The Grind

 Well, I'm in it now. I've been at work for a week and I've got 3 weeks to go. When I get home, the holidays will be starting up, and while I'm not going to be home for Christmas this year, I'll be home for Thanksgiving and New Years, which is pretty good.  So to add to the Honey-Do list for next time I'm home, which is already jam-packed, I need to add losing about 6hrs to ha g the Christmas lights, which I intend to do, as I have not done so in the past 3 years, and frankly I could use the pleasant effect it has, and maybe the neighbors can too.  So that'll be a good project to do a few days before I go back to work. 

       We've been working steady since I got here, right up until yesterday. We've got a little break now, and while I can't go ashore at the lay berth where we're sitting now, we're doing an early crew change today, and Big E is going home, while B is coming in. Big E had surgery 7 months ago and is finally almost recovered, but has been working shorter tours to build up his endurance, but this is the last shortened tour. On his return in 3 weeks, he'll be back to full time. In the meanwhile, B was working overtime elsewhere and I heard they had a major breakdown while he was there, and an awful time, so he'll be relieved, grumpy and hopefully ready to rest when he gets here in a few hours. 

        Dirk the Dutchman, the mayor (and senior captain at this point) of New York Harbor, will be swapping bodies on his prison ship launch (a water taxi) all day today, and in just a few hours that'll happen. I took the launch just last week when I started my tour at HAWSEPIPER'S Afloat Global HQ/ Penal colony, and as always it was great to catch up with Dirk, who at 82 is still spry as hell and while 'retired' keeps his hand as owner of his launch company. 

    As I have been working on boats since age 8, I understand that on a boat something is always broken and in need of repair. That's the nature of boats after all. This past week the head (bathroom) has been playing merry hell, and while the primary culprit was a burned out macerator pump (boat toilets grind down poop and TP to a slurry before pumping it to a holding tank for treatment), the reason the poop pump got smoked was the control/flush switch was damaged. A new switch wasn't available locally in NYC, and is being shipped, so Jimmy, one of our shoreside staff, an electrician, Jimmy-rigged the switch to sort of work in the meanwhile, if pressed REALLY hard... which worked until yesterday, when the whole switch and its' box just fell into the bulkhead (wall) and disappeared after a piece of wall it was screwed to just said Fuck Off and tore out. 

 So yesterday before my morning bidness, I got to rip out a 20-year old, mildewy, crumbling and piss-spray saturated hardboard wall to retreive the control box. Which smelled magical. Fermented ammonia, stagnant water and mildew.

 A blessing in disguise, really, as, unpleasant as it was, nobody had to crap in a bucket, including me, and our port engineer has a replacement panel and some insulation on order. A new panel should improve the smell, as we already removed the insulatuon, sprayed the space between the old bulkhead and the exteral steel house with dilute bleach and then an enzyme deodorizer we keep on hand for when old guys and hoodboogers with bad aim piss on the deck and bulkheads around the toilet. 

 So I was able to have the Morning Seat in peace, if delayed, and thus yesterday was saved.  At 51 it's really hard to have a nice day if it starts with crapping in a bucket, so even with a hole in the head, we're good.

   We also got stores (supplies) yesterday, which included new office chairs. Fancy gaming chairs, even. I assembled one yesterday and we like it, so I'll build the rest today. If God is kind our schedule will hold and I'll be free today to cook a real lunch, help out B and Big E with shifting their dunnage, and get caught up on paperwork, etc.