...and back again. Anatomy of a crew change.

  TUES AM:  

    Well, it was good to be home. 

  Sitting at my local airport now with a delayed flight to NY. Not an auspicious start to the trip.

    I dun gud, no booze, ate relatively healthy, lost 2lbs while I was home, which is unusual but welcome. Innapropriately Hot Foreign Wife had last week off so we were pretty well welded at the hip for 2 weeks, and that was nice. I have a pleasant light tan after the daily late-morning swims we did. Sadly, a series of particularly strong thunderstorms revealed a roof leak, and the $3000 to get a crew in to undo the fairly widespread damage sure hurt, but the roofing crew is at my house today so at least it's underway and was caught before I got damage inside the house beyond some spongy drywall and water stains. 

    I'm returning to work for August, which is a tough time to be working outside on a hot steel boat with 120-degree oil in the tanks. Gonna be digging deep this tour for sure. 

   My plane is boarding the miracle-seekers now. You know, the 40 people in wheelchairs, 35 of whom will magically regain the use of their legs before we land? Yeah, those trashbags. My love for humanity is at a low ebb when I'm at the airport. 

Wed PM, late:

      It was a bumpy but quick flight. In the end we only landed about 45 mins late. The pilot shoveled in some extra coal I guess. 

         Crew change was pleasantly smooth- Between JFK airport and the office is a BJ's, and I went in and stocked up on bulk items, including water and soda and energy drinks, which I usually store in the company's warehouse before heading to my hotel for the night. I was VERY fortunate in that the HQ was at the dock at the foot of the warehouse, and I humped my bulk stuff aboard and headed to the hotel. My room at the hotel was nice enough, and quiet for New York, but the TV was busted and an LED light liked to flicker on and off every 5-10 minutes, which was odd as it had been switched off but there was no visible plug to undo, so I hung some of my clothes over the light, which helped. The TV thing was no big deal except that I like to watch Youtube videos on that hotel's TV the night before crew change, as I start to adjust my circadian rhythm into work mode. 

    The night before crew change, I usually try to stay up late, until midnight or 1am, and sleep until 6. The short sleep allows me to catch a nap before taking the night watch on Wednesday after I arrive and move in.  When my alarm goes off, I shower, suck down an energy drink, and by then usually my taxi has arrived, where I'll go to a local grocery store and stock up on vegetables and staple items I didn't want to buy in bulk, before heading to the office... as it happens, the HQ left the office dock around 8pm on Tuesday, and went to anchor out by the Statue of Liberty, and I took a launch out to the HQ to relieve B, who was headed home. 

         The launch is owned and operated by the mayor of New York Harbor, Dirk the Dutchman.  Dirk, whom I've wrote about before, is an 82-year old Dutch gentleman who was a merchant seaman and later a New York harbor tug captain for 30-some years, and rather famous in our circles. 

     Forget that terrorist commie Moor mayor in New York. His jihadist schtick mandate ends at the seawall. Dirk's the mayor of the harbor, so it was good to check in and get casually sworn at, as is custom. Me being generally in Dirk's good graces, he usually limits it to 'quit fuckin' around and go on up the ladder' when it's time for me to, well, go up the ladder and onto the HQ. Prior to that though, as I usually do, I talk over the state of things on the harbor while I was at home, and get caught up on gossip and who died, when applicable. 

     After shaking hands with B when we traded places on the HQ (the offgoing guy being on the night watch, E was also there to help and thus no need to do a handoff and arrival conference with B to get me up to date), and casting the launch off, I humped my stuff indoors and started stowing my things and pulling others out of storage as E and I caught up on personal things and he downloaded the details about what's happening, what happened when I was away, and the state of stores, fuel, orders, etc. About 90 mins later I went in my room to make up my bunk and put out my shitty clothes for work, putting away the Good Shoes and my travel clothes before laying down for a nap. 

       Sadly, my nap was only about 2 hours, as the piss taker arrived. 

       Being subject to drug testing, we get randomly hit up to piss in a cup for the edification of the office people and today was our turn. I was sleeping like shit anyhow, up and down, so no big deal. After delivering the goods, I just hung out a while, wandering around and getting a feel for the HQ and doing a more official walkaround with E after the heat of the day passed. 

 And that brings us to tonight, where I am communing with nature, more or less, and passing the time (no orders until tomorrow noon), and getting back into the rhythm. I paid out the 3k for the roof leak at home, which hurt, but nothing I can do about it but cry. As I'm free for the night, I pulled out some ground chicken, and cooked it up with onions, zucchini and tomatoes, and I'll stuff a couple of orange peppers with the mix for dinner. 

    I can't say as I'm joyful to be here, but I'm here and I'm ready to work, and ready to get paid for working. 

100 days

 So one of the things we're doing differently these days on the HQ is that we're doing a 100-day challenge of no booze and no binge eating while at home. 

 Now, seeing as I spend 2/3 of my time at work and we don't drink alcohol while working, that's not exactly a challenge... the challenge for us is that the time home is when we all eat and drink to excess, where every meal is a feast and every evening a celebration of... well, really just of not being at fucking work for once. 

