No Sleeping In

Saturday Duty, 20 JUL 13:



Friday was a pretty quick day: I brought donuts in for the division, and that was a good start. With all the events going on there weren't enough people for fresh water wash down... so they put it in the POD (plan of the day) for Saturday... my duty day. But before we left, two senior petty officers and I did some quick troubleshooting on one of our auxiliaries... one reading was out of tolerance on our maintenance card... it works just fine, but with our inspections coming up, everything has to be perfect. This particular issue has been a good learning experience for me: I didn't realize how much more I need to take ownership of issues and be proactive about them.

So after being underway the previous weekend, and having busy workdays all week, I had the "dute's" the next morning. And since turnover is the next morning, that meant that I had to wake up early both Saturday and Sunday.

And what a day: I promptly forgot about routing tag-outs for divers (they were coming on Monday), and spent the rest of the morning finishing up a quote request for open purchase items. Had to go to early lunch for watch reliefs, then had the afternoon watch as POOW (petty officer of the watch, on the quarterdeck). Stood that with the prior-enlisted sonar tech Signals Officer, who watches all the message traffic and has all the dope about what's really going on with our schedule. He shot down a rumor for me that had been running around the ship for at least a week about a big change... that's not happening now.

Right after watch, my husband visited me on the ship, brought some delicious pizza on board to share, and followed me around on a personal tour of the ship from the bridge up top to the laundry back aft. It was a bunch of fun to show him everything!

After he left, I got some drinks for the quarterdeck watches (OOD & POOW... who was also a sonar tech), then started learning how to educt our sump. More words that scared me when I came on board. :) It's just getting the excess dome water overboard. Pretty easy... just have to know what valves to turn. And it's written on a placard for you. No problem.

Got a couple hours of sleep after that, then I had the last Petty Officer watch... again. I wasn't supposed to be doubled up, but there was someone who went on leave that the watch-bill coordinator didn't hear about or didn't remember. Ten hours of standing up? Well, that's why they call it 'Service'.

The oncoming sonar tech had us all go down to berthing to do some cleaning before we left, but that didn't take long. Took out the trash (that seems to always be left for us), and made it home without falling asleep much. I definitely missed a second or two while waiting at the light by gate 5, and woke to find a few car lengths ahead of me open. When I got home, I slept for six and a half hours. And the next morning, it was back at it again.