Sunrise, Sunset

It's a story of running a little behind, both days... Monday morning I decided I'd rather eat a quick breakfast at home than on the ship. I needed to get out a little earlier since I didn't know what watch I had (and if one has the first, it makes it necessary to be there an hour earlier than usual. But the Quarterdeck didn't have my section's watchbill when I called as I went to bed... so I had to go early. I was just getting on I-564 to the base when I should have been arriving, so I called again to put my troubled mind at ease. They still didn't have the watchbill, but they did know I wasn't on the first watch. So I worried no longer.

Duty section training that evening seemed to take forever. Force Protection was just a quick discussion on the mess decks about proper watch-standing ("standards of conduct"), but damage control training afterwards took at least a good hour. We had a flooding drill back aft, and we had to do it twice, since it went way to slowly at first, people being unsure of what to do and no one taking charge. That means changing into firefighting boots, putting on flash-gear and helmet, re-stowing them, getting them out again the second time, etc. My job was "boundaryman", making sure primary and secondary watertight doors were dogged down and that nobody broke the boundary. I had to stop a couple people not in the duty section who wanted to go back aft to the gym.

After the drills, I only had around an hour before I had to be on watch as Petty Officer of the Watch again (for the mid-watch). So I made myself a couple PB & honey sandwiches in Sonar 1 (as I was very hungry) and sat down at the computer for a few pages of my Safety Petty Officer PQS (personal qualification). Watch took forever, as always, but I got to know the OOD and the duty armorer a lot better.

This morning, although I slept on the ship, I didn't roll out of my rack for a good 15 minutes after my alarm, so I didn't have enough time to do the daily checks before lighting detail and sweepers went down. Not even enough time for breakfast, actually. So I went straight topside, reporting to the Quarterdeck just a couple minutes before sunrise. Assigned to the bridge to turn off the top mast light (for aircraft warning).

[This was the second time I went up there too... I was assigned to handle the prep flag for colors the previous evening. It's a green and yellow pennant used for signalling five minutes before colors or sunrise.]

I managed to have enough time for a quick breakfast after sweepers, although I was a minute or two late to quarters as I was printing up the muster report and it took a good extra five minutes to turn on the computer. It seems like I've been just a couple minutes behind everything these two days. After quarters, I signed for all the security checklists on all our doors then went to duty section turnover, where they assigned me as a duty line-handler for the frigate across from us that was getting underway soon. Even though others had been assigned at training the night before, of course, not all showed up in the morning, so I said I could spare a few minutes away from my division. A few minutes ended up being an hour and a half, as the other ship wasn't quite ready to go. The brow was still attached, the pilot was just arriving, and after that, they were delayed with an engineering issue. It was neat to watch the huge crane behind me pick up the brow as if it was nothing... and then fold itself up again after it was done.

As for work with my division these last two days, it was more interesting than normal. We had some STG and OS inspectors doing spot checks on our maintenance, and I was able to pass one that I had only first done last week. It went smoothly, and I was able to point out everything without getting nervous. Also, we set up some heavy metal for handling torpedoes on the aft missile deck and I learned yet more about our systems. Day-to-day life in the Navy seems like a never-ending class. :)