Elephants on the Chest and Other Ephemera

Those of you who have been reading this Blog probably understand just how
different working on a ship is from being on land. For example, there are
the doors.

The doors on the ship work like your normal doors – you either turn a knob
or open a hatch and voila it opens. What one doesn’t realize is that the
air pressure and ventilation systems on different decks might be
different. What this creates is a suction which first of all creates a
ghostly sounding rush of air in the stairwells, and also incredibly
adhesive doors. On days when it is particularly bad, you sometimes have
to place your shoulder into the door and ram it a bit to get it to move.

What I have trouble envisioning is how you can do successful baking aboard
a ship. If, for example, you want to bake a loaf of rye bread (my
favorite) then wouldn’t you need a stable platform to bake it? What do
you do if the ship is moving? Wouldn’t the bread move as well?

Fortunately, as a librarian, I happen to get all types who come down here..
I am sort of a local pub without the alcohol – instead you get your buzz
from the likes of Chaucer and Clive Cussler (yes I did put them in the
same sentence). So in this position, I have become the usually unwilling
ear of all sorts of confessions, complaints, and gossip. But I do find
out certain bits of trivia.

Such as they only bake bread in calm weather. So if you have a few days
in a row of rough seas – no fresh bread! I thought they would have had
special pans to hold the dough in place, but I guess not.

So today the station on my “alarm clock” changed. No longer do I hear the
clang-clang followed by jackhammer sounds. The new sound is subtler but
perhaps more nefarious. This one sounds like either a weed wacker, or the
sound of a bee buzzing in your ear. Either way, it does the job.

I’ve also made a deal with the ship’s doctor. I am going to be showing
the medical care provider tapes for that course. The students who take
this course are going to be tested right before Dublin, and some of the
information on these tapes will be necessary for them to pass. There are
a total of 9 of these tapes with such titles as, “An Elephant on the
Chest” (to treat chest pain) and “Green with Envy” (treatment of sea
sickness). Others are self-explanatory, such as “The Eyes Have it” and
“Don’t be a Fall Guy.” I have watched snippets of some of these tapes in
which the thespians act out scenes comparable with almost any low-grade B
movie by Ed Wood. I am sure these tapes will gain a cult following within
the next few years.

As for the cadets, many are now undergoing a series of “Q’s.” A “Q” which
stands either for “queue,” “quiz,” “question,” or maybe “quandary” is when
you have two cadets, one of whom is senior to the other, and an instructor
asks them a series of questions about a particular topic. The one I spoke
to today was going to be “Q’d” on Naval Architecture (which I always found
to be a funny title for Ship Building). The instructor will ask the
student a question, and if he gets it wrong, will ask his “big
brother/sister” who was supposed to be instructing the lower level cadet
on the subject.

There are a whole series of these “Q’s” that take place over the course of
the voyage and they happen on a rolling basis and can not only include
Naval Architecture, but fire fighting, watch standing, and any other sort
of topic that would be relevant. This goes part and parcel with the
practical type of education on the ship which is meant to give you on the
job training, but also a way of assessing it. To my mind, I think the
strongest way to assess the cadets is by a) making sure we don’t sink and
b) getting to where we are supposed to go.

We now also seem to be in some sort of cruising lane for cruising ships,
since just after dinner, I saw two huge ones out in the distance. The
weather and seas have been calm, but its been cloudy and hazy today so not
much good for taking pictures.

Also, I must say that my movie selections have been very well received.
Last night, I showed (for Memorial Day), “Top Gun” followed by the
“Patriot.” The lounge was completely packed for “Top Gun” and when I came
out to turn on the TV I was greeting with a bit of applause (I don’t think
it was sarcastic either since I was early). When I came back later to
turn off the movie, the lounge was a desolate wasteland of popcorn
containers, soda cans, and twizzler packages. Yet somehow, by the morning
they get it cleaned up. I guess it is the bad boys who are placed on
“E.D.” who do the sweeping. I’ll try to take a picture of the aftermath
for you tonight since I’m expecting a full house again for tonight’s
features: “Star Trek” (the new one) and “Animal House” to which all
college students can relate to.

I find it amusing how my job here has transformed me into some sort of
cinema expert (which I am not). Any officer who comes down here to “rent”
(argh I hate that phrase) a movie always asks my opinions on things I
haven’t seen nor do I care to. I have been asked a gazillion (if that
number truly exists) times on whether or not Movie X is a good movie. My
usual response is dependent on mood or the flip of a surreptitious coin.

Now the funniest thing just happened. I put on a video about Greece right
before the main movie started and somehow I pressed the wrong button so it
played in French. Since I was in the other room, I had no idea and nobody
came in to complain. I think they thought it was a little joke I was
playing on them or something. Anyway, when I found out by turning on the
sound of my monitoring TV I quickly switched it off. I’m hoping one or
two of them could understand French!

So what is the moral of this? Don’t trust a critic or a librarian!

Fair Winds and Following Seas,
Joe