A Tale of Two Duty Days

Once it was the busiest of times, and once it was the quietest of times...

The first day I was unable to vote... and the second I was unable to get a free dinner from the Olive Garden.

Election Day, November 5, was very, very busy. When I arrived that morning, there was a line of contractors all the way across the brow, waiting to get checked in by the overwhelmed Quarterdeck. I was busy with Sonar in the morning, then I had to bow out for the afternoon watch. ... in which I continued checking in over 30 more contractors, keeping track of badges (people coming and going for lunch), ringing the Captain off, back on, and back off near the end of the watch. And I started off with ringing eight bells at noon (signal that all is well on-board). I used to be afraid of the bells... of ringing it too hard or to soft into the 1MC speaker... but no more! After having to ring it twenty times on one watch, I simply had to get over it really fast... and I did. Even with all the contractors and all the bells, the craziest time was when I had three different things to pass over the announcing system with two phone calls coming in at the same time... all while I was trying to call someone myself, for someone who was waiting on the Quarterdeck. After watch (whew!), there was sweepers and anti-terrorism training, and a damage control drill... pipe patching drill. The whole day went by in a flash; it was a little wild.

Veteran's Day, November 11, was very, very slow. There was no training, and generally nothing going on overall. I took it pretty easy... watched two movies on my laptop, took a short nap, then did sweepers with the duty section. I returned below after mustering on the Quarterdeck because no one brought a dustpan or foxtail with them and one was needed very badly. So I picked up all the piles of dirt that everyone made and also did lots of detail work along the knife edge (lip of the hull) of the Quarterdeck area since those coarse brooms don't reach those tiny places very well. Immediately after that I had early chow for watch reliefs, because I had the evening watch as Petty Officer. My OOD was a duty swap from another duty section, so that was nice to get to know someone else a little better. Once watch was over, I called my husband and went straight to bed after we talked for a few minutes. Ended up getting 6 or 7 hours of sleep! That was very nice!