All my updates on my sail put together

This a  Long Post, you don’t have to read it, it is all the updates I wrote on my sail.  This is mainly so I don’t lose them, if you wish to read them you are welcome to.  I will post everyday while I’m in Africa for two weeks though so get ready for updates on that.

Well today has been quite the day, I am laying in my bunk showered and ready to call it a night. The bed is rocking back and forth with the ocean waves and it is hard to stay awake lol.

 

So the day started off at 0600 I got up and dressed, I had to get new navy uniforms because they changed them and I had the old ones, when I went to put on the tunic (the jacket part) I realized they gave me a too small tunic, the other two were on ship already, so here I am leaving the house in my navy uniform that was much too small with my colourful backpack and pillow in a clear garbage bag. (Yes I felt like a kid who grew out of her clothes heading to a sleepover!)  and left the house to catch the city bus to the ship so I could leave my car at home. I was to take the 0641 bus but when I was just about there the 0635 bus decided to wait for me. So I did a little run to the bus and hopped on.

 

Once getting off the bus I walked to the ship, since I got the early bus I was on ship in enough time for breakfast, bacon eggs and hasbrowns yumm! After that I unpacked my kit I had brought on Friday and realized they did in fact give me two of the three tunics too small, so I ran to the military stores and exchanged them. Phew!!

 

For the rest the morning I got my work station set up, I walked around and introduced myself to as many people I could find, I decided where the best parts of the ship are good and easiest to get around fast. I watched them bring the big orange rescue boat to the ship and hoist it up, helped pull in the lines and chatted with more people. After that it was lunch time so I enjoyed a pulled pork sandwich with potato wedges and carrots as well as a salad.

 

In the afternoon I did more wondering, sat and chatted with more people, a bunch of guys were sitting around chatting so I walked over like I belonged, sat down and started chatting. They stopped and looked at me but then smiled and continued on with me joining into whatever they were talking about.

 

After that we were on our way. We sailed to the Bedford basin, caught up with the French and danish ships and headed out to sea. Once at sea we practised our man overboard drills. This is where they take a managing in a big orange survival suit named Oscar and they throw him in the water then call an emergency. From there they have to launch the RHIB and go retrieve Oscar. They also take a roster of everyone on ship to make sure no one else has fallen in.

 

Once that was done it was supper where I enjoyed spaghetti, salad, bowl of fruit and  a lemon square.

 

After supper we did cleaning stations, this is a necessity part of ship life because there are so many people living in a tin can that sickness can spread fast.

 

Then I finished up some work and called it a night, showered and cuddled up in bed.

 

Apparently there are strong winds from the hurricane so we are changing events for tomorrow and maybe a little bit of course. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring.

 

Goodnight  😜

 

Today started out with a bang, woke up to waves banging on the ship and pretty much floating in bed then crashing down with such force that I was barely able to sit up.  Knowing this was going to be quite the morning I should have gone to the washroom first before attempting to get dressed but no why would I make my life easier.  I got up and started getting dressed. Usually I can get up and dressed no problem but today (and mind you I don’t fully have my sea legs yet) I was basically dancing around the floor putting my pants on, then sliding all around the wall to get my socks on, then the boots were near impossible to put on, but after many minutes of fighting with my clothes and eventually sitting down for a break I thought to myself I bet it would be easier to dress a greased pig running around the sty.  Determined to get that last boot on before needing to completely change my clothes and do laundry because I had to use the washroom so bad,  I finally stood up proud of myself for this completion and went to the washroom.

 

Once happy and dressed I went to breakfast bacon eggs and hashbrowns with fruit on the side yumm! I went to work, walking along the flats (navy terms for hallways) was a challenge when we were going up a wave it felt like we were hiking a hill but when we were going down the wave it felt like we were running down a hill, so getting the timing was a challenge, anyways after a couple hours I was fine.

 

I decided to video the waves and as I was doing that I was looking at others on the bridge and they were leaning so far forward or back just to stay standing tall. Once on the bridge I come to see we are in seas state 3-4 but for some reason we are going 16 nautical miles! Like why!!

 

The rest of the morning I did some work then went to lay down, I wasn’t sea sick (which I thought could’ve happened) I was struck with a wicked headache, I’m pretty sure it was the barometric pressure, no fret though after an hour of laying down I was just fine.  Then it was lunch which was turkey sandwiches rice and veggies, along with a kale salad.

 

For the afternoon we practised drills and I did some desk work, even got a little break to sit and read.  We received a mayday call to help find a paddle boarder that went missing, we answered the call but could not find them, (we think we were too far off the coast) please pray for their safety and they are found ok.

 

For supper we had chicken thighs with Risotto and veggies along with a salad. Sat and met with some ship mates and had some good laughs.

 

After that it was cleaning stations and then a ship event tonight was bingo, now if anyone knows me well enough they know I DESPISE bingo! Honestly why would anyone want to go with a card or multiple cards with random number on them, hear the caller call one and then frantically search for that number on the cards before the next one is called, I feel like a person who is busier then a one legged man in a butt kicking contest! However I went for the chance to meet new friends and have some down time which isn’t very down time to me, but regardless I went and had a lot of fun (not with the game but with the caller making jokes and the getting to know the people who came.

 

After that I said goodnight came and showered and am now laying in bed ready to turn the light. Off and get some shut eye.

 

I’m including a video of the waves they kind look small but remember I am around 50 feet from the sea.

 

Goodnight 😉

 

 

Today was nice gentle wake up, I woke up to only 1 meter (3.3ft) waves.  Since my cabin mates are working shift work we can’t turn on any lights so we have to get dressed in the dark or with a red light headlamp, I got up and felt for my headlamp, I looked and looked and looked and couldn’t find it, I was running my hand all over my bed on top of my blanket and below my blanket and on top and below of my pillow, it was no where, starting to get frustrated I decided well I’ll get dressed in the dark then, went to grab my pants on the hook and realized my headlamp was in the OPPOSITE hand that I was using to search my whole bed with! I burst out laughing but if you’ve never tried to burst out laughing silently as to not wake up your cabin mates you should try it, for me I looked like a wannabe 50’s teenager inventing a new dance move at a disco. Sometimes I really amaze myself with how dumb I can be haha.

 

Deciding to untie my boots this time (there is a zipper on the side) made it a lot easier to get those boots on.

 

For breakfast, I had bacon and eggs and a yogurt, after that I went up to my computer and finished up some work from yesterday the morning was quite lull which was good because I had some catching up to do.

 

I then went to the bridge and there I learned why the seas were so much calmer, we had diverted from going the east side of Newfoundland to Greenland to going the west side between Newfoundland and Labrador to avoid the crazy waves caused by the hurricane.

 

Lunchtime with hamburgers and fries and then after lunch, we sent a drone up from the flight deck of the ship, then we got our ship, the France ship, and the Denmark ship doing a whole bunch of Maneuvers together so that took Most of the afternoon, then it was computer work again. Not my favourite but it has to be done.

 

Tonight for supper was Chinese food homemade it was scrumptious, then after supper was ICE CREAM!!! As you all know I’m a lover of ice cream usually on ship they do Sunday sundaes but here they did it tonight, hey I’m not complaining lol any chance for ice cream is a good day! I had strawberry ice cream with mini marshmallows, sprinkles and raspberry sauce 😍

 

After that I went to my cabin and chatting with two of my cabin mates for an hour, with many laughs and story telling.

 

Since the ship is in transit for the next couple days it will be not a whole lot to report on, but I’ll still write updates 🙂

 

Goodnight! 🙃

 

 

I was debating even writing today because nothing much really happened and I don’t want to bore you, but then I got a lot of feedback saying they enjoy reading them so I’ll update you even if it is boring  haha.

 

Today started off nice and slow I figured out how to get up and dressed without any hitch (I feel like an adult now) there wasn’t much going on this morning so I did some desk work and walked around and chatted with some people. Then went to the bridge and chatted with more people and stared out the window. Very uneventful morning.

 

Then in the afternoon we did an emergency escape drill where the entire ship (the ones who weren’t on duty) went to their respected cabins, then they blackened the ship (turned off all the lights) and sounded the alarm, we all have survival suits and lifejackets under our bed so we they look like a fanny pack. Those strapped onto our waists we made our way outside to the flight deck, once there, we lined up then we were told what rescue boat we will be going into in a real emergency.  After we went to the respective sides we went into the rescue boats and had a seat. After that the COX’N came and gave us a run down.  As much as I hope a real emergency never happens I am so thankful that we practise so it will become second nature.

 

After that a game shooting the basketball started and I joined in. There is a net on the flight deck and we just had to make sure no balls hit the net weird and went into the ocean. It was a lot of fun the best part was everyone of us sucked at it so we had many laughs while trying to shoot it in.

 

Then there were three people trying to set up the hanger with workout equipment so I decided to stay and help instead of going back to my desk lol. we’re were working away for about an hour when the bong bongs went off.  Now the bong bongs are every navy sailors nightmare, it is an alarm that sounds like this bing bong real fast together then a few second break then bong bong again over and over, it can mean anything, fire, man over board, flood, anything, once it goes off everyone freezes until we are told what it is for and then jump into action, today the bong bongs were for a practise man overboard. Poor old Oscar the mannequin was tossed overboard and had to be rescued. We launched the boat and they went and rescued him. These bong bongs happen a-lot because they need to have every sailor to be able to snap into action whether it’s a practise scenario or a no duff (that is a military term for the real deal not practising)

 

Once that scenario was done I went back to my desk and did some work.

 

On Thursday we have steak so tonight was steak and baked potato with salad yummy!

 

We are between Newfoundland and Labrador making lots of circles and working exercises with the allied ships, (today was all communication stuff) so the sea is nice and calm, I am told however once we get to the top of Newfoundland the seas will turn into 4-6 meters waves.  So that will be interesting, I’ll enjoy the calm seas for right now ha.

 

For the rest of the night I am going to chill in my bunk, or walk around and find people to chat with then shower and go to bed.

 

Good night🤓

 

 

Hey, I have literally just got off work. I started work at 6 AM and I just got off so I am beat tired and I do not have the capability to write a huge detailed message. So I’ll just give you a quick rundown of what happened today and then I am going to  sleep.

 

Today was a busy day on ship, the day started off with a few of our sailors going over to the French ship, and then about seven Danish sailors came under our ship for the day, after that I went out in to the what is called the MRRB, which means multi role rescue boat, I got some pretty great shots of our ship.

 

After that was completed, there was a sail past,  which means that the all ships that were sailing with sail past us and the captains of each ship give us a loop to each other.

 

After that there was a practice of casualty clearing what that means is there certain people on ship who are casualty clear, which means they’re first on the scene. Every single person on ship has first aid, but these guys have more training so multiple times a week they get together and practice drills.

 

Then we had a practice for a fire on ship and that is where they’ll put off some smoke bombs to simulate a fire and then they have to not with real water, but with the real holes and everything put it out.

 

After that, I had my first real investigation of the sale and then spent the rest of the day working on that.

 

Tomorrow is going to be a very exciting day so I will write a more and very detailed message about what I’m doing tomorrow.

 

Goodnight🫩

 

Well, since I left you guys on a cliffhanger about what today was gonna be like let me inform you

 

This morning we got up bright and early had some breakfast. I discovered they make porridge so I’ve been eating porridge for the last two days and it’s awesome fills me right up. I had just gotten my food and sat down to eat. I hear a pipe which is a navy term for an announcement needing me and certain other people up on the bridge so I scarfed down my food and I ran up to the bridge and did a safety brief.  Now let me tell you shoving propose down your throat then running up 6 flights of stairs does not make a tummy feel good, sometimes I wonder what I’m thinking, I get to the bridge and think oh great I’m going to Luke and everyone will think I’m sea sick, talk about embarrassing,  but I was able to keep the food down and listen to the safety brief than go get ready for the day.

