... BUT, they actually represent good training. Conditions are not likely to be ideal in an emergency.   To that end, I realized that, unhappily, I have to do some additional strength and conditioning training if I don't want to feel like I did during that class. Granted, I'm not going to run around like Tarzan for an hour before putting a cold-water gumby suit on and jumping in 90-degree water, but still, being distracted, sick, uncomfortable is probably going to be the best I can hope for in an emergency.   I noticed that when I had kids to order around I was less focused on being miserable and more focused on making sure they were OK and learning. I guess experience counts for something.