Thanks, I hate it.

 Well, I got my wish. I am back on the HQ. 

So, as I suspected, there was no running water when I got back here. The heating coils that sit in our water tank were shut off and B for some reason didn't look in the got-damned breaker panel when the water stopped flowing. So we have a truck-sized ice cube slung under the house and it would take a while to thaw. 

 It took about 36 hours, in fact. We have running water now. 

 I believe in comfort. When I get bounced around the fleet, as much as I'd like to pack lightly, as some do, and live out of a duffel for a few days, I don't. I bring what I want, not just things I need. 

    There are sailors who live on board and act like they're going camping, living on hot dogs and beans and sleeping on a 15-year old prison mattress (they're fireproof! I know that because they say FIREPROOF in huge letters on the mattress. And also they cost $54. And are almost as soft as 3/4" plywood).  Nothing but quality. 

    This time when I travelled, I brought my seabag, a gym back full of winter-weight foul weather gear, my float coat (a winter coat that is also a Coast-Guard approved life jacket), a laptop bag, a memory foam topper for the inevitable prison mattress, and my food and drink.  I try to be comfortable at work. Nary a hot dog to be seen. 

 So, yeah, 2 minutes after I got back to the HQ and realized it smelled like an uncleaned hamster cage because there was no running water for B to shower or use the head, I had the house breaker panel open and the potable water tank heating coils fired up. I then proceeded to move back in. 

      So yesterday early, while we were unfucking the HQ, I also cleaned up out around the manifold area on the cargo deck. With the flash freeze last week, the rain that had been falling turned to ice rather than evaporate. And it had been raining heavily. So ice got everywhere, including in between the flanges of two sections of pipe that were bolted together, forcing the flanges to separate when the ice expanded as the water froze. Sadly this flange was connecting two lengths of cargo pipe, diesel fuel piping, in fact, so we had a mess, and as it was in the manifold area, cleanup meant crawling, climbing over, and climbing under other piping, which  led to me becoming covered in diesel and dirt. Tidying up was easy. Having to get cleaned up using a half bag of wet wipes proved insufficient, but it was all I had. So it was wonderful that the water got working so I could shower. 

         Plans didn't all work out as expected, though. I really needed groceries before I got back to the HQ, being down to a few staples mostly made up of long-stored items like rice, beans, carbs, you know?  I had 2 days worth of caffeine, it was that bad. I was promised an opportunity to get groceries, which has thus far failed to happen. Our schedule keeps changing, with cargoes getting assigned, reassigned, unassigned, delayed, moved forward, etc... long story short, Today is St. Famine's day, the last day I have food aboard, so while I am on nights this week, when I wake up later, around noon, I am going to ask someone to send a tugboat to get me, probably burning 200 gallons of fuel, and get me to land so I can eat.   I CAN live like a savage here, if I have to. I just don't want to, but food isn't something I will be able to get away with not having. 

Still, it's good to be home on the HQ.