 

Now the day was awesome, what was planned was that all the allied ships Us, the French, Danish, German, and Canadian coast guard had a cross pol search and rescue excercise, our ship being the lead ship so we were simulating a massive ship fire with mass casualties,  there was no fire but smoke machines were on to simulate fire, after our sailor “attempted” to put out the fire but could not, the Danish sent some of their sailors over to help fight the fire. While the casualties were sent to the French ship and German ship, I was not a casualty but because I do forensics and investigations I was also sent to another ship, the German ship. I didn’t go straight to the German ship, oh no what would have been way too easy, no we went to the Canadian Coast Guard ship where from there we were hoisted into the German helicopter.

 

I’ve only ever been hoisted into a helicopter once before and compared the this I felt safer the first time, the first time was with the USA black hawk and there was a medical person on the other side of me, with a t bar between my legs a rope going up the middle and a rope going around me. Safe right…. Haha. Well this time today they put me in a basket, there was a bottom, and only three sides, no strap, not even a rope across the open part. I felt that if I had made any movement at all like if I sneezed, hiccuped, coughed, blinked or even had a hearty toot, I would be out of there and into the ocean faster then one can say “smell you later”.

 

Luckily though none of that happened and after holding on for dear life just me alone in a three sided cage, helicopter blades causing a huge amount of wind swaying around, and praying I don’t do any of the mentioned above things, I finally make it to the helicopter, they pull me in and then I get out of the cage and sit in the seat they tell me to, phew I made it.

 

After that we fly around for a few minutes then head to the German ship. There we are directed down to the sick Bay Area and the “causality” is worked on.

 

In a few minutes the search and rescue helicopter is landing on the German ship for three more “casualties” who were then taken to sick bay and worked on. The German ship has almost an entire hospital they have 32 beds in triage and ER then they have an ICU room and two surgical rooms, the ships are expected to provide is same standard of care that the sailors would get in a German hospital.

 

Once that exercise was finished we started a tour of the ship, they have a SAUNA on board! Like wow!!! Before we could finish the tour, the tour guide had to go because one of our sailors was being brought to the German ship as a real casualty. This sailor was helped on ship and then helicoptered to I think Corner Brooke Newfoundland to the hospital for further care. It is reported that this sailor will be ok but may not join us again for a day or two, if they are able to continue the sail, Please pray for this person.

 

We finished the tour of the German ship and headed back to our ship, there is a jump ladder on the German ship to a German zodiac, so we have to leave the side of the boat climb down a ladder that is ropes on the side with wood planks as stairs, then time it right to step in the zodiac before you let go of the ladder.  One wrong move or timing or a waves crashes or anything you could fall in the water so it is precise, thankfully though we have each others back and once I got to the point where it needs to be timed I felt someone grab my waist and help me down, so very kind. We have jump ladders on our boats and I’ve done them many times so I’m always so grateful when I can help someone or someone helps me and that crucial timing part.

 

Being RHIB’d back to our boat we then transferred to our ship and waved goodbye.

 

It’s funny how when you travel to another country it’s cool to see and look around and experience, there is nothing better then home. I felt like that today, it was cool to see the German ship but at the end of the days I was so happy to come “home”

 

I have attached a photo of my fellow sailor being housed in the cage, so you can see what the cage is, I didn’t get of me as no one took one of me, but that is ok, can’t always get what we want right.

 

Anyways that is the crazy busy, super exciting, and thrilling day!

 

Goodnight 😵‍💫

 

 

I just got off work as I had been called back to work for an investigation. So tonight’s update is going to be quick, I’m sorry.

 

The day went like this

 

This morning was a fun morning, we were woken up by the lovely guest of Hurricane Erin remnant so it was a bit choppy, enough  that it gives me the confidence to get up and dressed no problem, but oh no making my bed I went to reach the foot (I have to reach around the ladder so it’s a stretch) that is when a wave decided to hit the ship and I kiltered me  right back into bed. Maybe it’s a sign to go back to bed haha.

 

Then we had breakfast of eggs and porridge yummy! Then the German helicopter the one I flew in yesterday did a photo ex. Meaning they fly close to the ship so we can take photos of them.  They flew very close  enough that we could see them waving to us with the naked eye, they came by each ship many times. I love when they do that.

 

After that we did what is called a RAS approach RAS stands for replenishment at sea, how this works is the tanker ship, in this case the German ship is a tanker, and our ship sail close to each other then we match speed and keep the distance at the proper spot, this is a very dangerous approach as the water between the two ships causes a tug of war basically and if it isn’t done correctly then the two ship can be pulled into each other causing a crash, this though did not happen and that is thanks to all the practising that is done. We did not do this next part but if we going to refuel our ship, they would send a line across to our ship, we would hook it on and then they would send the tube over to have us hook on then pump the fuel in. It is a very cool procedure.  Today however we just practised the approach.

 

After we practised then the French ship did their practise, our ship was ahead so I ran to the back or our ship and took a couple photos one turned out super good and I love it.

 

Once that was completed we left the other ships and went into Corner Brook Newfoundland where we picked up a different rescue boat that was brought up from Halifax, we have two on board but one had issues so we exchanged it.

 

We spent a couple hours in Corner Brook doing circles while we waited.  I was able to catch up on some work I had to do so that was good.

 

Hurricane Erin has caught up with us, there is strong winds and high waves so as I am laying here I am wondering if I should put my bed seat belt on or just hope for the best that I don’t fall out.

 

These next couple days are going to be very high waves, I am super happy I have my sea legs.

 

Alright this exhausted and tired girl can’t keep her eyes open, any longer.

 

Goodnight 🫥

 

 

 

Good evening! I hope you had a splendid day.

 

Today was “Sunday schedule” here, now what that means is that there are was no drill, exercises or many demands, it a day of rest, there is still work and shifts and all that but it is a slower day.

 

Today we were welcomed with fog so thick we had to put our fog horn on as we could not even see the end of the  ship from the bridge.  We sailed through the rest of the St. Lawrence  and rounded the top of Newfoundland  where we were welcomed with high waves from the Labrador sea. The instant switch was insane the gulf was calmer waves (only 2 meters) the weather was 15°  to the Labrador sea where the weather was suddenly 6° and the waves went to 3, also I saw my breath today.

 

The day was going smoothly when all of a sudden we lost everything, the engines the power the ship went dark.  There is nothing more eerie than fog surrounding you, and all the click clacks and hums of everything that is constant on ship suddenly is silent.  Thankfully the sailors who work on the engine got it up to running enough in only about an hour,  the problem is more severe then we can fix on ship, so the captain made the decision to turn around and head to Newfoundland instead of continuing on to Greenland. We will dock in St. John’s for a few days while we get parts and fix the engine, from there we will continue our deployment but not go to Greenland, just up to the Arctic, there are many people who were excited to see Greenland disappointed tonight.

 

On a good note we saw our first ice berg of the sail, I will include a photo, it was beautiful. It was big and just so beautiful!

 

Tonight after supper I went to the gym, it was a challenge, going to the gym shouldn’t be a challenge right? Other then pushing yourself to do good, but when you go to the gym on ship well you are pushing yourself to do good but also fighting with the waves. I was on the rowing machine and sometimes I couldn’t barely pull the cord and other times I was flying backward depending when the wave was and if the ship was going up the wave or down. When we were going up the wave and I was pulling back it felt like I was trying to pull a boulder up a mountain but then when we were going down a wave I felt like I was sliding back faster then a greased up kid on a slip and slide.  I must get more skilled in timing these things.   At one pint my friend was laughing at me when I was trying to do some standing exercises and started stumbling back like a drunken pirate trying to walk on solid ground after months at sea.  I have my sea legs but I guess I don’t yet have my gym sea legs.

 

Now I’m laying in bed showered and ready to curl up and let the sea rock me to sleep.

 

Tomorrow I will be stepping foot on solid land for the first time in a week.

 

Goodnight ☺️

 

Hello!

 

I hope you had an awesome Tuesday.  Mine was good and hectic and fun all in one day let me tell you about it.

 

This morning we woke up to extremely thick fog high winds and pouring down rain. The captain made the decision that we were not going to go into St. John’s today but rather do circles outside the harbour until the morning because the weather was too bad.  However they scheduled a shoot today so I stood out on the flight deck for two hours in the pouring rain as everyone who needed to recert shot the hand gun or the rifles off the ship, this looks like they are standing on the flight deck and are facing the side of the ship toward the water, once it is safe to do so they are given their magazines and are given the instructions to shoot at the water.  Everyone did great and got through their serials (a serial is the number of the group you are in so serial one serial two etc) there were just a lot of serials so I was out there awhile, luckily though I had my military issued rain suit so I was perfectly dry other then my head and hands.

 

After that I went in to warm up, it was 10 am by this point and on ship it is a navy tradition to have 10 am soup, not often I go get some because I’m super busy but today I went and got some and oh man it felt just wonderful warming the inside of my body.

 

After that I did some desk work got it finished and was able to fully catch up on my work, I fell a little behind when I was on the German ship for the day.

 

Once that was all finished I went to the gym, figured I would try again since the waves are higher today, so why not right? Well it went a little better, I did the bike and then a thing where you put your feet on and it is like running but you don’t lift your feet.  As we went up waves on the bike I felt like I was cycling  a mountain but as we went down a wave I felt like   That poor pea I stuck up my nose as a kid and shot it out.  The other machine was hard too because it was sideways on ship so as I’m running forward I’m being pushed my invisible football players from side to side, needless to say it was not very pleasant and after only 30 min I decided to call it a day.

 

I had thrown in a load of laundry before heading to the gym so on my way back to the cabin I threw it in the dryer and went to get my uniform on, it wasn’t long after that, that I hear a pipe say this “all available hands report to the aft of the ship”  upon arriving to the said location I come into a line up of people passing boxes down the hall, so I jump in when this happens you stand zig zag so one person on the left wall then one on the right and so on staggered.  What happened was there was a flood in two of the rooms and it needed to be cleared immediately to save the remainder of items in the rooms.  Once the rooms were cleared it was time to vacuum the water and mop the floors and throw out the ruined things.

 

This brought us to supper time, and then after supper I went up to the bridge and chatted with the guys on duty up there, and got to learn all about how the radar system works, it was extremely interesting.

 

Tonight we had trivia night, it was a blast, we got into groups of at most 6 people to a table and answered questions on entertainment, art and history, science and geology, animals, and music. There were so many  laughs it was just a blast! We tied for third place out of 5 teams haha.

 

Now I’m showered curled up into bed and ready to call it a night.

 

For the next couple days I am going to alongside in St. John’s so I’m thinking it would be boring if I updated you, but let me know if you want me to.

 

Sleep well,

 

Goodnight🫡

 

 

And we are back at sea! Not a whole lot to write about today.

 

It was a wonderful couple days in St. John’s Newfoundland, I saw some dear people, met some new amazing people, ate scrumptious food, had great laughs, played some board games, learned some new cars tricks and even gave a couple ship tours.  Yesterday I was duty so I hung out on ship.

 

Now I am so ready to continue on with our mission up north to the Arctic.

 

We left the harbour a couple hours ago to fog covered hills, slight rain, and waves just rolling in the sea.  We are going to going through a sea storm resulting in waves 5-6 meters high resulting in sea state 6-7. Everyone is either excited, anxious, nervous or dreading the next couple days.

 

The medical technician came around and gave everyone two gravol pills and highly suggested we take one tonight. I was thinking maybe I would but then left them at my desk four floors up so I’m not going to get my uniform on again just to go get them.  As of right now I feel just fine so maybe hopefully it will stay that way. I am not one to get sea sick however these are the second highest waves I’ve ever sailed in.  Wonder if I’ll be fine in my bed or if I’ll have to put my bed seat belt on?

 

Tomorrow is Sunday routine which means it is very quiet and laid back type of day.

 

See you in a month St. John’s !!

 

Goodnight 😋

 

 

P.s.  the funniest thing happened tonight, I and my boss were sitting at our desk working away, the red light was on because at night we can’t have white light.  One of the sailors came in and turned off the light then turned it on then off then was looking out the window and my boss says do you want us to turn…. When the sailor jumped out of his skin it was like one of those slow motion  movies. He jumped so high I swear he could have won’t the olympics in high jumping!  Once he recovered enough and got his heart to start beating again, he was like “you guys didn’t move I had no idea you were in here.” We all burst out belly laughing and I’m still killing myself laughing right now.  Some of the best scares to people are completely unplanned or unmeant to happen !!!

