Friday, December 12, 2008

Brain...off

Since I've been aboard a full week now, I thought it might be time for a quick update. As things stand, I love this ship. The captain is great, always reading us random maritime facts and bits of literature. The Chief Mate, also great, doesn't treat us like his personal toys. And I really really like the mate I'm on watch with. Sam is fantastic. He's great about teaching me things, lets me work on my projects during watch, and actually lets me do things on the bridge. I've been taking positions and logging them into the computer, as well as weather. Today, he let me have the conn for the last hour of watch. He pointed at the Electronic Chart (which uses GPS to plot our position graphically) and gave me two instructions... "Stay inside these lines, and don't hit anything." I managed to comply with both. Yay me! Big day for me. The Second Mate is... intense. His first name is Ken, but I only know that from inference, he didn't actually tell us. He's very demanding, but I've learned a whole lot from him. The other Third Mate, Leif, is really chill. Also cool about teaching us stuff, but we like to ask him about how he likes his job and such. He doesn't sugar coat things and it really helps us figure out where we want to go since he's only a couple years ahead of us. The food is good too. Not gourmet by any means, but there's a good variety and I get my green vegetables and a glass of milk everyday (seriously Mom, I do!). And the cooks are so nice. The one lady is always smiling and she worries about if Sara and I are eating enough. She's sort of motherly. I love her. But now I'm tired. So I think I'm off to bed. This entry seems a little rambling, not terribly coherent, but my brain is kind of off. Sorry y'all!

Alyssa

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