"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.”

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.

Happy Holidays

Holidays are the bane of any mariner's working life. Holidays also are referred to as "misses," "skips," and "voids."

Holidays are the small areas left uncoated after applying new paint.

They also are the religious and civil observances, the gatherings of family and friends, that sailors often miss while at sea.

After two consecutive Thanksgivings and Easters underway, countless birthdays and a couple of anniversaries, this was the year I was supposed to be on the boat for Christmas. 

Some last-minute shuffling at the office moved Tuesday crew changes to Monday, and Wednesday crew changes to Thursday, and me to a different boat this hitch.

Suddenly I'm driving back to Louisiana Chistmas night rather than Christmas Eve.

We planned Christmas based on my previous schedule and celebrated with the family this past weekend. 

It actually worked-out better for getting folks together, and I'll never be ungrateful for a few extra days at home.

My buddy over at New England Waterman posted a brilliant, literary post on Christmas at sea. Check it out when you get a chance.

Meanwhile, I fooled around with an homage to a Christmas classic. It still could use some work, but here's where it stands on Christmas day:

'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 the 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 Lousiane

Now Bastrop! Columbus! Now Sealy, now H-town 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 crew truck 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.”

One advantage to going to a different boat this hitch is that I'll be back in Port Fourchon, and in fact I'll be working from a dock just across the slip from the boat New England Waterman is on. 

He reports that the cabin of the boat I'm going to is in a state of undress and suggests I bring some painting clothes.

No problem. And I will do my very best, these coming weeks, to avoid any more holidays.