Goodnight 🤪

Good evening!

 

Before I start with telling of my day I bet you are anxious to hear if I made it through the night, I am happy to report that I did not get sea sick and I did not fall out of bed, I slept like someone deep in a coma only to be woken up to the morning wake up announcement. I love being rocked to sleep with the waves. I was surprised I slept so well with the crashes of waves against the ship, and the bangs in the line room right next to my cabin, but no the thunderous waves rocking me to almost the point of scrambled brains just made me so peacefully and soundly. Hmmm maybe there is something wrong with me??

 

I hope you had a splendid and relaxing Sunday. I had the most relaxing day on ship yet, today we had Sunday routine which means no drills, no exercises, just sailing and relaxing when not on shift.  After I was done my work for the day I went down to the mess and hung out in there chatting and cross stitching for a little bit, then I saw two people trying to figure out how to play crib so away went the cross stitching and I walked over and plunked myself down beside one of them on the couch and began uninvitedly to teach them to play, luckily they were happy with having help, that turned into 3 hours of crib playing, now they know how to play and we can all play together for the rest of the sail.  We ended up moving the game to the galley and many other people sat at the table to chat and watch us play, one wanted to join so we ended up having a partners game which was super awesome.

 

After supper of roast prime rib and mashed potatoes and salad yumm, I came back to the cabin and started telling the girls my dad jokes, I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breath, and they were laughing and rolling their eyes at me. After I calmed down some I told them about accidentally scaring that sailor last night and they were all belly laughing with me as I was dramatically telling it.  Once we all calmed down a knock on the cabin door came asking if I wanted to come out to play a game of crib, of course I said yes and went out we played one game and then ended up finding people putting a puzzle together so we got sidetracked with that and helped complete the puzzle.

 

Now I’m all showered (which was a feet in itself) there are railings in the shower to hold onto, and you can’t just leave the shower running, you have to turn it off when you are shampooing or washing because as the wave hits the water goes in the direction of gravity and as the ship rolls a certain way the shower tries to escape out to the toilet area, or if the ship rolls the other way you’re being attacked by the shower head and water, you are suddenly gasping for air , your blinded holding the safety bar with one and trying to find the said culprit while also trying to not fall and breath at the same time.  After learning this the hard way and wondering how did I ever live all these years on ship, I have learned that must turn off the shower when you are washing or else it is a battle of wits to survive.

 

Anyways I am showered, in bed, rolling with the waves, listening to the crashes of the waves on the side of the ship outside, I’m ready to call it a night.  I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

 

Good night 🙂‍

 

 

 

Sorry this update is so late I got carried away having fun 🙂

 

How’s the weather where you are? Here it is cold I wore a fleece jacket and came inside with rosy cheeks.

 

This morning I woke up to no change in the waves. Still thunderous and loud, as I lay in my bunk debating if I want to skip breakfast and have a lie in or get up, I felt the waves for sure at one point I was airborne when we hit on and then crashed down on my bed when we came off a wave, that was my decision to get up and have breakfast, so up I got and made my bed, then sat on my bed to get my pants on, I knew if I tried to stand up and do it in these waves I would be rolling around the cabin worse then a tumbleweed on a windy day.  Then I got my boots on and went out my cabin. There is a chair out there where I sit and do up the laces, I about sat down when it clicked in my brain that there is no chair there anymore! I am now going on a hunt to find this said chair.

 

After breakfast I went to the desk and figured out the day, then went to the bridge to hang out. There are always people on the bridge and my office gets lonely.

 

As I was standing on the bridge looking out the windows and listening to the non chalantly  conversations that the people were having, I noticed a puffin just ahead of the boat, then after a couple seconds the puffin must have realized it was in the line of the ship and took off, now puffins can’t fly worth anything and they use the waves to launch them into the air, never have I ever in all my years of seeing puffins witness one flapping his wings or trying to launch off a wave as I have with this one. This bird I swear was like “what is that huge monster coming at me? I got get out of here! Just keep trying, just keep trying, let’s go, darn didn’t make flight this time, ok one more, nope ok, my life is flashing before my eyes, my mother was right! She’s always right, I should have listened to her, I should have stayed near home, ok someone wings let’s go!” And he finally made it in the air. I’m watching this bird, thinking of the dialogue and laughing my head off. Once it took off and I stopped looking out the window I noticed 4 pairs of eyes not talking and just staring at me, hahaha. It is very hard to explain why you’re almost crying laughing at a bird to someone who isn’t in your head.

 

After that I had an investigation meeting then went back to the desk to do more work.

 

Lunch came and I gobbled up some taco salad and then went to the flight deck for some shooting practice. Today was the C19’s usually used for up in the arctic for protection from big wild animals as a last resort, the practise shoot went off whiteout a hitch. I really like shooting off the ship because you can see where the bullet hits the water.

 

After that I went back to my desk (yes a lot of desk work today) and completed my days work, then I got lonely again and decided I wanted to learn this one piece of equipment on the bridge, so I walked to the bridge I completely have my sea legs and was walking leaning almost 45° one way then the same the other way only to be walking in a straight line, upon getting to the bridge I  asked for a lesson. They were beyond thrilled to teach me, and they taught and I learned until it was supper time.

 

After a yummy meal of ribs and chicken with cornbread I had the evening off work, so I asked one of the girls that I taught crib too if she wanted to play, she was delighted to, and we set down to play, before we could start three other people came over and wanted to learn, so me being the student before supper became the teacher after supper.

 

Then bingo happened, we were playing in the galley and there was only a couple people that came to play bingo so we paused our crib game and joined in on bingo, this was not fun let me tell you, they handed out four, FOUR, cards to each person and I had to manage mine, all four cards, like seriously they are calling numbers and I’m frantically searching for them on your cards and before I can finish searching there is another called! I swear my heart rate can’t keep up with this atrocity!  There were so little amount of people playing I thought for sure I was going to win a prize tonight,  but nope the bingo god knew I didn’t like this game and EVERYONE else won a game but me. Hahaha I guess bingo knows.

 

We finished our crib game then sat and chatted for a while, now I’m in my cabin, showered and ready to curl up for the night to be rocked to sleep in these waves.

 

Goodnight 🥸

 

 

Tonight I am sitting on the flyco room listening to fellow sailor practise his fiddle, it is awesome and so relaxing.

 

Today was a busy day, first thing in the morning we signalled the second research buoy and when it popped up out of the water it was spotted almost immediately, then retrieved and towed back to ship, the hooking of it to the crane went smoothly and then hoisted up onto the ship deck, we had extra hands on the ropes to keep it steady and I was the third on my rope with three more people behind me, together and with direction from the boss it was landed safely and fast. Today’s mission to recover it took only 50 min from the time it popped up to on board, as opposed to yesterday’s 3.5 hours.  I found out today that each of the buoys weigh 2 tons.

 

As I was waiting for the buoy to be towed to the ship someone spotted some porpoises, it was very neat they came to the surface and looked at us then sorta chilled for about 10 min staying at or near the surface, I wonder if they had ever seen a ship before? I wonder what they will telling their friends and family about us? Once they got enough looks and what they needed then they went under to resurface somewhere else as I didn’t see them again, they were so beautiful to just stand and watch

 

After that was done, a casualty exercise took place, the scenario was a sailor lost his balance going down the stairs when a wave hit and had a traumatic brain injury and  broken ankle, so the casualty cleaning team had to wrap and splint his ankle and treat as a spinal all while in the stairwell. They put him on the stretcher and carried him to sick bay where the doctor there treated him. Every scenario is treated as real so the steps are spoken out and the saline IV is pretended to be out in, all the motions are gone through, so if there is ever any real incident it is all muscle memory.  I have to go to all the scenarios to gather evidence and document the whole proceedings.

 

After that we had a lecture on how to read and understand ice charts, it is so interesting, the old ice, the new ice, the ways ice hit each other, the forms they make.  The charts are quite hard to understand but I’ve learned the basics and look forward to practising it more.

 

Just as that lecture was wrapping up a spill was called and a bunch of people jumped into action including me for investigation, luckily it was another scenario but the locations were gone through as if it was real, the three sailors dawned their firefighting outfits and assessed the spill (it was vinegar) then contained it then after it was contained two sailor dressed in hazmat went in and cleaned it up. If the spill was bigger,  more sailors would dawn the necessary clothing and help out.

 

Tonight we were supposed to retrieve the third research buoy however when we got to the location as to where it was there was no communication from it, no signal nothing so we couldn’t call it up to the surface, so we are moving on and another ship with try at a later time.

 

On Wednesdays we get ice cream served by the command team, as a thank you for all the hard work we put in during the week.  This is a tradition done on all ships, it is usually on Sundays and they call it sundae Sundays, since this ship is called William Hall they decided to do Wonka Wednesdays playing on Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory, so Wednesdays Is ice cream night.  It is such the simple things in life that cheer me to the soul, one bowl of ice cream just makes me so happy, and I can lose track of all the days of the week on ship but I always know when it is ice cream night!

 

This happy souled girl is off to sleep.

 

Goodnight 😝

 

 

 

Another day on the high seas has come to a close. This one was not super busy which gave me a lot more time to admire the scenery.

 

The day started off with retrieving the 4th research buoy, by now we are getting it down to a tee on how to get this 2 ton machine hooked up to the crane. It took about the same time as yesterday 50 min to 1 hour. We had more people who were able to come help and with more people on the lines there was less swaying.  Last one to retrieve tomorrow.

 

We have officially have crossed over the 66° so we are now in the Arctic Ocean. We have crossed to the Arctic circle.  This is a fun thing when this happens on ship, there are what is called tadpoles and Bluenosers, a tadpole is someone who has never crossed the Arctic circle before and a Bluenoser is someone who has crossed the Arctic circle in the past, I am a Bluenoser as I crossed the Arctic circle three years ago. We will have a ceremony when we get to pond inlet area and the seas will be calmer.  I will explain the events of the ceremony on the day it will happen, it should happen in two days.  It is such fun being a Bluenoser and the group of us are running secretly around ship trying to find random things to make costumes. Ok enough on that, I don’t want to give away the events of the ceremony.

 

We are east of Baffin Island and at one point today we even saw the magnificent mountains of the island.  It snowed today and standing outside I could see my breath, might soon be time to pull out the long Johns.

 

So far on this sail we have seen two icebergs, but today my goodness I physically saw 27 icebergs. They were massive, the coolest thing about them is there are never two the same, they break off from the glaciers and float with the currents, the waves splashing on them will cause the sides to be super smooth. The water in them is the bluest of blue I have ever seen.  There are a lot of norther falmer birds up here and they sit on the icebergs so I find it so cool to see them clustered on the top of some of them.  I swear I spent more time looking at icebergs then doing my actual work, haha

 

Tonight we had a craft circle where the sailors who want to work on crafts gather and sit and talk and do whatever they are working on, one guy was making a neck strap for his binoculars out of para cord, two women were crocheting, a girl and guy were painting, and I was cross stitching, and one guy sat and played his guitar quietly, It was a great time.

 

After that was done, I noticed two people playing crib so I offered to be a fourth if they wanted, sure enough they did and soon there was a teams game going on, one suggested we start a crib tournament, I hope it happens that would be awesome! The first game we won the second game we lost.

 

I’m now curled up in bed, we went back an hour so I’m on the same time as Ontario now, yay for an extra hour of sleep.

