Here we go again

The big seas and rolling waves are back. And the high windspeeds. And it all happened quite suddenly, over barely a couple of hours, after 3 days of pretty calm (well, relatively speaking) weather. So now it's back to a see-sawing deck and swaying drunkenly down corridors :P.

The weather in the last few days had been so calm in fact, that we were out in the small boat twice in three days! And the last time we went out... well, let's see. We were out for a couple of hours. Within the first ten minutes we were pretty much drenched. Skip maintains that I was the last person dry, but he must have access to a slo-mo replay to have figured that out /:). I did try sidestepping a few of the waves that came crashing into the boat, but I might as well have taken a dip in the ocean and tried to stay dry. It was like someone was emptying a few gallons of water on our heads every few minutes!! It was totally awesome :D. For one I very wisely didn't have my cam or my watch on me :P. And the cool water on the extremely hot day was quite welcome. If only it hadn't been so salty :-<.It was a good trip, the best I've had in months!! It was beginning to get a wee bit boring to be honest, and this was just the perfect thing to put the spark back into small boat trips :).

Feeling: perky!
Listening to: Pearl Jam - In hiding

Let there be light!

What do you do when you're scared of something? It's not like the fear is completely irrational. There were reasons. But you can't stay afraid for long. They won't let you! Not even long enough to try and forget... Even you don't want to cower away, lose yourself in the dark. So you light yourself a little flame. In the wavering light you go back to the beginning, and teach yourself the first step. That's the hardest part. Then the flame begins to grow, and you may have to walk for long, or maybe not, but in the end there will be no darkness, fear, or doubt!
Feeling: light :)
Listening to: Moby - I'm not worried at all

Such is life.

It was just one of those days :D. Barely an hour into the shift, the night cook lands up with these extremely iffy looking things, attempts at recreating Scotland's most famous snack: deep fried Marsbars! Believe it or not, it's true!!! Such things as 'deep fried' chocolate do exist!!! No wonder they drink so much, the food's fer shite man! (This wasn't exactly bad, but c'mon!!) Then Skip lands up in the recording room claiming that he's just witnessed a sight I've been waiting for ever since I first heard of it, waves so high, they actually crashed over the helideck!! I made for the bridge immediately.

I have never actually been to the bridge at night. As in deep in the night, with the moon is high in the sky, casting an eerie light on the world that should be asleep, but seems restless, tossing and turning. White tips frothing above the tall waves bathed in the shimmering light. Innumerable columns of some solemn army headed for a grim destination. The howling of wind, rendered distant by the surrounding glass, was still strong enough to leave me deeply impressed.
I've managed to get pretty much my entire shift interested in Google Earth again :D. I've done it before, but that was a year and a half back, and I'm now on the other shift ;). So Jon comes up with an idea this morning, he challenges me to find a ship, not any ship, he further qualifies, a U S Navy aircraft carrier, in proper high-res on GE. I didn't think too much of it then, but the idea kinda grew on me >:).
By the end of shift, I'd found not one, or two, but eleven!! :D Eight of the twelve in active duty currently, and three that have been decommissioned. \:D/ The one shown above is the USS John F Kennedy, CV-67. The other vessels I managed to locate included the USS Enterprise, CV-65, the USS Nimitz, CV-68, the first two nuclear powered aircraft carriers in the world, the USS Abraham Lincoln, CV-72, the newest one I could find, the USS Kitty Hawk, CV-63, the oldest, commissioned way back in '61 and the USS Ranger, CV-61, now decommissioned.

Feeling: lazy :P
Listening to: Dido - Closer

Isobel!

After half a week of agonising over the possibility of the whole cyclone thing turning out to be an expensive dud, it finally grew into a category one tropical cyclone. It was almost as if my privately coaxing the clouds actually worked :P. Even with a headstart of over 2 days we quite clearly felt the effects of TC Isobel, although from a fairly safe distance.True to form I went out at dawn to get some evidence :D. The focs'l deck, my primary haunt, was flooded with water forced out from the anti-roll fresh water tanks by the ship's exaggerated rolling, so off I went to the helideck and after a lot of clicks got these proofs of exactly how severe the pitching was :D.

Now negotiating the helideck in wind speeds of upwards of 40 knots is not a very bright idea, as I'd figured out on my very first day on the Trident, up in Sakhalin. But now I'm a little smarter :D, so I kept the ship's superstructure squarely behind me, facing the wind. Indulge me, :) but let me explain why it's a better idea to keep yourself between the wind and structure as against keeping the structure between you and the wind. In the former case, you can quite easily support yourself on the superstructure, taking care to keep yourself close to it. In the latter case, you don't have to worry about the wind at all, unless, you turn a blind corner and then suddenly there's the wind in front of you, and nothing behind :P. Well, not nothing, just the ship's railing you can very well get blown right over! A known adversary is so much easier to negotiate than an unknown one, no?

This is actually the first time since the Sakhalin trip that we've seen weather like this! And even this isn't quite as bad, yet. I mean, there's the threat of getting moved around while sitting on chairs, but it hasn't actually happened yet. Or maybe that's just 'cos I'm about 15 lbs heavier :P.

Currently: rolling and pitching about
Listening to: Citizen Cope - Sideways

My New Year's day 'off'!

So turns out I had my New Year day off after all :D! Well, almost. This cyclone avoidance strategy thing's actually quite good fun! We'd had to pick up part of the gear on the 1st, but that was done by the time I came on shift today, so we spent the rest of the day catching up on other things. Like... umm.. well, you know how it is when you have a lot of time in your hands and not much to do :P. The 'cyclone' is now showing signs of never actually turning into a cyclone, and we've had our (almost) day off one day late, but better late than never right?!

Ah yes, I did make very good use of my time today! Catching up on locations with updated resolution on Google Earth! :P Turns out all the three homes I've lived in, my hostel as well as each place I've stayed in for over a week in the last year and a half are all available in high res!!! I love Google!!!! :D

I really was thankful to be able to unwind like today :). Come tomorrow and it's back to the real world :-<. But I'm grateful for this rather nice start to the year. As one of my Polish crewmates would put it: "Looks promising!!" :)

Current Mood: chilled out :D
Listening to: Moby - The rafters
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Update: The cyclone has finally achieved full status :D. It's called Tropical Cyclone Isobel.