      I'm home now, approatching one week here, and it's been good but weird. Not a challenge, TBH, beyond that my default approach to being home involves drinking and cooking and eating too much fairly often... celebrating, really. So part of the challenge is just switching up behaviors, something that we all thought would be a good thing, 

...and it has been. Without booze, I'm sleeping better, and eating less, as the de-inhibiting factor of booze isn't present. My wife is on board, and as she'll usually have a drink right alongside me (wine to my whisky), she. not being as prone to debauchery as I, hasn't found it changes much, although I admit I enjoy drinking and swimming, which is something we tended to do, but we're both doing a daily swim after an hour's walk each morning, something else we don't normally do. 

 So, it's been good. Maybe not a blast and at the level of intensity in terms of fun, but I'm having a good time behaving differently. And as I'm well into the 100 days, I'll be freed up at Halloween, whereupon I'm hoping to be locked in a cabin somewhere in the blue ridge mountains with the Mrs, which is something we like to do in the fall. 

 Ah well, back to it. Working next week, gotta enjoy this one. 

A walk in white Brooklyn

 When I am at one of our lay berths in Brooklyn in between cargoes, it's the only time I have at work where I can go ashore on my own w/o a task to do. 

   Generally I hope to get ashore once a week to walk, get groceries, and head back to the HQ, usually a 3 hour process if time allows. 

   I'm just 3 watches away from going home so I didn't need groceries today, but I did go to the store anyhow to stock up on caffeine, bump up my stores aboard.  Along the way I saw a really unusual number of people who looked like me...and I mean, like, really unusual numbers. 80+%, maybe even 90, once I crossed over into Red Hook.

     I found White Brooklyn. 

       In the 14 years since I agreed to be homeported in Brooklyn, I've seen it become a 3rd world neighborhood, and a place in decline. For the most part much of New York is the same now. On a 4 mile walk through Cobble Hill, downtown Brooklyn and Carroll Gardens, I'll see maybe a dozen white people total, and of the other 96% it's some black people here and there mostly around the projects areas and the shoe and wig stores around Fulton Market, and a whole shitpot of arabs and latinos everywhere else. 

 But today I walked through Red Hook, and once I passed the run down ballfields and projects,  the white people started peeping out, like crocuses in a snowdrift. By the time I was walking down Van Brunt, there were sun-averse Americans on the street and in neat lines waiting to go in shops and cafes, speaking English, and it was surprising to behold. I heard words I haven't heard in over a decade in New York, when I stepped off the curb to pass a couple of sickly-looking woman in front of a shop.

'Woops, excuse me.' 

Coulda knocked me over with a feather.

   Turns out, it's Sunday and when the weather is fine, white New Yorkers put on something tan or brown, or something that won't attract the dangerous attention of feral foreigners anyhow, let down their unkempt and kinda oily shoulder-length hair (men and women), and, dowdy like sparrows on a leafless branch, make noise. 

 Surprised me too. I didn't know there were so many of us... but all had the sickly, furtive look that you see when you see Londoners in photos during the blitz. These are NOT thriving people. These are rabbits living next to a coyote den. Now, granted, it's Brooklyn, and 90% of the people more than likely share a certain political commonality, and that political demographic certainly isn't famous for being hale, hearty, broad of shoulder and brash. Rather the opposite. But it being Sunday, I saw some maybe women, but wearing dresses, which was pleasant to see, and I only saw maybe two Che Guevara tshirts on the usual weedy stunted eunuchs. 

       Still, it was nice. No fighting, no yelling, hardly like Brooklyn at all. 

 Anyhow I got my stuff and went back aboard. Next time I go ashore, God willing, it'll be to the airport. 

 

The second dog watch day

 Well now, waking up at 1am is never fun, but glory be, I am waking up to a quiet watch. No cargo ops until tomorrow night. 

    So, with one week to go on this tour, we stand dog watches, shorter shifts, so that over the course of 24 hours, our schedules reverse. I'll go to sleep mid-morning today, a few hours early, and wake up to stand the night watch tonight. It's always hard to sleep for a few days after having our circadian rythm inturrupted and by the time we fully adjust it's time to go home, but when I leave in a week and Big E returns from home, B will be on days, and the transition time as Big E gets up to speed will be smoother as B, who has had a week to stand the day watch, is fully up to speed and has full situational awareness of what's going on in the HQ. 

...and it being July, I will not be sad to be working in the cooler evenings. I roasted my balls off these past few weeks. 

      I also missed getting rained on yesterday. That almost never happens. I have a pet peeve about working in the rain, despite having worked outdoors for 95% of my working career.  There was a running joke when I was in my 20's that I was secretly a rain god, and the rain loved me and just wanted to be near me always... I dunno, something from a novel someone stole, but it does shake out that if it is going to rain, it will happen when I am outside. There's been WAY too many days when the rain stops 5 minutes before the end of my watch when it's a watch where I need to be outdoors, these past 25 years... and for 1980 to 1999 when I was fishing.

     I know it's not reasonable for a man who's been working outside from age eight to fifty mumble mumble years old to bitch about weather, but to be fair, you work all day all summer all winter in wet fucking underwear and get back to me about what a ray of God-damned sunshine you are!