 

Goodnight ❄️

 

 

What a fun day today was, I felt accomplished today, first off we I was on the bridge today as we called the research buoy up to help look for it, I was looking out the window chatting with the person beside me, I was explaining how sea birds have a extra film over their eyes that completely cut the glare from the water and they can see right through, when I see the was move in a unique way, pointing to it I saw I think I see the buoy, and then there was a hug blow of water and I said no, no that isn’t a buoy that is a whale! I went out to the bridge wing with my camera and started taking photos of it, the whale was swimming toward the ship, I’m sure it was curious as to what we were.  I captured photos and admired this beast, he was so beautiful and graceful literally just checking us out.  It soon went down and dissapeared, I thought maybe it went under the ship to the other side and so went over to the other bridge wing and waited.  Sure enough after about 10 min it came up near ish to the ship and I snapped some more photos, after some time of admiring it, it dove deep presenting its tale.  Coming into the bridge we started researching what kind of what it was. At first I thought it was a humpback but soon realized when taking photos it wasn’t as it was too different.  Anyways after research and comparing it  with the  photos, we concluded it was 100% a sperm whale! I’ve never seen a sperm whale before, this is something I never thought I would see, like this is a moby dick whale!

 

The research buoy never came to the surface so another ship will try at a later time.

 

After lunch we had another ice identification lesson and man who knew that ice was so intricate, and complicated. There is new ice, old ice, rotten ice, and everything in between.  As much as I enjoyed learning and my interest was peaked, my brain hurt after that lesson.

 

Shortly after that I was chatting with some of my cabin mates when the bong bongs went off and it was a man overboard, jumping into action I ran up the flights of stairs to the bridge and got ready to do my job, I looked up and spotted instantly Oscar the mannequin floating in the water, I pointed and when you notice you must put your arm out with four fingers out and don’t take your eyes off it, soon a couple more spotted it and had their arms out so I could take mine down and get myself ready for the documentation to happen.

 

This evening after supper it was someone birthday and navy tradition is you pie them in the face, about 6 people came up and pied him, he wasn’t expecting it and was a great sport, but man he was covered, there was a trail of pie off him from the mess to the showers.

 

Then we had our first event of the crossing the line ceremony, three people dressed up as polar bears and wondered around causing trouble to the tadpoles. Tadpoles are the people who have never crossed the line before, and Bluenosers are the ones who have, I myself is a Bluenoser. Then the tadpoles had to build the throne for king Neptune and Queen Aurora. Excited for the ceremony tomorrow.

 

We have entered into a high pressure ridge, and for once we have a break from the waves. This is the first time all sail that we have very calm waters. What a high pressure ridge is that we are surrounded by storms and all those storms are pushing together creating a “bubble” in the ocean of calmness. So for about two days we will have extremely calm seas. The captain says this is his favourite sea state and I am thinking I’ll have to join him on that. It is so peaceful.

 

That was my day, not a lot happened and I’m ok with that, low key days while deployed are a rarity so I soak them up when they happen. Never before have I spotted two important things in one day on ship so I felt very accomplished.

 

Goodnight 😊

 

 

Today was anything but low key, the morning started off with the crossing the line ceremony, first it was breakfast and all the tadpoles had to eat oatmeal with escargot in it! Barely anyone at the oatmeal, it was apparently disgusting! Thankfully as a Bluenoser I didn’t have to eat it this time around.

Once the breakfast was completed all the tadpoles were herded to an area of the ship and had to wait for the ceremony to start. I ran up to the flight deck and help get last minute stuff in order (help people get costumes on) these costumes were made out of whatever could be found on ship, so as you can imagine there was some very wonky costumes.  Once we were ready the tadpoles were brought up to the flight deck and the hanger doors were opened, smoke came piling out and when it dissipated king Neptune and queen Aurora were sitting on their thrones.  The tadpoles then had to present themselves to king Neptune and queen Aurora, they had to all kneel down and then had to present a token anything they could come up as a present for the king and queen. Once that was done they had to get themselves “clean” this consisted of getting shaven, whip cream was put on the face then it was shaved off with a butchers knife, (don’t fret it was just cardboard cutout and coloured like one) then the doctor made them take “medicine” (cherries covered in franks red hot sauce) after that their noses were spread with a paste to make them Bluenosers, and lastly they then had to wash all that off to prove they were clean, this consisted of them standing on the flight deck and getting sprayed with the fire hose, for at least 10 seconds, this fire hose was taking water from the sea so it was chilly.  After all the tadpoles were cleaned they were officially announced Bluenosers, a group photo was taken and they all ran off to shower, they were frigid cold! Everyone had a splendid time. They are still talking and laughing about it.

 

This afternoon was coming into Pond Inlet Nunavut, the mountainous range was just stunning, it is something I can describe to see land that has never been touched by human hands since the beginning of time. There are no trees up here, just rock, snow, and sand and glaciers you would think it was boring and ugly but my goodness it is just stunning, aside from the platonic movements this land is exactly how God crafted it with His hands.

 

We are going to work with the coast guard here for a couple days before we head off and move on, so for a couple days I will have cell service. Haha unsure how much spare time I will have if any to check my phone but hey I have service 😝

 

The village of Pond Inlet or the real name for the native Inuits is Mittimatalik it is the largest community in northern Baffin Island, located on Eclipse Sound at the eastern end of the Northwest Passage, it has the population of 1,555 people and it 170.83 square kilometers. Houses built from wood and insulation and heated with diesel.  I am really hoping fingers crossed that we will finish our work in time to get off ship and go explore the village and meet the locals.  There might be a chance on the 9th if we are lucky.

 

Tonight I have to go in the MRRB (like a zodiac but little bigger) and zip around our ship and the other ships that in the inlet at anchor, (yes it is work, not joyriding) I will be gone for a few hours so I am going to leave this update as it is and if anything exciting happens tonight I will write it in tomorrow update, however I don’t expect anything exciting to happen.

 

Good night 😸

 

 

Today was a full day full of work and even had some fun.  I’m literally falling asleep trying to write this. So I will make it short and not detailed like my other updates.

 

With the coast guard we did exercises on what to do if we or another ship has a spill, oil fuel whatever the case may be. We brought out the boom it is a big yellow or orange barrier that will keep the spill in one area so that it can be cleaned up.  This is practised a lot because we  fuel at sea and if anything goes wrong there is something to contained the oil, last thing we want to do is hurt the ocean or the sea wildlife.  I was in the RHIB for this and therefore received the boom from the ship and we pulled it out and around the ship. Then after a while we did it all in reverse.

 

However during that time of eating from when we hooked up the boom around the ship to unhooking we were just sitting in the RHIB, so I said hey let’s ask if we can go explore the iceberg that was floating not too far from the ship, we got the go ahead and for the first time in my entire life I got to go right close to it, close enough to touch an iceberg!  It was an experience I never imagined I would have. It was cold (obvesiouly) and the ice was rippled kinda like little waves in it, I always thought those parts were smooth but close up I’ve discovered that I was in fact very wrong!

 

After that our RHIB and the coast guard Zodiac did some joy riding and it was wild! I loved every single minute of it. The speed the tight turning, the waves everything! It was an amazing adrenaline rush!

 

Now I’m in bed fighting to stay awake to write this.

 

Goodnight 😜

 

 

Not a whole lot to talk about today as I’m kinda under the weather a little and didn’t work as hard as I should have.

 

Today the ship participated in an exercise called “Arctic ghost”.  With two coast guard ships, what that means is it is practising for pirates, it practises looking for ships that don’t belong and hailing them then investigating what they have on board. One of the two coast guard ships went a hid and we had to seek them out and hail the ship, petting much like an adult navy version of hide and seek. There were helicopters and an aurora came out to help seek.

 

We had so many visitors on ship today, tons of media people and other military from these northern communities, Rangers as well and RCMP. The ship was like a tour boat today lol.

 

Tonight I played some crib and played partners, lost the first game by two points! It was so close. Then my partner and I won the next two games. It was so much fun.

 

It was weird the last two nights at anchor and the ship not moving, but tonight we are sailing around and not anchoring so it feels so much better to have to ship moving again 🙂 I know I’ll sleep well tonight.

 

Anyways I’m going to go to sleep and get right as rain for tomorrow. I will write more tomorrow I promise.

 

Goodnight☺️

 

 

Today was a busy day. I hit the ground running and spent the morning catching up on the work I didn’t do yesterday.  Which took me all morning to do, but I got it done.

 

Then this afternoon we sailed over to a tanker ship in the ocean and began the long process of fuelling the ship. First, we come alongside the tanker, then from there we throw the monkey fist lines. A monkey fist is a knot on the end of the rope sometimes wrapped around a weight so when you throw the rope to the other ship it has projection. The other end of the rope is attached to the thick line, which is then pulled across to the tanker and secured down. After that is completed, we launched the boom. It is the barrier I explained about the other day, that we put out in case there is an oil spill into the water.  Once that was securely in place, the fuel pipe is sent from the tanker ship to our ship.  Once the pipe is connected to our ship, the fuel starts pumping. It takes anywhere from 1-4 hours to pump. Our ship holds 50 cubes of fuel, so depending on how low we are, it makes the time it takes to fuel, converted to liters that is 50,000.  Once everything was hooked up, the boom was out and everything was set, we went in and had supper.

 

After supper, I finished my work for today and then went to hang out with some friends. They were playing a video game, so I sat and watched. It was a cooking at a restaurant type game. Boring, to be honest. I wanted to play some crib or something and was about to get up to go find some people to see if they wanted to play some crib when the bong bongs went off.  It went like this: “bong, bong bong, spill in the (can’t say I’m sorry) room.” So everyone jumped into action, and we went to our respective areas, thinking it was a drill. We started getting the equipment needed to clean up spills once the attack team reported back. (The attack team is a team that goes first to check out the scene, then lets the bridge know what’s happening.) The pipe comes down that says this is a no-duff (real). One of the fuel tanks broke, and there are a few inches of fuel on the ground. So just like muscle work with all the practising we have done, most people didn’t bat an eye and kept doing their respective jobs. We set up the ventilation tube and blocked off the area that was contaminated, then got into hazmat suits and started cleaning the fuel up.  During events, real or not, we have pipes that give updates called sitreps, and when the spill was at 75% contained, it was deemed not safe to go in and finish. Everyone was evacuated from that spot, and it will have to vent overnight before the rest can be cleaned up.

 

So I am now getting to my cabin. I just showered. The cabin reeks of fuel, and we have fans going to try to air it out. The contaminated uniforms have to be disposed of in the hazmat way, and new uniforms will be sent to everyone who needs them.

 

Tomorrow, I will be doing the investigation on what happened. I won’t be allowed to report on that, but that will take up most of my day tomorrow, so I’m not sure what I will write about then. However, knowing me, I’m sure an adventure will happen that I can write about.

 

Our cabin is stinky. Some girls are grouchy, some are upset, some are just plain blah, and all are exhausted.

 

Goodnight😩

 

 

This morning we came back to pond inlet, we finished cleaning up the fuel spill and I did my work, the air in that area is still being vented but things are looking good.

 

When we got back to Pond Inlet we went to anchor and then launched the landing craft, a group of sailors got to go to town for a couple hours and see the town, I however did not get to go I stayed on ship and worked. Tomorrow they are letting sailors go so maybe I’ll get lucky and can go.

 

After the work was done the captain gave us the rest of the day off so I had a luxurious lay down in my bunk, nothing feels as good as stretching out on the bunk for an hour. I did my laundry during that time and chatted with some friends.

 

Then just before supper we had a “hands fall in” what this means is the whole ships company (ones that are not on essential duty) meet in said area and the captain comes to talk to us, this time one sailor got promoted and two sailors got course certification certificates. He then told us that he we are doing a sundowner, a sundowner is where they set up a fire barrel on the flight deck, have smores, play music and everyone can have two alcoholic drinks if they wish, I did not drink as I have a self rule that I don’t drink much barely once a year if that and never drink while deployed. However I did sit and enjoy the fire and smores. It was wonky Wednesday so we got ice cream! I had strawberry with marshmallows and raspberry sauce, oh my goodness I’m smiling just thinking about it.

 

The moon was so gorgeous I took a photo but photos never compare to what the eye see, with the mountains in the back it was just perfect.

 

That’s all I can write about for today, will see what tomorrow brings.

 

Goodnight 🔥

 

 

I don’t have anything to update on today, with the amount of work we have done these last couple weeks most of which I haven’t reported on as I’m not allowed to, the ship is very worn out and moral is low, so the captain gave us yesterday afternoon and today off.

