Well, that blows...

 Well, that was a lumpy night last night. 

   We had a stiff gale blow through yesterday. It reached its' peak after dark last night. Hod damn it was a good 'un. 

 We went through it just fine. Oh, yesterday morning was nasty- strong squalls but the sustained winds were less than gale force, but it was pretty sporty. I had a mixed bag work-wise. We were alongside an anchored tanker who themelves were in ballast (empty) and riding high out of the water. In cases like that it's wind V. tide on boats to see where you end up pointing. Sail area (places for the wind to push) above water is a lot greater than sail area underwater for the current to push, but water being so much more dense, it has a strong impact.  Yesterday morning the eye of thebwind was only about 30 degrees out of alignment with the tidal direction, and it was gusty enough that even with the extra drag of the HQ tugging on one side of the ship, we pointed up with the wind about 5 degrees fine on my bow, which is to say, blowing fore-and aft. 

    I had the misfortune of having a poorly-crewed ship, though. 

    The rarest of rare birds, a female Indian chief engineer, herself very nice and very professional, and the weather being shitty, I stayed in touch with the captain, too. It was a small job but Lord, it took way too long to get done.

     If I wasn't getting pounded by rain and wind, and if I wasn't trying to beat the next change in tide (we'd end up broad to the swell, taking waves on the beam, and even in harbor, we'd get tossed around and us and the tanker would want to resonate in an accordion motion that could strain my mooring lines), it would have been comical. 

     So, for tankers, when you look midships on deck you'll see the manifold area, the area where the pipelines converge... the area where oil comes on and off the ship. 

   I'll lift one end of of our bunker hoses up on deck to the ship, and they'll grab it with their crane, cast off my crane's lifting sling, and then connect the hose to their bunker manifold.  If 3+ guys are working together well, this can be done in 10-20 minutes start to finish... and for oil tankers this is how EVERY SINGLE job both starts and finishes. Hose on... hose off... so expectations are that tanker crews will be good at this. 

      90 minutes later, I've gone in and out of the house a few times, paced, grumbled to myself, and mentally fantasized about throwing grenades at the guys on the ship for being so slow. 

 90 minutes, and a couple of calls on my part on the radio. 'Still woarking my fren, still woarking.' 

 2 hours. 'Bunka baj, bunka baj, hello, my fren, you have a reducer?' 

   A reducer is a pipe fitting to connect two different size pipes. And when I had asked earlier, they didn't need one. Generally, you can see easily when one was needed.

 The 3 men at the manifold were so clueless, so untrained, they spent 2 hours trying to connect two pipe fittings of completely different sizes together... in the wind and rain. 

 Well, shocking, but I blew up. I'm REALLY making an effort not to do this, as it does no good, but me, on the radio. 'Oh you stupid, you stupid sonsabitches... oh, you ASSHOLES! 2 hours? 2 FUCKING HOURS?' You get the chief engineer on the radio. I need the chief." 

    The chief, to her credit, came out on deck in the rain and weather a few minutes later. I let her have it too, but professionally, as I was already feeling guilty about cussing out a bunch of retards. She apologized, and then lit into the men in Hindi, I think, went full Bollywood mother-in-law on them, everything but the flip-flop held as a weapon. I sent up the reducer, an 80lb cast iron affair, and 15 minutes later we started the transfer. 

 I saw the captain in a bridge window too at one point. He looked pissed off himself. Hard to find good help I guess. 

 Well, the tide turned just as we finished the job, and the hose came off at a professional pace, but we had to get an extra tugboat to come alongside to help our own tug, for safety's sake, as we now were in small gales now, and the white horses (whitecaps) were marching with some gusto, but we were pinned to the side of the ship as the wind shifted with the turn of the tide, as it so often does, and started coming into opposition. 

  All went well, though. We got off the ship and just 30 mins later our tugs were pinning us to the lay berth dock in Brooklyn, the good one where we can get ashore from. 

   Last night the wind shifted and picked up again, blowing us directly off the dock, and even with extra lines out, my lines were groaning and complaining... it's not often I hear the wind whistling and screaming through the tophamper above the house here, the antennae lights, and floodlight mast but it was singing. 

      As for contributing factors to me being unhappy yesterday, I could feel the pre-sickness itch in my throat signaling that a virus of some sort had paid a visit, and that also made me sad. By last night I was coughing a little and my voice was froggy. 

 Today my throat hurts. I don't yet know if it's strep throat or a real humdinger of a cold bug that is still building, but B brought it with him when he came aboard and shared it. Luckily I have some basic meds for this in the med chest and us having shore access, I'll go for the 45 min walk to CVS and back and stock up, pick up some cough syrup too.  I get bronchitis at the drop of a hat. Scarring on my lungs from childhood bouts of it always freaks out doctors who worry about TB, but nah, 70's parenting, I was pretty much left to cough it out for a month or so every winter from age 5-14. Ah, memories. 

   Anyhow, with first light just a half hour off, I'll go walk the deck here, see what got moved and if everything survived the night, then off for a deep walk in Brooklyn, something I haven't been able to do in a long while. I'm very grateful we're free today. Next job is tonight.