One Day Closer To Home (& Haiwaii)

The first full day of sailing is now behind us… and we are one day closer to coming home. The seas have been kind to the majority of us so far, although some have sworn they’ve seen their shoelaces come up. We had a ceremonious send off complete with the military band and several high-ranking guests making farewell speeches to the ship and her crew. Kevin and I did the smart thing and tried not to drag out the good byes. He managed to leave before the ceremony and tears kicked off… which really allowed us to leave each other with some form of dignity still intact. They tell us that the send off is a process more for the families and the children; this way they can say good-bye and see the ship leave. In most of our (the sailors) opinions it acts more as a process akin to slowly removing a Band-Aid off a hairy extremity! The faster you can get the farewells over with, the better for everyone.

As it turns out, there is a possibility that the man in my life was actually RIGHT… Sunday may in fact be an unlucky day to sail. We had quite a few engine troubles on our departure. For example, we couldn’t even get our Cruise Engine to start. This isn’t too much of a problem as we have two other engines, except these engines aren’t exactly economical on their fuel consumption – and we all know fuel isn’t getting any cheaper. We are hoping to have the problem rectified sometime today.

The first week or two at sea is mostly about finding your own personal rhythm and the crew finding the ship’s personal rhythm. So our time is spent trying to get settled into life on board again. We spend time trying to get all of our pictures stuck just so in our bunks and try to get used to sleeping on a hard mattress that wasn’t good enough for the inmates in Canadian prisons (true story!). So far, all of my pictures are hung and I have a sore lower back.

Time to indulge in one of the Navy’s greatest pass times… soup time. Everyday at 10:00 we pause in our workday for a 15 minute break to enjoy homemade soup. It doesn’t always taste all that appealing, but normally it’s nothing that a little Frank’s Hot Sauce can’t rectify.

The pictures are of the farewell ceremony. Once Kevin left I tried to make myself busy and hide behind the digital camera for a while.