 

Tonight we had trivia it was a blast, my table of random people have now come together as a team and we love it, one girl she was recruited to another team and she was like no I’m on this team lol, she told me this and I was like you can go if you really want she is like no I am on this team. Hahahaha she is becoming a good friend, however she lives in Quebec so that sucks. Anyways our place was dead last this time hahah.

 

Tomorrow we are weighing anchor (this means lifting the anchor from the sea bed and starting to sail again) we are then back to sea to continue the deployment. If it is anything like this deployment so far we will hit the sea running and work will be insane again.

 

Goodnight 🐸

 

 

 

 

Sometimes the days are long but the months short.  Last night after I said goodnight and got all tucked up cozy in bed. There came a pipe from the captain, “good evening all, sorry I have to make this pipe so late, but I need everyone up and ready to weigh anchor, there is a massive iceberg heading straight for us and we need to get out of its way” luckily icebergs don’t move super fast but the wind was high last night so it was moving faster then normal.  So up we all got, got our uniforms on and went to work, we got the anchor up and secured, got the lines tightened and got the ship ready for sea. Once that was done we all went and saw this iceberg, it was intact huge, it looked like a couch, I couldn’t get photos as it was quite dark by this point, but I am so glad he woke us up to get the ship moving.  We were supposed to leave pond inlet pray but he just decided to leave last night, no point pulling anchor and lowering it again. It was about 1:30 am before we got back to bed for the night.

 

The wakey wakey came too early this morning.  I’m not sure if I’ve explained the wakey wakey so I’ll explain it again, at 07:00 over the pipe they play a song usually a really annoying song to get people stirring (if they aren’t on watch or duty already) then they say “wakey wakey hands to breakfast” hands means the sailors, then the meteorologist comes on and gives us the weather for the day, then the operation officer comes on and tells us what is planned for the day, things change all the time, but it is what they have planned and hope to carry out throughout the day.

 

This morning consisted of doing some desk work, going to a lecture on the research buoys as we are starting to drop them back into the ocean for another year.

 

Soup today was seafood chowder it was extremely yummy, so that was to sit and eat during the lecture since we were in the galley anyways lol.

 

After lunch was first aid and casualty training, they went over mass casualty and triage assessments, one of the guys was called upon to explain how t run through a scenario, he was hilarious! He had the hand movements going, he had the voice imitations of multiple people, he was moving around like a dance, and the way he worded the step by step was the most slang I’ve ever heard first aid, even the doctor on ship was laughing, but you know what, I won’t forget the course of action for mass casualty triaging ever.

 

After that was an iceberg identification lecture, we have a ice specialist from the coast guard on ship with us, and she has given three lectures now,  I didn’t realize I’ve had so much depth to it and I have been soaking up the information, doing the worksheets and asking a lot of questions.

 

After supper it was outside to drop the first of the research buoys back into the water. The crane picked up up, with people holding ropes to keep it steady, then it was lowered into the water and the quick release was pulled so the rope came off the buoy, after that was floating in the water, the crane came back and got the weight, it was tied on and lowered over the edge of the ship, when the quick release was pulled it made a way bigger then I ever thought was possible splash into the water, makes sense though since it has to be heavy enough to drag two tons down to the bottom of the sea.

 

Once that was finished we came inside to warm up, it was -4° here today, and got to playing crib, it started out with me and Ellie, then 5 boys joined us, so Ellie and I partnered up and the boys rotated through,  after many games some wins some loses, there was two guys that played multiple games with us, they wind four and one was a skunk so they actually won five and we’re like ok we are going to bed, Ellie and I replied no no no one more game, and we won’t that game!, the laughs were endless and the poking fun was hilarious, I love comradery   like that.

 

Since we are sailing again I am going to sleep so well with being rocked to sleep, we are still in the high pressure ridge so the waves are less than a meter, so the sway is gently and wonderful.

 

Goodnight ⭐️

 

 

Today was insanely busy, we started the day off with launching the second research buoy into the water, it was funny the buffer (the head Boatswain he is a petty officer first class in navy terms or warrant in army terms) he was sneaking around and tightening peoples hardhats a couple notches when they weren’t looking then when they fixed the hard hat he would go again and tighten it, the guys were getting so annoyed and one even lightly punched his buddy and said “dude stop that!” And the buddy said “ hey man why you assuming it’s me, I swear it wasn’t” and punched him back, then when they realized who it was they burst out laughing.  I was laughing because I was watching this happen and knew it was him, while the whole thing play out but staying out of it. I guess when you are the top dog you can do things like that.

 

The launching of the buoy is getting down to a good science, the crane picks up the machine (weighs two tons) the crane can lift 25 tons so that was fine, but with the ship moving to the waves it can swing, last thing we want is for that to damage equipment on board, however more so hurt anyone, sense why we all wear hardhats. There are two ropes looped through and at least 4 sailors per rope holding it steady, then it is moved over board and before it is lowered into the water, the ropes looped in are pulled back through, then there is a quick release on the part hooked up to the crane and that is pulled. When the machine drops into the water, the crane then comes back to deck and the quick release is hooked up to the weight, then the weight is picked up off the deck and lowered to just above the water. When the quick release is pulled the weight falls to the sea bed and the machine goes with it. Then we pack up the ropes and clean up the deck, the crane is secured and we are done.

 

After that we had a practice casualty, this time the scenario was a heart attack, the medical team accessed, stabilized and packaged him on scene, put him into the backboard and had to take him to sick bay, since sick bay is on a different level the had to be brought up the stairs.  This is a complicated procedure on ship, there are 4 people who carry the backboard down the flats and then they balance him on the stair well, then a rope is sent down from the top hooked onto the backboard and once secured it is hauled up by people above. Once in sick bay the doctor does assessments, hooks him up to a heart monitor and take vitals, from there treatment is carried out.  This was very cool to watch as I have never seen a backboard being hauled up the stairs on this class of ship.

 

After that it was back outside and launched the third buoy into the sea. Same procedure however the buffer did not joke around this time.

 

Once that was completed we had about an hour before supper so I booked it upstairs to my office, finished my work and then went out to meet two of the girls on ship for a walk, I bet you are thinking, how does one got for a walk while on a ship, well my friend I will tell you, we go around in circles on the flight deck, round and round and round and if we are feeling adventurous we will change direction.  We were chatting and then of course I had to tell them my pirate jokes and we all had a good belly laugh. The temperature is -4 today so when we came in from walking our circles ( incase you are just ever so curious, no, we in fact did not feel adventurous enough to change direction) we were nice and rosey cheeked, nothing like a crisp air to make the soul feel good.

 

After supper it was cleaning stations and then when that was done it was free time, as every night I ended up in the galley playing crib, Ellie and I were waiting for our rivals from last night but they didn’t show, I wonder if they realized they weren’t going to win tonight and hid away, ha.  After an hour of crib a few guys came in and we asked if they wanted to play partners, they said we can but what about Euchre? So we taught a group of people to play Euchre.

 

Now I’m showered, in bed and ready to call it a night.

 

Good night 🌕

 

 

Not a whole lots that I am able to write about for today’s update but I will still write something.

 

This morning I worked hard but can’t delve into it, then lunch came, after sitting and chatting with some people at lunch I went out to try to help locate the missing buoy that we couldn’t get last time last week. We tried for about two hours and nothing.  The amazing thing though is as we were trying, three pilot whales were swimming around the ship just hanging out and checking us out. I haven’t ever seen a pilot whale before so I was excited.

 

After that it was up to the bridge where I got to learn the sextant. The sextant was effectively invented in the 1730s by both John Hadley and Thomas Godfrey, though the foundational principles were later found in the unpublished writings of Isaac Newton from the late 1600s.  A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects. The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of celestial navigation. you need an accurate timepiece, such as a marine chronometer or digital stopwatchset to UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), to use with a sextant’s measurement of a celestial body’s angle to determine a ship’s longitude. The time of a “sight” (measuring the angle) is recorded along with the angle to calculate Greenwich Mean Time, which is then used with the celestial body’s position from an almanac to find longitude.  To pinpoint exactly where you are.  This is an intricate machine and when I was using it today I loved thinking about how this was used when the pirates roamed the earth, the device hasn’t changed in all those years, I felt like a pirate when I was standing there looking through it trying to calculate where we were, How cool is that!

 

After supper we had cleaning stations and then hung out with friends playing crib.

 

I must share this absolutely funny but embarrassing story, so my tummy wasn’t feeling super good this evening, so I went to the washroom, but all it was, was gas, it was so loud and strong I swear I lifted a few inches in the air, but I stayed in there for about 10 minutes until I heard no one in the washrooms beside or outside, I swear the whole flat heard it hahaha embarrassing? oh yes but hilarious? oh my goodness yes. I felt just fine after that. I hope that gives you a good little giggle.

 

Goodnight 💨

 

 

Today the sun and blue skies have left us. The fog has come in strong and the seas calm as can be, there is such an eerie wonder when I sail in these conditions, it is like the ocean is telling the stories of past times, through the silence of the sea.  I stand and look out and I can envision the tall ships, pirate ships, navy ships from the 1700’s not knowing if enemy ships are lurking just beyond eye sight, or how they would make a noise and listen for the echo, if they heard an echo they would send the noice again and count how many seconds it was until the echo returned.  Every 5 seconds is one mile distance, speed of sound in air travels at an approximate 1100 feet per second, and there are 5280 feet per mile so every 5 seconds is approximately one mile, this is how they calculated how far or close to land they were.

Of course now days we have a ton of equipment to tell us where land is, but we do still learn this way incase we are dead in the water.   I for some reason hate but also love this sea state of flat seas and thickest fog.

 

As I was doing my work today I had my audiobook in and was listening away working away when I decided to turn my head and look out the window, what made me at that moment look I’m not sure but I did and you’ll never guess what was staring in the window at me. A peregrine falcon! Like what? Like how? Like whoa. He was so beautiful, just sitting on the railing of the ship holding on with his talons and staring at me. Of course I wanted to take a photo and tried but as soon as I stood up he flew away, saddened I went out to the machine deck area and waited, it wasn’t long before he was flying around my head, back and forth, up and down, then landed on the other railing so I got a photo of him, after researching these falcons nest up at Baffin Island, and I guess decided to hang out with us for the day, I wonder if he will hitch a ride to Halifax with us.

 

We are prepping the ship to secure it for sea, it is prepped but we are checking everything and securing more things, secure for sea means, we are batting down the hatches and making sure nothing rolls around, we are just about to enter into a storm in the next day or so, we are currently trying to get ahead of it but we don’t think we will be able to fully, the waves are estimated to be 6-10 meters high and if we can’t get in front of it we will be in it,  the next few days could be interesting for sure, we are trying to get to the Hudson Bay waters before the waves get over 3-4 meters.  I will soak up these 1 meter and less waves right now.

 

Goodnight

 

 

Today has been super busy, I started doing two investigations that took all morning, then after that we were going to attempt to launch the landing craft to see if it was fixed, the landing craft weighs 18 tons so it is a chore to launch, the crane takes all four corners of the ropes that’s attached to the landing craft and starts lifting up, then there are four teams on all the corners with at least 4 people holding the rope to keep it from swaying, we tried two times to launch the boast but the landing craft just swayed too much, the captain was there and he was telling the bridge to turn the ship to try to have the waves not hit us as bad, but we couldn’t get it in the water, we were all a little disappointed that the two attempts were unsuccessful, In the end we hatchet strapped it back securing on the ship and will try again when the seas are calmer.

 

After that almost immediately (I don’t know if they were trying to lift our spirits or what) but the bong bongs went and it was a person overboard drill, the RHIB was launched and the mannequin was retrieved in record time.

