Sittin' on the dock of the bay

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time ...

-- Otis Redding, "Dock of the Bay," 1967

Things are quiet in Theodore, a compact and capable deepwater port on the western shore of Mobile Bay, about halfway between the Gulf and Mobile proper.

We're waiting for the liftboat we are working with to get situated at a platform just southwest of the sea buoy, and then they may or may not call us for some of the equipment they put on our deck before they left.

We've passed the time catching-up on paperwork and a bit of deferred maintenance, cooking meals appropriate to the weather outside (yesterday was my turn: pot roast), counting down the days 'til next we go home.

Which, for the officers anyhow, is sooner than some would like. That voluntary 14/14 schedule I mentioned last post? Well, it's mandatory now. Suits me and the family fine, I can tell you. Even if I did have to come back to work two weeks early.

The boat now essentially has two crews, and I'm happy with the one I'm working with.

Back at the office, seven of our shoreside staff were let go this past month as a cost-cutting measure. The supply list is being trimmed. I'm fighting a rearguard action to keep water on the requisition and not have it transferred to our ever-shrinking grocery budget. It's a safety issue, to my mind.

It's awfully quiet over here, at least compared to Port Fourchon, where the radio chatter never stops and there may be anywhere from 20 to 40 boats in motion at a given time. What radio traffic we do hear is remarkably polite and friendly. Even the shrimpers in the bay routinely come up on Ch. 13 without any prompting. 

There are live oak trees literally a stone's throw from the back deck, and a curtain of tall pines behind those. 

An osprey is building a nest in one (is it that time already? Maybe that was a snake it had clutched in its talons ....).

Coots and cormorants bob around the boat. Someone caught a sand trout -- they call them "white trout" over here -- off the back deck the other night. And this morning there were snow flurries.

It's good to come to work at the beginning of a job, for a change. We had opportunities to meet the crews of the other boats and the customer representatives we'll be working for. We reviewed JSAs and traded phone numbers and email addresses and got a jump on some of the confusion that ineveitably happens once a job is underway.

The field we'll be working in is an active hydrogen sulfide field, which necessitated trips to the occupational health clinic on our way to work. 

It also necessitated the delivery of a dozen self-contained breathing apparatuses, two big supplied-air cascade units and a whole bunch of H2S sensors and alarms.

The other captain on my hitch worked over here for 13 years on a production boat, so knows the field and waters well; he even spent a few years working with the company man on this job, which makes everyone happy. 

This job, which is slated to last up to three months, is for one of the majors -- I guess it's actually the major oil major -- and I think our sales guys have high hopes it will lead to additional contracts.

We'll do a bang-up job, because we always do. And because this is an easy one, and the sort of fun, standard OSV stuff we all signed-up for.

But until they call us to the location, you can find me ...


Sittin' in the mornin' sun
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' comes
Watchin' the ships roll in
Then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah
I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooo
I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time ....

I left the boat ....

I left the boat in a cold rain on the heels of a sad, strange scene in the main deck lounge.

The off-signers were soaked after carrying supplies the length of the vessel, and secretly hoping to be gone before having to do the same with the grocery order still on its way. The routine of quiet consideration and self-abnegation that makes for good shipmates sometimes gets stretched to an equally quiet breaking point, and this was one of those times.

We were anxious to be off the boat, to be on our way to our respective homes, to escape the two minor crises then unfolding.

Crisis one: the vessel’s master explaining that the unlicensed crew would have to go to 14/14 schedules or one of the guys would have to go to another boat in order to reduce our manning from five to four.

Crisis two: the mystery of the displaced hydraulic steering fluid … one guy, the one no one is allowed to gainsay, mistaking the reflection of a gunmetal sky in the deck wells for a sheen and insisting there was a busted hose on deck.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect, again, in all of its sly, smirking glory.

Another guy, the one with an extensive background in pumps and hoses and fluid dynamics, attempting a quiet interjection that all of the fluid was still in the reservoirs and that the mystery instead was that it had shifted from the port tank to the starboard tank.

We had been through this at least once before, but the memory had fled.

