Day 26: Deckies

Posted on: May 31, 2024

Today is Friday, May 31st, day four of our transatlantic crossing. Zone Description [ZD]: +3. It’s another beautiful day in the middle of the Atlantic.

My song of the Day: “Ojitos Lindos” – Bad Bunny & Bomba Estéreo

Alpha is Maintenance company
Bravo is Utility company
Charlie is Watch company
Delta is Training company

Good morning, everyone! And by morning, I mean morning. Wake-up for me and a large group of the other ‘Deckies’ this morning was 0355 for morning stars. With everyone getting used to moving, our sea passage well underway, and the low-pressure system behind us, it is prime time for celestial navigation. As part of the junior deck project, cadets must shoot and plot two “days runs,” which consist of morning stars (a three-star position fix), a morning sun line (or line of position), our latitude at local apparent noon, an afternoon sunline, and evening stars. I will definitely need a coffee or five to make it through the day.

With the low-pressure system behind us, and the seas calming down, Utility company wasted no time in soaking up the sun on “Steel Beach” – aka the “04 Deck.” The weather is warm, thanks in part to the Gulf Stream, with a slight breeze. The water is royal blue and is as clear as can be.

Delta company had training day six, or “T6.” On the deck side, we worked on our celestial navigation, adding to our days runs as well as learning about search and rescue (SAR) techniques and how to load and run a SAR route on the ECDIS (Electronic Chart Display Information System). On the engine side, they ran through a steering test, where they controlled and steered the ship manually from the steering gear on the “4 Deck.” It’s a great evolution for the engineers, however, it throws a wrench into our celestial navigation, as we found ourselves suddenly at two knots for some time.

As the evening rolled around, things were heating up around the ship, as the Cribbage tournament was tonight. I, luckily, learned to play Cribbage two weeks ago and was ready to take part in my first competition. It would be Lieutenant Commander Gualtieri and I against the world – I mean ship. The tournament started promptly in 1900, however, there was a midway break at 1945 for star time. Nothing takes precedence over celestial navigation. During the tournament, one group got double-skunked. Experienced Cribbage players were saying that they’d never seen that before so that team must’ve really gotten crushed. LCDR Gualtieri and I won our first game against the 3^rd Mate and Nurse Tammy, however, we were taken off our high horse shortly after when Professor Hubbard and 1/C Butler beat us. At least we weren’t double-skunked….

After the tournament, it was back to Celestial navigation. I am ending today at 2230. Tomorrow will be another 0400 wake-up, except we move clocks forward one hour to ZD +2. We will be approximately 88.5 nautical miles closer to Tenerife 0700 tomorrow at morning muster.

Post By: 2/C Shail Leszkowicz, MTO Delta Company