 

I went back to my office and worked on finishing up my jobs when the bridge makes a pipe, “for ships company’s interest there is a whale on the starboard side” so I went and it was another sperm whale, it was so neat to watch, I was really hoping it would have been a narwhal but it wasn’t. I decided it would be a good time to tell one of my pirate jokes to the bridge, and told it in such a way that it was informative, they were really into it and attentive when I threw down the punch line, everyone burst out laughing, then the officer of the watch says “get out of here I can’t look at you without laughing.” So I went and finished my work. Hahaha

 

There was an officer in my office working on paracord straps for binoculars, and so I joined him in working on my cross stitch, however just as I began, the coast guard lady on ship came in and said “hey wanna go on a long walk in circles?” Both of us wanted to so we packed up and headed outside. Walking in circles on the flight deck for about 15 minutes, then we decided to get adventurous, we stopped and looked at each other and I said “ready to be adventurous?” They both said yes let’s do it….. so we turned around and went the other way! Haha

 

Supper was next then it was cleaning stations, after that it was trivia and our team got second place! Did you know giraffes have no vocal cords. How insane is that? After trivia I sat with my friends and cross stitched, soon they all switched to French and I tuned them out and cross stitched and had a cup of tea.

 

Now I’m showered and in bed, the waves aren’t bad yet but they are picking up, the fog horn is blaring every two minutes so not sure how much sleep I’ll get tonight. We should be hitting the brunt of the storm tomorrow of Thursday.

 

Hope you sleep amazingly!

 

Goodnight 🐋

 

 

 

I am writing to you tonight all cozy in my bunk and being rocked back and forth, excited for a nights rest.

 

I slept very well last night, didn’t think I would with the fog horn blasting about every two minutes, but after the second or third one I fell right to sleep, you know what the weird thing was though the ship stopped in the night and that is what woke me up, it was a change in noises and movement, crazy. Not sure why the ship stopped but it wasn’t anything wrong.

 

Great news it looks like we have been able to get ahead of the storm, we transitioned from the Davis straight to the Hudson straight today, the storm is still hitting us but not nearly as bad as if we were in the Davis straight. Right now the waves are 1.5 meters high and we will see anywhere from 3-6 meters high tomorrow and Friday.

 

Today was a long but great day, in the morning we took out all the line and equipment needed to be able to tow another ship, we put it all together and laid out the rope, then when it was all laid out we checked the entire set up for any flaws, tears, or cracks, once it was set up we had a brief on everyone’s position and job if we ever had to tow another ship. Then we put it all away.

 

The rope is I don’t know the exact number but many many feet long, it is as thick and my calf and the piece of the rope you would pick up and hold would be about 5 pounds, you take this and everyone lines up, then they start rolling it out and laying it on the deck, when you get to one end you loop around and come back to the other end, keeping going until you are done, my job was to stand on the rope at the end and not let them pull it back, it was a fun job lol. Then the ends are hooked up to metal hoops and a steel rope is also hooked up to the metal ring, and on the other end it is hooks up to the ship to secure it.  After that is done there is a 4×4 plank laid on the deck and the last 10 or so loops are tied to the plank, this is so there is only a certain amount of rope going from our ship to the one being towed, but can also be easily cut if we need more length.  The set up, lecture and take down took 4 hours total and when we finished it was lunch time.

 

After lunch we had a firefighting recertification, we all plot into three groups and one group went over fire extinguishers, checking doors and when it is ok to attack the fire or not. The next group was putting on the gear in the specified time limit and getting the air tank on and hooked up to the mask. The last group was setting up, charging and spraying the hose off the back of the ship.  Every sailor on board is a trained naval firefighter, we are certified for ship fires. There would be I am positive differences between ship firefighting and land firefighting but the basics are the same.  I had a blast in this, and I am so thankful we practise and keep our skills fresh.

 

Once all that was done it was time for me to actually do some work so to the office I went, worked hard for a couple hours, finished my audiobook, which I love but also hate doing, sad it’s over and happy I read it, anyways I was getting antsy so I decided to take a break and go to the bridge, since my pirate joke got me kicked off the bridge yesterday I thought I should try for a round two. I walked in and said “guess what I learned today!” they looked at me and said what? “I learned where pirates get their hooks from.” Then I said nothing more and went about looking out the window. After about 6 min the officer of the watch says “ugh fine tell me” I look him straight in the eye and say “the second hand store” then burst out laughing so hard I was crying.  Everyone else was laughing and he just said “groan” get out of here, so I went back to work and could hear him laughing as I left.

 

I have decided I’m going to go to the bridge at that time everyday if I can and tell a dad joke to see if I can finally get the officer of the watch to laugh

 

About an hour later after all my work was completed I went back to the bridge and looked out the window, on the focsle there was a sparrow, he had to have come on board from Halifax or St. John’s as there is no way it came from the Arctic.  I made a comment that he was soooo fat he looks like a tennis ball with a head. The lookout and I came up with the name Jack for this first and sparrow for his last so he’s Jack sparrow. He must not be starving on the ship because he is so round and fat. Haha

 

Of course tonight being Wednesday, after supper we had ICE CREAM!! I had strawberry, mini marshmallow, raspberry sauce, and chocolate shavings. My tummy and my brain are so happy after having ice cream!

 

Goodnight 😝

 

 

Tonight is a late entry, I got carried away playing crib and euchre with some friends, usually it is tame until the buffer joins then it is full on competitive, so many laughs.

 

Anyhow today was a full day with reverting our C6 and C9 fully automatics machine guns. We had to go through every single step of coming to a gun that you didn’t put there, making it safe, steps on loading it, firing it, stoppages, changing out the barrel, clearing it changing the belt of bullets and then clearing it for inspection. Each person (who had to be there) had to run through the drills and prove that we know what we are doing, even when there is no bullets in the weapon it still gives a pretty good kick to the shoulder.  These weapons have a stand on the front and are shot while laying down, I think sometime next week we might be shooting live rounds.

 

Then after that was another ice lecture, I learned so much about ice I feel like o could be an expert (well not really, experts have four years of university)

 

The rest of the day was slow because the weather is not good here the waves are high and some people are sea sick, so the before supper schedule was cancelled.

 

I did not see Jack sparrow today, I hope he is hiding somewhere on ship out of the storm, I will take a photo of him next time I see him, and you can see how fat he is ha.

 

Today I walked onto the bridge and the officer of the watch looked at me and groaned lol, “alright give me the joke” he says, so I pipe up, “did you know that a piece of pie in Jamaica costs $2.43 but a piece of pie in Bermuda costs $1.87?  Those are the pie rates of the Caribbean”  he doesn’t laugh but he smiles.  The others were laughing their heads off but not him, my new mission is to make him laugh.

 

The waves are about 3 meters high that is about 10 feet high so if you aren’t walking like a drunken sailor you aren’t staying straight on the ship. There was four of us walking down the flats one behind the other and someone cam around the corner quite far in front of us, then she stopped and burst out laughing, without realizing we all swayed to one side then swayed to the other then back again, to us we were staying upright but to her she said it looked like we were almost dancing.

 

As I was playing crib and euchre tonight,  we felt a rogue wave hit is, no damage was done thankfully, but it knocked us hard,  our chairs slid on the floor and everyone instantly grabbed the table, no one fell and no casualties were called so that is great, it did however make a huge bang sound on the side of the ship, we sure got lucky, large rogue waves can capsize ships.  I am so thankful that our naval warfare officers know how to sail in high waves and deal with rogue waves.

 

As we went back to playing cards the buffer was telling us about all the animals he has in his house, he has a python, 4 cats, two dogs, a salt water fish tank that’s 150 gallons, and an axolotl, he told us that they can heal and regrow any part of their bodies, and they don’t really swim around, they just sit in the tank and stare at you until you feed them, then he said this and I lost, I mean absolutely lost it laughing, he said “for a creature being from Mexico they sure hate the heat, when they get sick, they usually get a a bacterial infection, then you have to put it in the fridge to cool down! The FRIDGE I lost it, imagining opening the fridge and there is an axolotl just staring at you with its grin. 😂😂 of course I went on and on with different scenarios to open the fridge and what the creature was doing haha, I was in tears it was just the funniest image in my head, others eventually joined in, in the scenario making and we had to pause the crib game for about 5 min.

 

Anyways I hope you now have a wonderful image in your head of going to visit someone, helping out with kitchen stuff and opening the fridge to a axolotl staring at you with its smile. Haha

 

Goodnight 🐠

 

 

Today was a slower day, no investigations thank goodness, and so I had a quieter day.

 

This morning was 50 calibre machine gun recertification, so went through all the drills for that, the cocking leaver is very hard to pull especially for a shorter person, I am so thankful I have mighty strength in me and was able to do it, however one girl was my height and weighed 105 lbs, the poor thing couldn’t pull back the cocking leaver and I felt so bad for her. I’m trying to thinks of ways or techniques to help her out, there was all of us there (about 10 of us referred) trying to think of ways and encourage her, but in the end she was unsuccessful, I’ll keep thinking as we are doing live rounds next week.

 

After lunch I wondered around ship, helped out in scullery (doing dishes) then helped with morning cleaning stations, then visited some of my friends in their work places, once it was three o’clock I went to the bridge and when I walked in the officer of the watch said to me “why does the Norwegian navy have bar codes on the sides of their ship?” I thought about it and said “so they can scan?” He answered “close but no, because they are Scandinavian!” Haha great one! if I can’t get him to laugh at least he is getting on board with the dad jokes. The second officer of the watch was there and so I retold my pie joke and he lost it laughing, and the officer of the watch just groaned and shook his head.  One day, one day I’ll make him laugh.

 

This evening I finished my cross stitch so that was awesome but also sad, what am I going to do now? Maybe in these northern villages I can find a northern cross stitch to do. Let’s hope.

 

Tomorrow morning we are going to anchor in Corel harbour we will be here overnight, and then head down to Rankin Inlet.

 

The weather is still bad, raining off and on, with 4 meters waves. Today the waves were so strong that when going up the stairs I had to time it, if I went up the stair when we were going up a wave then I flew and missed a few steps, but if we were going down a wave I could lift my leg to take the step.  Then going down the flats you are leaning forward to walk then next second tour running down the flat, it is very intricate to move when the waves are like this.  The girl who struggled with the machine gun was going down the stairs with me, and she took a step at the wrong time and flew down the stairs onto my back, lucky I had both my hands on the railings and so was able to stop her neither of us getting hurt, thank goodness, it gave me a freight though as I had my back to her. We had a good laugh about it later.

 

I went to the mess tonight to work on my cross stitch and hang out with people there, there was more people than normal,  only to find out that it is pub night, apparently it is nachos and deep fried unhealthy goodness such as samosas, cheese sticks, perogies, jalapeño poppers, chicken fingers.  I’m not sure why this pub night happened, what the reason behind it, or anything of the sort, but I do know I sure enjoyed eating it all.

 

Now I’m showered, curled up in my bunk, full tummy and ready to sleep an extra hour tonight, we went back another hour and are on Manitoba time now.

 

Good night🤪

 

 

Sometimes days are great, and sometimes days are out to give you a hard time, here is my no good, bad luck day 🙂

 

Today has been a full day, first thing this morning we came to anchor, so the anchor was lowered down to the sea floor, this is a pretty involved procedure, first you have to take the chain lock off, then you have to take off the break that holds the chain, as the break is taken off the hydraulics is engaged and the anchor falls down, it goes quite fast, every 90 feet there is a break away chain, what a break away chain is, is literally that, a chain link that you can hit with a sledge hammer and big metal rod and the chain will break. This is used only in extreme emergencies where you can’t pull the anchor up and there is some reason you can’t stay where you are, then you would break that chain and the anchor will be lost to the sea.  However the ship will not have an anchor after that happens. I have yet to see them break a chain link on any of my sails, and this is one experience I hope I never see.

 

After the anchor was down, I had to use the washroom so bad, I went and the washrooms are in the hall so anyone can use them, well I forgot to lock it, and yes my luck someone opens it, a guy of course, talk about embarrassing. Then we launched the rescue boat to do the recce for the town we are in, there was the navigation officer, the deck officer, two bosons, the medic and me, we all had different roles the medic was testing the water, the navigation officer was routing the best path to take as the was was between 2.4 and 3.2 meters deep near the town. The deck officer was in charge the bosons drove the boat and did the lines, and I was doing the recce data gathering.

