The next day Orion and Calen and myself were scheduled for "Day Work" which means you assist the Support Department with Galley, Scullery, trash, sweeping etc. For this task, you have to report at 04:45 on the Mess deck. So I skipped this first weather briefing and went right to my bunk. It wasn't as comfortable as it was the night before and I had to strip down to get comfortable because of the incredible heat. I woke up a lot sweating badly and moved my head to the other side of the bunk due to a loud bunkmate. At 04:00 I had enough and just got up and got ready for our Day Work. I checked our thermostat before I left the berth and it was already turned on as cool as it could go. I later found out from another crewman on watch that when they had the engines running that night and the boiler for it was right below our section. The entire berthing area heats up and no one likes it. It was like sleeping in a sweatbox...
One of the watches was meeting in the Mess deck for their 04:00 watch. It was a group of OC's and the head of their watch went through the process of "wearing ship/bracing" using a small wooden model of the Eagle. Calen joined me at this point and we found out from the OC's that the previous day's time correction had never taken place. "If they don't announce it over the loud speakers, it doesn't happen.". So I had really gotten out my bunk at 03:00 (groaaannn!).
Just before 05:00, OC H Johnson and the other OC's from our mast assignment joined us on the Mess deck. Calen and Orion weren't happy about having to be on Daywork today because this was the first day the Eagle would be setting sails and calling us to Sail Stations. We also were scheduled on Sunday to be on the 24:00 to 04:00 watch, sun site training at 14:00 and then the 20:00 to 24:00 watch on the same day. I thought it would be good to get this all out of the way early in the game so we could join sail stations and other work we prefer later in the week.
One of the watches was meeting in the Mess deck for their 04:00 watch. It was a group of OC's and the head of their watch went through the process of "wearing ship/bracing" using a small wooden model of the Eagle. Calen joined me at this point and we found out from the OC's that the previous day's time correction had never taken place. "If they don't announce it over the loud speakers, it doesn't happen.". So I had really gotten out my bunk at 03:00 (groaaannn!).
Just before 05:00, OC H Johnson and the other OC's from our mast assignment joined us on the Mess deck. Calen and Orion weren't happy about having to be on Daywork today because this was the first day the Eagle would be setting sails and calling us to Sail Stations. We also were scheduled on Sunday to be on the 24:00 to 04:00 watch, sun site training at 14:00 and then the 20:00 to 24:00 watch on the same day. I thought it would be good to get this all out of the way early in the game so we could join sail stations and other work we prefer later in the week.
Crewman Torske who was in charge of the mess arrived and started telling us where we should go and what we should do to assist crewman Lauren. Some of us went to stores and brought back food, others emptied trash and cleaned. We were shown how to peal and cut fruit for the days fruit salads and apple treats made with cinnamon and honey. Mr. Torske made it seem so easy, you felt like an idiot when you tried to cut anything the same way.
Mr. Torske is a story unto himself. In the following days, whenever we saw him in the passageways or on deck, he was very curt if he acknowledged you at all. I started avoiding him as it looked like a genuine anger. Later Orion described a scene when he was directed to get something from Mr. Torske by another officer. Mr. Torske was busy as usual and when Orion made the official request, he heard Mr. Torske reply “F__ken TSA…”. Orion tried to laugh it off as a joke but also felt like it was a genuine hate so Orion started to avoid him as well.
After I heard this story from Orion I decided that because we had been nothing but professional to him, I was going to start screwing with him and start calling him different names that sounded close to “Torske” every chance I got. I felt it was a funny way to deal with the uncomfortable situation.
A couple days later I found him approaching me alone in the aft section by the Wardroom. I started to greet him with a new name I was going to make up on the fly and he suddenly looked at me and smiled and said “Hey Max, how are you doing?”. I was so surprised at his first friendly greeting that I stammered out a friendly “Good day Mr. Torske” as he passed by.
I related my story to Orion and Calen. Calen started telling us that he had some time with Mr. Torske where he opened up about how much he loves to cook and what a nice guy he "suddenly" seems to be. He’s passionate about cooking and makes fresh bread for the officers and other treats for the crew just because he wants to, not because he has to. Many of the succulent treats we were privileged to during our voyage were his creations.
After that, I went out of my way to compliment Mr. Torske and his cooking whenever I had the chance and his responses were always upbeat. He even told me how he wanted to take a few months off this summer to work as a cook on a Tall Ship and asked any TSA if they knew of a ship he could work on.
We couldn’t help but wonder why Mr. Torske had been acting so different in the beginning of the week but I seem to come up with the only explanation that everyone seemed to agree with…“He must have got laid!”. I’m very glad I never went through with my plan as he turned into a very decent guy.