I left the boat with a cold that would make the drive home a nine-hour misery and my first three days with the family a blur of broken sleep and over-the-counter remedies.

In retrospect, it was, maybe, a blessing. For the past half year I’ve worked only the midnight-to-noon watch, and the exhaustion of crew change day – 12 hours of watchstanding followed by nine or 10 hours of driving notwithstanding -- getting back on the family schedule is usually a week-long struggle.

I left the boat questioning, yet again, if I’m in the wrong damned business. I have written, from time to time, about how much I love the actual work: the boat-handling, the age-old practice of seamanship, the mentoring of the younger guys, the interaction with the customers, the orderly grind of paperwork – yes, even the paperwork.

I have written, also, perhaps too often, of how heart-achingly lonesome the experience can be; of how keenly I feel the lack of adult conversation and the missing days with my family … the toddler’s firsts, the pre-schooler’s flashes of brilliance, the teen’s wry humor, quiet nights on the patio with the wife.

Here’s my secret fear: I will die on the boat, far from the people I love. Not in some dramatic disaster at sea – I worry more about my drive to and from work  than anything that happens on the water – but as a victim of fried pork chops or cigarettes or not enough sleep.

During this last hitch, two near-contemporaries reached the ends of their lives. 

One, a few years ahead of me in high school, was generous with his time and advice as I was contemplating a leap into the guide business. He was just getting out, then.

The other I knew not at all, but I attended college with his sweet and smart wife – now, astonishingly, his widow.

Both men were fathers, and I trust – I hope – they had time to teach and inspire and love their children in ways that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

In the quiet hours of my watch, the dark hours before dawn, more and more I find myself thinking that is the only work that really matters.

But of course we live in a world in which it is necessary for man (and woman) to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. That, too, I often reflect as I justify my long absences, is an important lesson for the boys.

This ambivalence about the legendary work-life balance is of course nothing new, and is perhaps near-universal in the western world anyway. The only people I know who have come close to negotiating it satisfactorily are self-employed and even that is no guarantee.

I left the boat two weeks early, in the middle of my regularly scheduled hitch. It was an opportunity that presented itself on the cusp of crew change.

With the price of oil half what it was six months ago, with exploration and production budgets being slashed across the board and day rates and utilization plunging, it’s no surprise that a couple of our boats are stacked.

The crews of those boats have not worked in more than a month. No work means no pay.

Cost-cutting at a boat company seems to go something like this: supply requisitions restricted to absolutely essential items, grocery budgets cut, manning reduced and vessel crew offered the opportunity (eventually mandated) to work even time (two weeks on, two weeks off; a month on, a month off).

That last strategy allows for one stacked boat’s licensed crew to be spread over three working boats, and everyone stays on the payroll, albeit making one-third less. This actually results in a marginal increase in payroll costs for the company: the same man-days, but a slight bump in benefits and travel costs, so it’s generally a good-faith effort to retain staff before taking more drastic measures.

Somewhere in the mix is a moratorium on raises, hiring freezes, pay cuts, and, when all of that isn’t enough, layoffs.

I am fortunate in that even time is a just-affordable option for me. My wife works, and we can make ends meet, most of the time, if I work a reduced schedule.

Some of the other guys … probably not so much. A month without work means the rent or mortgage goes unpaid, someone doesn’t go to the doctor or dentist or a worn pair of brake shoes or school shoes doesn’t get replaced.

So, not least because it was an easy thing for me to do, I was happy to give someone else my last two weeks.

But I left the boat angry. Seething, actually … a slow, steady burn. My efforts the previous hitch to get an evaluation out of the vessel master were rebuffed. 

Between hitches, the office informed me I would need evaluations from both the master and the relief master. My two weeks with the relief master, I passed on that information, and he was willing.

But just as he sat down to fill-out the form, it occurred to him that he might ought to touch base with the old man, who is known to be a bit touchy about what he views as the prerogatives of his position (i.e., everything from micromanaging the work schedules of both watches to never working midnight-to-noon to keeping every drawer and locker in his shared stateroom stuffed with his personal items to pencil-whipping every single drill ever submitted to declaring the entire boat a smoking area).