 

We were gone for three hours, during this time we drove slowly to shore mapping out the best route, and I did the data part of rocks out of water, really shallow parts, landmarks, and anything else they needed.  After everything was gathered and mapped out, we went back to the ship, the waves were so high going back that every time we hit a wave we all got soaked, you know those amusement park rides where if you stand and watch it go through water you get the wave hit you? You know how that’s so much fun and lots of laughs, you know how refreshing it is when it hits you? If you haven’t ever been to an amusement park then think of something else that water hits you and it is refreshing. You got that picture in your mind? Got that feeling? Yeah? Well forget it, this was not like that, no it was pouring rain to begin with, the sea was icy cold, super salty, and took my breath away.  I was wearing my military issued rain suit, so under that I was dry and thought I’d be fine, but oh no the sea had other plans, the water soaked my gloves rendering my hands so cold I couldn’t barely move them, it soaked my boots and socks, went down my shirt into my clothes, down my neck into my back, on my face, up my nose, up my pants and even managed to find my waist and get into that area.  It wasn’t just one or two waves, no it was 30 minutes of wave after wave after wave.

 

When we finally made it back to the ship, they decided to not bring the boat up by the hoist but rather tie up and the back of the ship and us climb up the jump ladder, great I thought, I can barely move my hands and I have to climb this ladder, so up I go and make it thankfully, but then just as I step off the ladder I fall, I guess three hours on high waves then coming to a sturdy anchors ship, makes one unsteady, apparently it was the most graceful fall they had all ever seen.

 

Once I was changed and somewhat warmed up, I had to go on watch, today since we are at anchor I had anchor watch, what that is for three hours a day you have to check the anchor chain ever 30 min and report to the bridge how it is, so it can be straight up and down, or can be short stay where it is outward but still pretty straight and long stay where it is very outward from the ship.  Also report if there are any issues, or emergencies. So I sat and read a book for a couple hours, getting up to check everything every 30 min, then my dear friend called me for the last hour.

 

Once that was finished, I had supper, and then went to the gym, now I’m showered, in bed, and ready to have a cozy warm nights sleep.

 

Goodnight ☔️

 

 

Exhausted me will try to write a good update here 🙂

 

This morning we had the opportunity to go into town, so I jumped at that chance, once there we walked around a lot of the town and waved at everyone who was going by on their quads or in their trucks. They were friendly and waving, but I was getting anxious to actually talk to some of the locals.  I saw a couple caribou heads on the back of a pick up truck and then saw a man so me and two others from the ship walked over, we had a long conversation about hunting and he explained how they don’t let anything go to waste with their hunt, they boil the bones, and eat the brains and tongue and everything, then treat the hides and make clothes. It was a super interesting conversation.

 

After that I continued on walking and met a couple who had just the cutest little girl she was about four years old, I asked if she was their daughter and they said she is now as her mother died a week and a half ago. So sad, they proudly showed us some bones from whales, polar bears, walrus’  and caribou, then proudly showed us some pelts and hides.

 

After that I continued walking and saw a bunch of people on the floating dock so I walked onto it and started talking to the group of me that were there. They were getting their supplies ready to head out to go seal hunting,  so we talked about seal hunting for a bit and then they headed out.

 

After that is time to go back to the ship, so I walked to the fixed dock and the rest of the sailor who I was with were there (one stayed with me as he didn’t want me alone, maybe it’s a protection thing I’m not sure, but I let him) lol anyways, once I got to that dock there was a bunch of kids and teenagers there, who talked and asked ALOT of questions, then proudly told us their achievements, one little boy was fishing with a chair leg and a rock to some string, it was adorable but I know he won’t catch anything.

 

Then after we got back to ship and after lunch, anyone who wanted to do a polar plunge could do it, I was debating it, but after the rude insult the ocean gave me yesterday I decided I was christened enough by the seas. I pulled out my very big investigation camera lens and went to the bridge wing, I got some amazing photos and initial reactions of everyone who jumped into the water, it was hilarious there were a few people on the wing with me and we were all laughing and even rating their jumps.  There were people who jumped normally in, and people who did flips, dives, cannonballs and one guy I think he was trying to do a dive but ended up doing an epic belly flop.

 

After that I was supposed to start duty but the captain decided to weigh anchor and lead out early toward Ranking Inlet, so I had the night off, I went to the galley and played the evening away with crib.

 

Tomorrow is going to be another full day so I’m going to get some sleep.

 

Goodnight 🏘️

 

After sailing through the night and most of the day we arrived in Rankin Inlet, this town is on the Hudson Bay waters and to give you an idea it is 464 km in a straight line by plane or boat as there are no roads north of Churchill Manitoba.

 

We dropped the anchor and then did a recce into the town.  When we got to the dock there was a family that just drove up and came to talk, they were super friendly and then almost instantly the man took out his phone and started showing up photos of his hunts. I just love how excited they are to show us, one of the things he showed us was his catch or Arctic char, man it looked good,  anyways It was the same people in the boat as the other day, and the Hudson Bay yet again insulted me by wave after wave hitting my face me with its water. This time however I was smart, I word my winter boots, I made sure all my zippers and snaps were done way up, I tucked my hands into my rain jacket and velcro’d the wrists tight, so this time the water was just hitting my face, still bloody cold but hey it didn’t get past my rain suit. A couple times the waves hit so hard and fast that I couldn’t catch my breath before the next one hit. Honestly I don’t know what I ever did to offend the Hudson Bay waters but for some reason it is retaliating.

 

Every icebreaker ship has a northern town where they are affiliated with, and for this ship it is Rankin Inlet, we will be doing service here to help the community out. That will start tomorrow, I am excited to tell you all about it tomorrow.

 

I must boast for a moment here, I FINALLY succeeded in making the officer of the watch laugh at my dad joke! Of all the ones I’ve told him, it was this that made him burst out laughing I said “you know how polar bears only exist in the Arctic, and not in Antarctica?” He said yes that is true, so I continued on “ well if they existed in Antarctica as well would they then be called bipolar bears?”

 

I will leave you with that tonight and write more about my adventures in Rankin Inlet tomorrow.

 

Goodnight 🐻‍❄️

 

 

 

 

What a day this one was, it was a busy busy day.  First thing was launching the landing craft, this is where we have it on the back of our ship deck, we hook it up to the crane and bring it to the water, a bit ago I explained this procedure where we tried twice and couldn’t get it to stop swinging. Today however we got it in the water.  Then a bunch of people went to shore to hang out with the children at school, but I wasn’t allowed to go as there was no room. I was a little sad but also in the same sense I was ok to not go.

 

After that was complete we brought the floating dock and assembled half of it, it was fun putting it together, almost like a jig saw puzzle. Once it was put together we put our thoughts together to figure out how to get it in the water without it breaking, in the end we rigged up a rope thing and used the crane to put it in the water, it worked well, we will use this tomorrow when we have guests from town to come tour the ship.

 

After that was completed it was near lunch time, so I chilled for 15 minutes then had lunch.

 

After lunch was a quieter time, so as you already have figured out I love to go on walks in circles in the flight deck, so myself and two other ladies met there to go for a walk when we looked over the edge and there were thousands of jelly fish, now before you accuse me of exaggerating I am not, I guarantee there was thousands of them, so the walk didn’t happen and we went down to the quarter deck to admire these jelly fish.

 

Since I don’t sit still very well, when I’m not working on my work, I like to hang out and help the bos’ns work, I have made pretty good friends with them, today there was 4 of them going deep sea fishing and the buffer said “hey Sarina jump in the boat and come along with us” I was beyond excited to jump in and go, so myself and one of the other girls I was with went along. I was just happy to be in the boat with the guys, joking around and laughing, then one of them offered me their fishing rod and let me have a turn. I bought two small cod, I was soooooo excited, thrilled, and happy.  We went out for a couple of hours, the sun was shining, it was 12° and swells we slow and very rounded. It was just the perfect day to go out and get a little bit of a recharge.

 

Then this evening after supper, we stored ship. What this means is that there is food that we ordered from town and the landing craft went and picked it up, then the crane brought all the pallets into deck and we the ships company started putting it away, first we line up facing each other staggered, then the boxes are passed from one person tot he other, facing each other makes it super easy to pass the box along. Then at the end the food is out into the fridge or the freezer or to its respective spots. Having 80 people helping in this we got it done in an hour.  Which is awesome, sometimes storing a ship can take three to four hours.

 

After that was done we cleaned the ship and then had time off in the evening, I played three games of crib and lost two, not my night, oh well, maybe tomorrow night.

 

Goodnight 🎣

 

 

 

What a wonderful day today has been. This morning I woke up and got ready to go, today we were bringing all the toys from the toy drive we did to shore, so we loaded them up in the two small rescue boats and then drive them to town, I went along to take photos of it, then I was supposed to come back to ship but I was told I was staying in town until the tide came back in. So myself and 4 other sailors spent the day in town, we were given a truck to drive and we went to the elementary school first, we went to three fourth grade classrooms and read stories, answered questions and just told them about our lives on ship, they had a huge floor map carpet so we spent time showing where we all live and where we are living now. The kids were enthralled, they wanted to draw pictures, tell us stories and oh man did they ask questions. This one little girl would come over tape on my arm, ask me a question, after I answered it she would run off, then a couple minutes later she would come back over and tap me with another question, it was just so darn cute! We were there for 2 hours and I for myself I could have stayed all day, it was such a cool, fun and rewarding experience.

 

After that we had some lunch and then toured around the town, it wasn’t super big so it was pretty easy to get around, we went to a few stores, then to the grocery store, then we drove and looked at the sites, we saw a massive inuksuk, so we stopped to take photos, we saw sleds that they use for dog sledding in the winter, we saw sleds they use to haul things, we saw sleds that I don’t know what they used them for but they looked super cool, we saw the town sign that honours the town hero NHL hockey player Jorden Tootoo, we even saw a bunch of prairie dogs! Like what ! I would never have imagined there were prairie dogs this far north!

 

Our day in town came to an end and we were back on the jetty waiting for the boat to come retrieve us, we said goodbye to the locals that came to the jetty to see us off and we hopped into the boat and started our way back to the ship.

 

Upon arriving on ship I got my self situated, then did some work, had supper, played some crib, and now I’m showered and into bed, exhausted but so happy today was a better day.

 

There are still problems on ship with the engines, but I’m really hoping that it can be fixed.

 

Sleep well!

 

Goodnight🧸

 

 

 

Last night I was sound asleep and got woken up to come out on the ship flight deck to see the northern lights, now from living in Saskatchewan I saw them quite a bit, but let me tell you these were something else! They were bright and dancing and absolutly stunning, there was green and even purple, just beautiful.  I went back to bed after about 30 min of being out there, I can’t explain how gorgeous and bright they were.

 

Today was a busy day, they let sailors go to shore and so the two rescue boats took them every hour for a two hour stint, I feel bad for the boat coxens as they spent the day going to a from shore without getting off to go explore the land. I stayed on ship and took over duty watches so people could go ashore, since I went in yesterday and the was there the whole day I didn’t need to go again.

 

Since I took duty for most of the day, I didn’t do much but sit and read, and then check the anchor every half an hour. For an hour though my friend came by with some tea and fuzzy peaches and wanted to play some crib, so we sat and played two games it was fun, it took an hour to play two games because we paused a lot to talk and burst into laughter.

 

Soon after that it was supper time and then cleaning stations, once that was completed I went to the galley and sat with my book and crib board, before long there were three people and we played for two and half hours together, it was a blast, so many laughs, I had the table roaring when I casually said “did you know dogs bark about 500 times a day?” They stopped and started thinking about that, then after about about 30 seconds I piped up non chalantly “but that’s just a ruff estimate” people were in tears laughing so hard.  After the last game everyone was shaking hands and I shook two of three hands not realizing I didn’t shake the third and when I looked up I saw the hand extended I tried to put the cards in her hand, not once but twice when she wasn’t grilling them I was thinking what is going on, then realized she wanted to shake and not take the cards. Oh I amaze myself sometimes with my stupidity 🙂

 

So as you know the ship is struggling, we are rankin inlet right now, and we are having a huge mechanical problem, we are going to try to leave tomorrow and head straight for Halifax, we unfortunatly won’t be stopping in St. John’s, we will be home 3-5 days early if all goes well.  We might need to be towed home, the steering on the bridge does not work so we will have to manually steer it in the engine room. There are two pirate like steering wheels down there one for each rudder, it is very hard to turn and will be a long week to get home.  The ship is extremely as am I to not be stopping in St. John’s, but ultimately it comes to safety first.

