Evening is approaching Ta’u Island; we recovered the small boats and steaming towards Pago Pago. We had quite a few good rainsqualls today. I could hear the raindrops pounding on the boat deck above my shop. I thought I was back in Samoa or the Philippines where I was in a house with a tin roof. At least that is what it sounded like. The ship could use a natural fresh water wash though. Earlier this week, I was on the weather decks and you could feel the salt slide into your hands from the handrails as you walked from one deck to another. You know why there is always chipping (needle gunning) and painting on the weather decks of a ship due to high contents of salt.
Pago Pago will be a well deserved break. As I said before I will still be working but after quitting time I can go out and have a cold beer. Something that land lubbers take for granted. We will be near Pago Pago tonight and go to the fuel pier in the morning. Maybe tomorrow I will do an early quit, only work eight hours instead of ten or twelve.
It seems I am always talking about places I have been or going to. My job does not give me the laurels like the scientist/divers on the ship do. No different when the military is always presented in movies with only pilots and/or officers. Whenever the agency magazine publishes articles it is always about managers, scientists or Corps Officers. Major awards seem to be awarded only to personnel assigned to or working on the east coast. Never will you see a story about ships engineers, who I have said before is the backbone of any ship. Or the deck crews who maintain the ships exterior and interior, stand watches, launch, recover and drives small boats.
Survey Techs work late night conducting CTDs or mapping the ocean floor, while operating and ensuring quality data from our scientific sensors and acquisition computers. The stewards who feed the entire crew three times a day and wake up early to prepare lunches for the divers while keeping the ship’s crew happy with a wide variety of meals. Then you have me, the ET Department, a one-man operation keeping up the ship’s electronics infrastructure from computer networks, navigation, scientific acquisition and mapping computers, and communications equipment. In reviewing my blog I plead guilty to writing what appears to be a travelogue. It's part of the job and I’ve had feedback on some of those stories and questions on other items too!
I had my moments of "fame" with NOAA. I was interviewed by a teacher from Montana last January about my job on the Ka’imimoana when he was a participant in NOAA’s Teacher-at-Sea program. But that had little to do with NOAA and more for his high school. I was interviewed again by a visiting scientist from Japan on the Ka’imimoana in 2003 on our way to French Polynesia. The Japanese language interview was broadcasted to high school and college students in Okinawa. That was at his insistence because I spoke his language and an oddity that a non-scientific person speaks Japanese on an American research vessel.
This afternoon, I was at a chief’s meeting in which discussion about T-shirts given to those who were participants in upcoming educational outreach program. This is where primary, high school and junior college students visit the ship. The Chief Steward who is the most senior chief on the ship commented that either every crew member get a t-shirt as a gift or none. I have never been a participant of any educational outreach program and neither have any of the engineers. I was never asked and the primary focus is on science, not a day in the life or how does the ship function. Even if I was asked I would likely decline due to my heavy schedule during in ports.
How are my living conditions on the ship? I have it well as due to my ranking in pay structure where I am assigned to live in a one-person stateroom while deployed. My stateroom is on the 02 level, right below the pilot house on the same deck with the commanding and executive officers, chief marine engineer and first and third assistant engineers. My room is good size and it feels like a studio apartment, though not that big. I have my own head (bathroom to land lubbers) and shower, DVD players with a large screen TV and a comfortable bed, not a rack but a bed. I do have privacy. I am considered a “Lead or Chief” of my own department but have no one under me. I have a government issued desk and lap top computers for work. I have a partner I rotate with at 60-day intervals. Due to the mission of this ship and the technology involved, it is customary to assign two rotating senior electronics technician to this ship. I have a refrigerator to keep sodas cold. No beer or alcohol is allowed on any US flagged vessel.
When I wake up in the morning we should be on our way into Pago Pago harbor. I bid you goodnight and manuia-po from the open seas between Manu’o Island and Tutuila in American Samoa.
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