Sure ‘nuff, the old man told the relief master it was not his place to fill out an evaluation for me and forbade him to do it.

Thing is, there was – ostensibly, at least as of a month ago – a pay raise riding on that. And personalities aside, I’m pretty good at my job. The other thing is, it’s his f*cking job – one he should have done a month ago, and one he should not prevent someone else, whose job it also is, from doing.

Of course, none of this was communicated to me directly, because among other things the old man doesn’t do is this: talk to me. I mean, literally, does not talk to me. He passes orders through the deckhands and engineer; he grunts in my direction sometimes, but that’s about the extent of it.

Either the wrong sorts of people routinely (maybe even exclusively) rise to the top in this industry, or I’ve had a run of bad luck, or God is repeatedly giving me the opportunity to learn a lesson I haven’t yet adequately absorbed. 

If it's that last thing, and if I had to guess, it probably has something to do with humility.

In truth, the chances of a new guy getting assigned to a boat with a crackerjack master (as opposed to one who got his leadership skills – if not his license -- from a Crackerjack box) are slim. Those positions don’t often come open, because no one wants to leave those boats.

I left my boat, maybe, for the last time.

I said goodbye to her, just in case, and thanked her for keeping us safe through the winter. She’s not a bad old girl, and deserves better than she gets from us much of the time.

Leaving mad was impetus, finally, to ask the office for a change, a transfer to a different boat, when such an opportunity presents itself. As is often the case, my timing probably could have been better. We’ll see, I guess.

I left the boat without letting my wife know I’d be home early. We were on the phone when I jiggled the front door handle, so I got to hear her alarm at a possible intruder in stereo. 

When she let me in, I was met with children literally jumping up and down with joy, a happy, licky dog and a spouse who couldn’t stop laughing through her tears.

A minute through the door and I was sitting on the kitchen floor and the 2-year-old was in my arms, head on my chest, murmuring: “DaddyDaddyDaddyDaddy.” 

The 4-year-old was draped over my right shoulder and the 70-pound Labrador was attempting to crawl into my lap. My wife was still laughing. And crying.

At my lowest, and my lows are at least as often chemical as situational, I sometimes wonder if I don’t just gum up the works when I’m home, if they don’t prefer me gone.

This early homecoming put that question to rest, and for that, anyhow, I am grateful.

There is Cheese at the End

An old salt on gCaptain recently gave a newbie some advice about getting a toehold in his climb up the hawsepipe. He ended with this encouragement: "It's a rat maze, but there is cheese at the end."

I spent close to 30 minutes on the phone with my evaluator at the Coast Guard's National Maritime Center today. Partly convincing her that yes, I really do want to test for master and mate at the same time and she could in fact write the letter that way. And partly pointing out the three places I had specifically requested a split issuance of my AB and STCW endorsements.

So far as I can tell, everything is fine at work and I'm not planning on going anywhere, but with our clients' budgets tightening and day rates falling, well, it can't hurt to have every endorsement I've ever earned printed in that little red book. 

So anyhow, I have my approval to test. I'm still working the plan my long-suffering spouse and I hatched nearly five years ago. 

At this point, I can smell the cheese.

In the meantime, I'll probably take two more classes -- some sort of prep for the exam, which I hope to sit in June or July -- and an approved Celestial Navigation course, just so I don't have to do that all on my own and then sit that module at the Regional Exam Center.

After that, I'll have to take the new(ish) Leadership and Managerial Skills course to keep my license 

after the end of 2016, and at some point will want to add ARPA, GMDSS (I already have the FCC license, but I self-studied so will have to sit through two weeks of "training.") and ECDIS.

After that, I will have periodic refreshers for RADAR, firefighting and basic safety training. Maybe some other STCW endorsements, as well, but only the same ones everyone else will have to stay current on.

More than four years on, I'm still happy with my decision to change careers.

I love the work. I mean, I really love it. Not just being on the water, which is part of it, but also the combination of hands-on, physicality (moving and maintaining a huge hunk of steel) and the mental challenges of risk analysis and customer relations and voyage planning and crew supervision and training.