Crewmen often stopped by on their way through the Mess deck as we were preparing food and popped a strawberry or grape in their mouth before moving on. When we were done, we wrapped up all the prepped food and moved it back into the stores for later. We setup the mess area for breakfast and ate first when they piped that breakfast was being served. We thought we would be helping out more in the galley itself with cooking or in the Scullery with dishes but we were left to our own devices.
We went and asked trying to offer our services but no one needed or wanted our help. So we took a break until we were directed to help prep more food. This was pretty much the theme throughout our day and because I was still so tired, I caught naps whenever I could. After cleaning up after lunch, there was a call to Quarters to get ready for the Admin drills (MOB, Abandon Ship, GE) set to start at 13:00. For these types of drills it doesn't matter what you are assigned to, you report to your assigned area. Our assignment was the mizzenmast. We double-checked the board to find out which lifeboat was assigned to us in case of Abandon Ship. Our group is assigned to LB08 (lifeboat 8).
The ship wide alarms went off stating there was a General Emergency and we all went to our assigned stations. When we arrived aft of the mizzen, there was a group mulling around but Chief Willard soon set us straight and had us separate into lines by group so our group leaders and mast captain could be sure everyone was accounted for. After all reports were in, the bridge announced that we failed the General Emergency and that we should move on to Abandon Ship. We moved to the ships waist and found lifeboat 8 and all in our group were soon accounted for. A crewman threw us an orange bag with a survival suit also nicknamed a “gumby suit” and moved on to the other groups.
An XO showed up while Calen and I were examining the gumby suit and told us to take it out and examine it. He asked if Calen was going to demonstrate how to wear it so Orion and I heartily volunteered him by both of us pointing to Calen at the same time and saying “He will”. Honestly, we couldn’t have rehearsed that better.
Calen needed some assistance as the suit was an older version and not in the best condition. It had a strobe that you were to activate once you reached the water and then were instructed to stick it to your head where there are multiple velcro areas to stick it. There was also an inflation tube that inflates a pillow attached to your back. They instructed us to make sure that you bend over and then zip up while you start to stand before you jump into the water to reduce the area that would be hitting the water and make the transition from deck to water smoother.
After we released Calen from captivity, the head of the OC's in our lifeboat started drilling the OC's on the life rafts specs and procedures. I surprised myself when I started answering many of the questions as the Friendship life raft procedures easily came back to me since I filmed the procedures and posted them online. When the head of the group asked if the life raft inflated fully I accidentally said a little too loud "No" and all heads turned towards me and when she asked what sections didn't inflate, I stated "don't look at me, this is your test (pointing to the OC's)..." even though I knew at the very least the floor had to be inflated after you entered the raft with a hand pump that was included with the on board supplies.
Calen mentioned his certification training included having to jump in a pool without a gumby suit, get in the gumby suit in the water, flip the raft over and then get in. The water in the suit must add at least a hundreds pounds making the whole process incredibly difficult.
We were dismissed from emergency stations and checked in on the Mess deck to see if we were needed. At this time officer Solari asked about my mast crew and what problems we may have encountered so far. I told him that we actually would have liked more work to do as it's better to keep busy than sit around waiting to be ordered or something to happen. He listened intently and promised he would work on getting better communication with the TSA.
We had some time to kill so I took a nap and came back later to set up for dinner. I offered to help with serving and had to wait until the crew was ready to be served as they were currently wearing the ship. This delay was a problem with the galley who had been ready to keep the food warm and serve exactly at 17:00. They now had to shuffle food around to keep it from getting cold in the limited space and to complicate matters, the ship was rolling a lot and it wasn't easy to keep all the equipment from quickly ending up on the floor. They even had to duck tape two drawers shut to keep the contents from flying everywhere.
Dinner was held up until almost 18:00 and I went in to help Jamie and OC James Bruce serve the food. It was pizza and wings night so a lot of crew were looking forward to this. The announcement came through and the line quickly grew as I cheerfully served each person. Honestly I enjoyed doing it as it gave me a chance to test the names I was trying to learn and meet much more of the crew. The sea still being rough made it hard to keep pizza from flying everywhere.
After about an hour, we brought the rest of the pizza and wings down to the mess deck and did a general announcement that pizza was available for all crew on the mess deck. I had only managed to grab a brownie before dinner but I had about six wings and a slice of pizza and then helped the crew clean up.
Released from our day work Orion, Calen and myself went back to our bunks for the night since we were on the midnight Bridge Watch. You have to report 45 minutes before your watch that meant being ready by 23:15. Thankfully the berths were nice and cool tonight as we sailed without engines so you think sleeping would be easier. Unfortunately the ship was rolling really badly so sleeping was difficult. I was up at 22:30 so I could be ready for our shift.
Someone from the previous watch came in to make sure we were ready to report (this time it wasn't a dream). I dressed extra warm this time and showed up on the mess deck at 23:15. OC Johnson was there and said she would meet us on the bridge.
Day Four:
http://emaxadventure.weebly.com/1/post/2013/05/day-four-sunday.html