Jet Lag

Well, it took a couple of days, but I was finally hit with jet lag, last night.  Couldn't get to sleep for hours, even after pulling a 16-hr shift.  Then, I couldn't get out of bed this morning-totally wrecked.  I'm on large mug o coffee number 9 this morning and I'm still bleary-eyed and mumbling.  Today, we all put our Christmas presents in a box which some un-named person will deposit under the Christmas tree in the mess.  After the noon meal on Christmas day we'll do a gift exchange where we all draw numbers out of a hat.  Those of us who believe in Santa, anyway.

My new cabin is huge, about the size of a hotel room.  It has a wonderfully clean shower, heated bathroom floor and not a hint of rust anywhere.  It's also NOT a steel box welded to the hull and is quiet as a church on Monday.  My cabin is over the MOB boat davit so on days when the boat gets launched for operations, or man-overboard drills, it will get quite noisy in there, but it's tolerable.  I've got a huge desk and comfy couch, too.  It's a 2-man cabin and I'm sharing it with the kid who works for me, but our bunks are large with planty of head room, so no more waking up and smacking my forehead on the bunk above:)

The ship itself is mammoth compared to my last ride.  It's a fair bit over 100 meters and nine decks tall.  It has a 25 M diameter heli-deck on the bow for jogging!  The gym is wonderful-several rowing machines, treadmills and ellipticals.  Two, multi-station weight machines, free weights, heavy bag and a few other goodies, like a killer sound system and a wide screen TV with DVD.  The sauna is large enough for 12 and gets HOT:)  I just wish the light was brighter-had a helluva time trying to read in there and I've got a great book right now-Failure Is Not An Option, by Gene Krantz-recommended by Blondie:)

The rest of the ship is much the same, big, shiny and nice.  We've got a 30-seat theatre, with leather recliners and somewhere a nice day room, but I can't seem to find it.  The mess is huge, well-appointed with cold and hot displays and an exspresso machine.  The cooks are Kiwis and so far have done a bang-up job with the chow.  They even put on a midnight meal, which is a first for me.  They bake a lot of goodies, which is bad, though.

I suppose at some point, once I get a handle on this project and get my processing caught up with acquisitiion, I'll wander around and take a few photos to post here, if I manage to work out photo-posting via email...

Hope you're all safe and sound up there!