        Still, tonight. Tonight I'm grateful to have a quiet night watch. I wish I could take a slug of nyquil or something when I go to bed, but nyquil is wildly verboten aboard by decree for the side effects, which, sadly, are the effects I would have wanted.  So no, I'll have to raw dog it when I go to bed. Generally that means a 3-hour nap and a long evening tomorrow, but oh well.

       I'm not someone who gets easily bored if I have something to read and essentially a square acre or two of steel machinery and parts to tinker with, so at least there's that. I've been being good with diet and exercise again too to I'm in a good head- and ass-space as I muddle my way through. 

Halfway Day

 Busy this week, for sure.

         We got our deck crane repaired, and after 6 months with the crane head having had enough twist in the end to look like a confused dog hearing a new sound, it's a pleasure to be back to standard. 

 Since there was welding to be done, the law requires a marine chemist to test for explosive vapors beforehand, and with the guy already here and a Gas-Free Certificate issued, while my crane got fixed up, the port engineer for my company here in NY and I went for a walkaround through the bowels of the HQ and talked about this fall's upcoming maintenance projects after the weather cools off but before we start freezing up. I also took several pallets of supplies and parts and another of consumables. 

Fast forward to Friday:

     It's been nonstop since the crane got fixed. The heat was so brutal a few days ago, but I am still enjoying not being rained on every damn day, so I'm bearing it well enough. 

What's going on here

 It's been a bit since I caught up with what's happening here. It's been notably busy, which is fine, but mostly I've been uninspired to write. In two days I'll be at Halfway Day, and on the downhill side of this tour. 

     Presently we're at my employer's Brooklyn dock, getting some long-awaited repairs to one of my deck cranes. The cranes, original to the HQ and now approaching 20 years old, are very handy and robust, but about 6 months ago a mild warp was spotted at the head of the crane. This was from stress no doubt, as cranes aren't meant to take sideways stress and whether we like it or not, sometimes they experience lateral stress at the head of the crane, for example,  when a ship's manifold might be both very high off the water and 15 feet inboard of the rail of the ship. When it is time to retrieve the hose, it's of course better that the head of the crane be directly over the hose, so that the strain on the crane is vertical... but sometimes no matter how we try, if the ship's manifold is 50 feet or more above my deck, I run out of crane, and the hose, when retrieved, exerts sideways stress on the crane until I get it back over the edge of the ship's deck. And so it is that after nearly 20 years, the steel plate that the crane head is made out of, got a few degrees of bend to it. \

     So, long story longer, it took 6 MONTHS for the crane manufacturer to fab us a new head and ship it. 6 months! That's some dogshit customer service. Still, it arrived the other day and I've now got a bunch of specialized welders aboard putting a new head on the crane. It will be wonderful to have it 100% functional again.  So that's pretty cool. 

_______________________________________________________

 The tugboat operator community being small, this week we witnessed the return of The Destroyer, a tugboat mate who earned that reputation for navigating via braille around NY harbor. Also, I should mention that The Destroyer is one of the nicest people in the world, so he got to drive his 4,000hp wrecking ball for a while  before getting let go. Well, he is filling in as mate on one of the 3rd party tugboats that work for my company to help with the workload. We've only had him as our tugboat once so far, but he did just fine on our last job. He's fortunate to have one of the best deckhands I've ever worked with as his watch AB (Able-bodied seaman), which I'm sure helps. Still, it was nice to be so pleasantly surprised. Ironically enough, I had his former captain running our assigned tugboat all weekend, a man who had hair prior to having the Destroyer but went bald like Professor X after. 

  _______________________________________________________

Having reread that last part, I should mention that harbor and coastwise tugboats usually have a captain and a mate as the only two guys handling the wheelhouse duties, and traditionally they work 6 hours on/6 hours off for the entirety of the 2 to 3 weeks they work in a tour so one of them is always on watch. They usually have at least 2 deckhands and an engineer as well, unless they don't do a lot of moves in the day or if the deckhand doesn't have a lot of labor in his duties, in which case some tugs run with a 'deckineer' a licensed engineer who also covers the deckhand's job when the deckhand is off watch. 

_____________________________________________________________________

That was a rough one.

 Did I have a mental health crisis yesterday?

 Damn, I was utterly miserable last night. Yes, 3 days of rain and the beginnings of diaper rash happened. It's been brutally hot and wet and busy with weird oil blends we're mixing in the cargo tanks, so I'm getting vapors blasted in my face while peering down into the tanks looking at a measuring tape. Yes I'm on a diet. And for some reason I had low energy, and everything just seemed miserable and unhappy.  A confluence of events, maybe, but it was the shittiest night I've had in years... and everything went fine, which is the weirdest part.

 Well, today seems better. The rain stopped, at least, and while it's still dark and gloomy, tonight we have dog watches, shortened, so that I will rotate onto working days and take over the show. 

 I dunno. Yesterday I was feeling like a dog in God's hot car. Today seems better, but it hasn't really started yet. 

 I guess I better put pants on, and see what the good Lord has for me today.