 

It will be a very quiet week as nothing is planned but getting us safely home, I’m not sure I will have a whole lot to write about but I’m sure there will be something at least to write about each day.

 

Goodnight 🐸

 

 

We have gone back to sea! We have weighed anchor and are setting sail for home, the ship is struggling but we are doing what we can to get home safely.  The waves and weather are not in our favour, there is a storm coming right for us and we are looking at 4-6 meter waves, with a struggling ship this could be interesting.

 

We have gone ahead an hour so I am now on Ontario time for the time being.

 

Not a whole lot happened today, we did a casualty practise, the scenario today was they were playing basketball and one broke his ankle and the other fell on a screwdriver and it got stuck in her chest, as the scenario played out both were helped and both were dealt with in their own level of need, it was a very good scenario, I learned a lot, man I just love medical stuff.

 

Throughout the day we did our duty watches, the ship has gotten a bunch of sailor who don’t usually do certain duty watches to do them, as many sailors are running thin with doing repairs, and this is one less thing on their plate. I loved mine, I spent the time on the bridge and told joke after joke, I tried out the ones that I’ve been told recently and they loved them, nothing like having a good belly laugh with others.

 

This morning I received the most beautiful poem that my dear friend Bonnie Barkman wrote for me, I will attach it, it is so sweet that she thought of me and put her thoughts to paper, thank you so much Bonnie, I read it to anyone on ship today who would listen 🙂 when I am home I will definitely be printing this and putting it on my wall.

 

The waves are crashing around outside, I am in bed, swaying back and forth, now that I’m thinking of it all but about 5 days at sea have been real rough waters, some are worried, but I know for me that these rough waters will put me right to sleep.

 

Goodnight 🐇

 

 

Today being a Sunday routine there was not a whole lot going on, I did my duty watch and then had the rest of the day off,  we are entering into a nasty storm tomorrow and the captain wanted to give us a quiet day today as we have been working our butts off to get and keep the ship working.

 

Since there is nothing really to report on, I will tell you all about the coolest instrument on the bridge that I learned more about today.

 

There is a machine called the Pelorus that is on the bridge that is used for navigation, it is the key to navigation from anything such as landmarks, icebergs, ships, or even large water mammals like whales. tThe alignment is set up so its lubber’s line (a fixed reference point on the instrument) aligns with the vessel’s longitudinal axis.
The navigator uses the sighting vanes to sight an object or landmark. The compass card is rotated to match the ship’s heading at that moment. The bearing is then read on the card relative to the sighted object.
The observed relative bearing is taken.

 

The reason this is the most important tool we have on ship, is because of the radars are down, if the power is out, if nothing is working, this will always work, and we will always be able to get bearings of the object.  So the other night when we were in pond inlet, and we had to weigh anchor and leave because that iceberg was coming straight for us,  it was this pelorus that we were able to watch the iceberg and map out its path.  So let’s say we are sailing at 190° and we spot a ship at 158° then a few minute later it is at 155° then a few more it is at 147° we can calculate whether this ship will be in our path or sail by us on the starboard side.

 

The first draft or the pelorus was built it 203 BC however the more modern one we use was invented in 1890. Imagine, pirates used a form of this on their ships.

 

It was so interesting to learn the whole details of this machine, I knew the basics but I didn’t know the details.

 

Goodnight 🧭

 

 

 

Today was a busy day, we started the day out with shoring ship recertifications, what that is, is if there is a flood on ship we need to be able to contain it, we have to be able to either patch the whole, mend the pipe, or if it is not salvageable we need to seal off the area.  We have everything we need to shore up the area we have the plugs, the wood to use for supports and beams and the wedges to tighten the boards.  When an area is flooding we will close the hatches and then shore the hatches, with boards from hatch to ceiling and then wedge them in really tight to make the hatch as waterproof as possible. We have saws and saw horses to cut the boards to the length needed. If there is a whole in the wall we use this half dome type item with a rod and a T bar at the end, we put the T-bar through the hole then tighten the dome to lessen the flow of water coming in, it won’t seal it completely but it will lessen it enough to where we can then pump out the water.  It there is a hole in a pipe then we take a rubber piece, then a metal piece almost like a side of a coffee can, after that we take metal flat rods and this tool that tightens and cuts the rods, then we hammer them down in the clamp where it stays tight.  We will have as many as it takes to make the leak stop or almost stop, you start off with three then work from there.  I remember doing this in my course to be able to sail, and they have it at a control room so you’re standing on a ladder with the water gushing into your face where you can’t breath or see and you have to try to patch this pipe, it is insanely hard.  Many of us including me dropped the tools many time, thankfully this time there was no water and we were just practising the steps.

 

After that I was cleaning the .50 calibre gun with two other people, laughing and telling stories when the bong bongs went off, we all dropped what we were doing and waited to hear what it was, this time it was thankfully a practise for a man overboard, Oscar the mannequin had yet again gone overboard, you’d  think he would have figured out this was not a good idea to do by now, but alas he was in the water, the boat coxn and a boson and a casualty clearer went in the rescue boat to get Oscar, then the medical team took him to warn him up in the sick bay, while doing medical checks and such on him. I am very happy that we practise this kind of stuff so if it (and I hope never) happens then it will be completely second nature.

 

This evening was a surprising but joyous welcome to see the northern lights, the weather is cold, was foggy all day until just before sunset, where it cleared right up, the wind high, and the waves at 3 meters, but yet somehow the northern lights decided to make an appearance.   I can’t get over God’s beauty with nature, it is just stunning.

 

Now I’m laying in bed, swaying side to side, and up and down (yes it’s a weird combination) I don’t know whether to roll or sit up, or sit and roll at the same time, heart is happy that today was a good day, I’m going to sleep well tonight and I hope you do too.

 

Goodnight 🌏

 

 

Today we learned about the enigma machine that was introduced back in 1918 and used mainly by the Germans during world war 2, what this machine does is it codes words, how it works is like this, The Enigma machine worked as an electromechanical rotor-based cipher device that scrambled letters using a series of substitution ciphers. When a user typed a letter on the keyboard, an electrical current passed through a plugboard, a set of rotors, and a reflector, ultimately lighting up a different letter on the lampboard. After each keypress, at least one rotor would rotate, changing the electrical pathways and the resulting substitution for the next letter, creating a unique encryption for each character in a message. To decrypt a message, the receiving station would need to set their machine to the exact same daily settings and message-specific settings (which were often the same rotor positions and plugboard connections used by the sender) to receive the original plaintext.  A standard military Enigma machine with three rotors and 26 different positions that is over 17,000 different possibilities right there, before you even add in the wires.  When you combine the number of ways of setting the rotors, with the number of ways you could set the plug board you get the total number of configurations of an enigma machine with over 158 quintillion different possible codes.

 

The officer said that when it was cracked and then the messages could be read they had to purposely make mistakes so the Germans wouldn’t know they had it cracked, if they did know they would have added another rotor and then it would hard again to crack it.

 

This was so interesting to learn about, the officer took a Pringle can and then wrapped one code segment on it and we had to decode a sentence it was hard at first but once we started to figure it out it was understandable, and this was just one code segment!

 

Sleep well 🙂

 

Goodnight 🤖

 

 

Well I have the funniest story to tell you. Today the waves are 4 meters high and the ship was swaying insanely, it was honestly fun! It was side to side, then up and down, sometimes it was side to up and side to down, so we are all walking like drunken pirates on the flats, if someone was not walking like a drunken pirate they wouldn’t have their sea legs at all, thankfully o haven’t seen that. Some of the sailors are extremely sea sick, I feel so back for chronic sea sick sailors, I can’t imagine how awful that would be.  Anyways back to the story, my friend Elisabeth and I (we have become quite close friends) decided we wanted to go outside to watch the waves, this is her maiden voyage so she is so excited about these things, don’t get me wrong I also am excited too but she is first time excited. So we put on our fleeces and toques then find out what decks are open, (in wild weather they sometimes close off decks they feel are too dangerous.) and we head outside to the quarter deck, that is the farthest back deck lowest to the water. We are watching the waves, commenting on the big ones and moving out of the way so we don’t get splashed, we thought we were fine, well the sea had other plans, and what we didn’t realize which we stupidly should have, was that and our feet are quite big holes so that the water on deck can drain out. We are standing and gleefully looking and commenting when boom a waves sneaks into those hole and soaks us from waist down! Completely drenches us, there is no saying it was just a little, no the waves didn’t just give us a high five or a love tap, no, it full on tackled us, I have to imagine it went like this. “ look at those two avoiding every wave that comes near, there must be a way to soak them, I bet someone to figure it out.”  Then one must have said said here hold my seaweed and watch this.” Resulting in sneaking up on us and completely soaking us, then, after we got absolutely drenched I bet it went back to the sea took back its seaweed from the other wave and laughed to high heavens.  Eli and I laughed and laughed, then we went inside and changed, we were so wet I literally had to wring my sock out in the sink, we changed uniforms and boots and then went and told everyone the story of how the waves rose up (pun intended) to meet the challenge.

 

Goodnight 🐧

 

 

Today was a busy day, we did a red flex, and what this means is that there is a Damage Control exercise, this was a test of skill to the sailors, the whole ship is involved, the set up a mock fire, they have a smoke machine and smoked a whole area out, then the ship had to put it out as if it were real, along with the fire there was 4 casualties which had to be dealt with so there was a lot going on, in the end we passed in the end we passed and that was a great relief. Everyone did so well, the leadership team was impressed, so impressed that they served us ICE CREAM yes on a Friday! Can you believe it, I was so excited 🙂

 

The funniest thing happened to me today, everyday at 10:00 there is soup, I don’t go everyday but on Fridays there is always sea food chowder, so I go down get a spoon and just as I am about to get a bowl I notice there isn’t and soup, I’m hoping they are just late and so I sit down and wait, well I didn’t want to put the spoon down so I just held it, it was a hilarious sight me sitting with my backpack on holding a spoon,  yes the soup did eventually come out and I enjoyed a wonderful bowl.

 

I can’t believe that it has been almost two months and I am going to be home tomorrow, I can’t believe this is the last night on the ship, or as we say on the tin can, and things are going rough that we are stuck in a tin can, my last night being rocked to sleep by the waves, the last night of cards with the group that has formed in the evenings. I can’t believe that the friendships I have made on this sail will be no longer, it is a weird thing, when sailing you make friends, become very close friends and then when back on land back to homes and normal life those friendships end, some stay but a lot end, so I’m sad about this.  I am excited though because one of the girls Ellie that I have told you about is here until her flights leaves on the 10th and she is going to crash at my house, so yay a week of land adventures together, it will be awesome.

 

Things I am looking forward to are showers that aren’t what we call “pusser” showers where you have to turn it off when shaping, conditioning or soaping, and when it’s on the pressure has to be little, because we have to preserve water,  I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed though I’ll miss the waves, I am looking forward to adventures again, to rock climbing and hiking and seeing friends. I am looking forward to being able to make phone calls to anyone.

 

I will write tomorrow to talk about coming into Halifax harbour, getting home, and reunions with people’s families and friends who have come to welcome them home.

 

Have a wonderful sleep

 

Good night 🍦

 

WE ARE HOME!  As much as I don’t want this adventure to end I am happy to be home in my own creature comforts, and finally get the chance to rest up some.

 

I guess this is going to be the last post. I am so happy knowing you were back home and wanted to read about my day.

 

Thank you so much for being so supportive in this endeavour.

 

If you like me to write again about my two week safari trip that I am taking myself on October 17th, let me know 🙂

 

Have a wonderful sleep!

 

Goodnight 🏡