It's the perfect career field for someone with a touch of ADHD.

And it connects me to -- places me in -- a tradition that runs deep in my family and throughout the history of human civilization.

It's also tough as hell on family life, and that's the part I don't love. But, as I explained to someone I work with a couple of weeks ago, that -- for me -- is the whole point of upgrading my license. 

It's not that I feel like I "need" a bigger boat (though I will be happy to operate a larger vessel, and will be grateful for more amenities and the additional crew); I need the 180-day schedule, and with the bigger license on a bigger boat, I can afford it.

And it is not, for me, a dick-measuring contest. As my brief career as a porn star under the stage name "Dirk Swank"should have made clear, that's not a concern.

I've met terrific boat-handlers who act ... well, almost ashamed, that they hold "only" a 100-ton license. I've witnessed awful decision-making by people who hold 3000GT or All Gross Tons licenses.

The license doesn't make the mariner; in fact, it's more likely the other way around. A license says "you may." Skill, experience, and training answer the question: "But can you?" And a 100-ton captain can go to jail and pay a fine and lose his livelihood just as easily as an unlimited Master.

In my experience thus far, the answer to that question is utterly independent of whether the license holder graduated from a maritime academy, PMI/MITAGS or the eighth grade.

One thing I should mention here is that there are a number of mariners who have gone before me, and a few making the same trudge I am at the same time, who have been hugely helpful. New England Waterman, for one. 

And the axe-wielding (by this I mean guitar) Scottish Sea Dawg known on gCaptain as Jemplayer, for another. He wrote the definitive guide to getting hired in South Louisiana: it's posted there as a sticky, check it out.

And my buddy Jess, a fellow veteran of the tour and charter boat days and with whom I've worked at three different companies. I bet it will be four before we're done. And Charles, and Ryan, and Shawn, and some other guys I've met through this blog or out and about.

Since I've now turned this into an Academy Awards acceptance speech, before I've even done anything at all noteworthy, I might as well say: Thanks Capt. Mark. And Capt. Brian. And Chief Bryant.

You guys have helped me out a ton, and the stuff you have taught me has made me an immeasurably better sailor. And no, I don't hold you responsible for my f*ck-ups.

And finally, none of this would be possible without my long-suffering spouse, Alexander. Ha. Uh ... Carrie. I mean Carrie. 

A rockstar in her own profession, a working mom, and despite the fact that I sometimes refer to her as "The Old Lady," an incredibly attractive and accomplished woman who looks a lot younger than me -- I'd even characterize as a "MILF" (wait a MINUTE ... so that's where that "M" comes from. Huh.),

I'm not sure why she puts up with me and my unorthodox career. Except that I sometimes help out with the children, when I'm home, and they seem to like me well enough.

So, anyhow, thanks guys. And gal.

And I bet at least one of you have already googled "Dirk Swank," haven't you?
Hahahaha ... oh, I slay myself.

Weather Window

Christmas dinner was two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

In the past week on the boat, I’ve had just two hot meals, not counting a bowl of microwaved oatmeal. Mostly it’s been pretzels and crackers.

Weather, you know.

The Gulf of Mexico in winter, as I’ve written before, is a study in contrasts. There are, in any winter month, days of astounding tranquility and beauty. They usually come on the heels of a raging, blundering cold front that heaps the seas and generally makes us miserable for 24 or 36 hours.

In the day or two leading up to a cold front, typically we have a strong onshore flow that brings with it 20-25 kts of wind from the Southeast and moderate, but still less-than-comfortable seas of six feet or better.

Even in the wake of a cold front, it doesn’t get truly cold out here in the middle. This great basin is also a terrific heat sink (surface water temps in our area of the Gulf right now are averaging about 72 degrees); last winter we had snow flurries in Fourchon, while 100 miles offshore air temps dipped to maybe the low 50s.

We are still, for a few more days at least, working with the seismic fleet. Mind-numbing, 12-hour wheel watches. Headings and speeds dictated by survey lines, not the weather, which means wretched, broken sleep for the off-watch folks when the weather is crappy.

On the upside, it’s a job. And it’s good for the boat to have a job, in winter, when the price of oil is less than $60/bbl.

I’m also getting to see some of the vaunted deepwater projects out here: drillships and MODUs and LLOG's nifty Delta House Floating Production System, finished-out at the facility where my sister-in-law works back in Texas.

The long wheel watches cry out for some sort of stimulation; reading and television are out, which leaves strictly auditory entertainment (below the volume of the VHF radios, of course): Flogging Molly to Jon DeeGraham to The Trishas to sea shanties to J.J. Grey to Townes van Zandt to … Audible!

I downloaded the app, and a couple of books, before leaving the house.

Redeployment, by former Marine Phil Klay, is a thought-provoking punch in the gut.

Some of it resonates with my own (Army) near-war experience. All of it makes me feel more certain than ever that our political leaders must employ and deploy our military might only for damned good reason. Because that shit breaks people. Breaks them beyond repair, sometimes. And I’m just talking about our people, the ones who come home.

Something else I do to amuse myself out here is take pictures. Capt. Dean Thomas, the world’s best (and, quite possibly, most laid-back) kayak fishing guide recently turned me on to Snapseed, a Google app that easily turns ho-hum snapshots into dramatic images.

So, you know, I’ve been overdoing that.

There are a lot of things I see out here that I’ll probably never be able to capture photographically: the spray of stars overhead, the comb jellies and dinoflagellates scintillating in our bow wave, the lights of a drillship reflected from a low ceiling of cloud; a pumpkin-colored moon on the horizon.

Archimedes asked for a lever and a place to stand; I would need a fast, long lens and, also, a steady place to stand. Not terribly likely to happen out here.

I am reminded just now of another fun aspect of the job we are currently working … as I think I’ve mentioned before, the majority of the crews on the seismic vessels are European.

Most – at least the ones we deal with over the radio – have a fair command of English. Some speak an elegant and formal brand of the international maritime language, and all seem to be highly professional mariners.

This appears to have had, over the past couple of months, a salutary effect on both radio procedure and clarity of communication among the crews of the support vessels. Everyone’s just a bit more courteous, too.

And that ain’t a bad thing.

"Twas the Night Before Crew Change

'Twas the night before crew change, when all through the house

Clothing and gadgets and books bewilder my spouse.

The bags still empty soon will be stuffed to the gills

Remember the razor! Remember the pills!

The children were nestled all snug in their beds

I crept 'round the toys and kissed their sweet heads.

And mama at the Keurig hands me a cup

While I carry my bags out and load them all up.

The truck is all fueled and I guess I am too

It's time to get going, to get away from this zoo!

Like the cat at the door, I can't quite decide

If I want to be on the in or the outside.

On the boat I am missing the joys of my home

The children, the wife, the time spent alone

Little things too, like a walk on dry land

And a pint of dark stout, snug in my hand

At home I am wond’ring how is the crew,

Are the seas heaped-up high, the wind blowing too?

Is the AIS working, is the new anchor on board,

Did lube oil get changed, or was it ignored?

No matter right now; I’ll know soon enough

Here in the driveway I think: do I have all my stuff?

I check the list in my head for the very last time

And hold my wife in my arms as the midnight clock chimes

 

Pulling out of the ‘hood I settle in for the drive

I don’t need to go fast, I just need to get there alive

Down Seventy-One to Interstate Ten

Five hours through Texas, five more through Lousianne

Now Bastrop! Columbus! Now Sealy, now Houston too!

Come Beaumont! the border, Jennings, and Cajun country true!

Past the edge of my state, into the deep south!

I retool my vocab, put some drawl in my mouth!

As the sky becomes bright I stop for gas and some joe

Rough men throng the counter in fire-proof clothes

At last at the office, I greet shipmates and staff

As I load-up the carryall we gossip and laugh

Meanwhile back at the house the tree’s all aglitter.

The children race between gifts in a gift paper litter.

Mama sips at her coffee, then turns to her phone.

“Merry Christmas my love, can’t wait ‘til your home.”

(Re)Mindfulness and the Wayback Machine

My dad got a new truck about a year ago. I don’t think I did more than admire the deep green metal flake exterior before last week, when he stopped by en route from my parents’ home in the Pineywoods of northeast Texas to an appointment with destiny at the very southern tip of the state.

My mom has long been encouraging a parental move back to the Coastal Bend, where they both grew up and where the majority of the extended family still (or again) lives.

Papa has been resistant, for reasons I’m not sure I entirely understand but have something to do with a love for tall, whispering pines that recall carefree college days and a deep-seated dissatisfaction with what his sleepy hometown on the coast has become (someone had the nerve to put in six – count ‘em SIX – traffic lights a few years back!).

The devious woman who gave birth to me has tried various strategies to get the move underway, including this rather blatant bribe: “Honey, don’t you think you should get a boat?”

He’s a guy who grew up in Rockport. A guy who worked on boats professionally for four years of his young adulthood. The idea took root, finally blossomed.

My brother and I went to work scouring YachtWorld and Craigslist for suitable vessels. There were several spirited debates about the type of boat that would be best, the price range, the power package.

In the end, we located an almost-new center console with a fuel-efficient outboard and high gunwales (for the grandkids, you know) and warranties on everything.

In San Benito, 546 miles from where the folks live now.

I already had a trip planned down that way with my oldest boy, to harass some snook and get a look at the USS Forrestal and USS Saratoga, currently being recycled in Brownsville. That trip fell through due to a couple of unmissable finals reviews for the teenager, so I shifted gears and planned the trip with my brother, who, fortuitously, was off work those couple of days.

That got nixed when his 5-year-old caught the flu.

Then Papa decided he wanted to make the drive and pick up the boat himself: “Can you go with me?” he asked.

Well, sure.

So it ended up being a father-and-son trip after all, with one of the same individuals but a different father and son. We shifted-up a generation.

My dad’s truck rides like a limousine and has so many bells and whistles that my father had to operate the electronics while I was driving.

Our route took us through the northeastern corner of the Eagle Ford Shale boom, through the King Ranch and deep into the Rio Grande Valley (yes, we know it’s really a delta, and it’s as flat as Ally McBeal, but we still call it “El Valle”).

Papa is halfway between 65 and 70, closing in on 70. In my own middle age now, I have more in common with him today than perhaps ever before. Or at least since I was his mini-me nearly half a century ago.

What surprised me, more than it should have perhaps, is what he has forgotten … his, well .. tentativeness, about things I figured he was comfortable with, because they are things he taught me 25 or 30 or 35 years ago.

Like how to back a boat trailer. Or how to throw abaitcaster.

For decades now he has deferred those simple pleasures in favor of work and more work … work that has financed kids’ educations and moves, financed kids’ boats and adventures … he’s still working, but he is finally getting to enjoy some of the fruits of his labor.

Like the spaceship truck, this week our wayback machine; like listening to Jimmy Buffet (something else he introduced me to, back when A1A was a recent release) with a fishing pole in his hand on his boat. And actually catching a fish.

It’s about damned time.

We even got to fish with my brother on the way home, all of us risking spousal disapproval by taking a little extra time to “try out the boat again” and also try out one of my brother’s top-secret winter fishing holes.

It was an excellent time, all around. 

It was time, life's greatest gift, and something I am more keenly aware of  every more rapidly passing year. Especially given my work schedule, which compresses the best part of my life into two-week vignettes.

That gift of time is enough, to be sure. And not everything in life has to be a teaching (or learning) moment or have some profound underlying meaning.

But our trip south last week also got me to thinking about the things I do with my own kids, the things I introduce them to or teach them as a matter of course that someday I won’t even remember. Things that may loom large in their eventual, complex understandings of how they came to be the people they will be.

No pressure, there.

My Tropic of Cancer, a Paper Chase, and The Holidays

More exciting than my version.

Growing up less than 300 miles north of the by-God tropics, I spent many of my childhood days on a small boat under a big sun without, as it now seems, adequate protection.

My folks tried. But it was the late '70s, early '80s, and sunscreen technology was not where it is today.

SPF 8 was a big deal back then. And what 15-year-old boy wants to wear a shirt in the middle of summer on a boat on the bay?

My genetic bequest from the Mexican grandfather did not include dark skin and hair, as it did for some of my cousins.

Off-loading oysters in Fulton Harbor on Aransas Bay.

I got the Dutch-German-Irish allotment, and those early days are now coming home to roost. I also got lots of bad sunburns. Really, really bad sunburns.

Not in an awful-scary way, so far. Mostly just little basal-cell carcinomas popping up here and there, and mostly they can be scraped-and-burned or frozen off.

If you're going to get skin cancer, basal-cell carcinoma is the one to get, they say. It doesn't metastasize, and it grows oh-so-slowly. Worst-case, my doc says, is that it may eventually slide down into the muscle to the bone, requiring a more radical excision.

The eldest taking a turn at the tiller of the new-old
knock-around boat courtesy of his grandfather.

This last one had to be excised, that is, cut out, and ... damn. It kinda smarts. Eight stitches and a bit of bruising arouind the site, it sort of looks like I was in a knife fight. Felt like it too, when the doctor chopped a spot the lidocaine had not penetrated.

So, kids, my advice to you is use sunscreen. Lots of it, everywhere. Wear long sleeves. Especially if you are fortunate enough to spend your youth in the low latitudes.

The next round begins tomorrow, and I should be all tuned-up and healed-up in time for the next crew change a few days before Christmas.

Christmas Cheer

Screen capture of some of Ben's calendar pages.

Speaking of Christmas, if you are looking for a nifty nautical gift for the mariner in your life, you really should check out New England Waterman's workboat calendars -- pick a company, or order the generic workboat version.

So far he has a Hornbeck Offshore Services version, one for the boats of Edison Chouest Offshore, one chock-full of tugs in the Northeast, and I'm not sure what-all else.

Ben's photography is pretty damned good and he's uniquely placed to capture moments many people never get to see.

What I look like at the end of a
winter hitch.

Another option is Bowsprite New York Harbor's whimsical nautical art -- on cards, tea towels, playing cards and any other number of textiles and paper products.

I recently had the distinct pleasure of showing Christina and fellow maritime blogger Tugster (Will van Dorp) around our own Port Fourchon. Each is, as we say in the South, "good people."

Finally, if you'd like something wearable, may I humbly suggest my own WorkboatWear for nautical t-shirts, hoodies, coffee mugs and the like?

All the best designs come from the mad graphic genius of the MonkeyFist Design Bureau up in Maine.

Paper Chase

I call this activity "honoring my ancestors,"
the ones from County Down y los de Sonora.
It was helpful in getting through the paperwork.

Part of my must-do list this extended time between hitches was to take the Rating Forming Part of a Navigation Watch (RFPNW) assessments and test for my AB-Unlimited. Not because I plan to sail on either document, though I could and they are handy to have, but because they are required for my raise-in-grade to master less than 500 GRT, Master OSV less than 3000 ITC, and STCW II/2 -- Master 500GT-3000GT.

Now, three years almost to the day after starting that upgrade process: Done.

I believe I've checked all the boxes. We'll see if the Coast Guard agrees. All 59 pages of application materials were transmitted through the ether last night.

Assuming the good folks in West Virginia and I are on the same page, in due course (probably about a month), I'll receive a letter approving me to test for the aforementioned licenses. Sometime in the next 12 months -- I'm shooting for June or July -- I'll plant my hiney in a chair in a brightly-lit room in Houston and spend two days attempting to prove I'm worthy of the wheelhouse of a larger vessel.

In the meantime, I'll be spending nearly all of my "spare" time studying. Some of the things I'll be studying have been covered repeatedly in training and testing I've already completed. Others I use on a daily basis.

Still others haven't been tasks common to sailors in this country anytime in the last 30 or 40 years, but what can you do?

I'll keep you posted.

And, wherever you are this month -- ashore or at sea -- Happy Holidays.