Standby to copy

Wow.

This is the first time since we sailed that I've had some time to myself--beyond sleeping time, that is, and those hours are rarer than gold. It's been a brutal week, though it's also been strangely good. I'm actually doing my job, and I'm doing fairly well. Of course, there are more kinks to work out, but even the points that are being hammered on in the past two or three days are positive, as they're more "advanced" things that the instructors wouldn't even mention before.

On the positive side, the XO said today that I'm developing a good "seaman's eye" for distances and such--I was spot-on for a ferry's distance and CPA (Closest Point of Approach) this morning, and fairly close for time to CPA, and generally I'm fairly close--and the CO actually said "good job" after my OOW shift this morning... I don't think I've heard him say that all week! I'm getting pretty good as FixO, which was the worst part early this week, and I'm definitely inside the fleet standard 6 minute routine (i.e. having a fix, a DR 12 minutes ahead, and a DR to course alteration/intercept, at the very least, every 6 minutes), slowly working my way to being able to maintain a 3 minute routine. Navigation-wise, I had a fairly good passage yesterday coming into Nanaimo Harbour, though half my plan was destroyed by contact avoidance (we came about a mile off track at one point). The CO actually took my notebook near the end of the passage as I was doing something that annoyed him and he wanted to "punish" me. According to another instructor though, that actually means I was doing really good so they wanted to push me--they wouldn't have actually taken it away if I had been doing poorly.

I've also been helping one of the other trainees onboard, as well as giving pointers to the NETPO students (the course I did last summer). For the most part, I know all I need to know, I just need to get better at synthesizing everything and putting the big picture together. I also need to brush up on mental math, as I still get the occasional brain fart where I can't figure out how far we're going in 6 minutes (speed(kts)=distance(cables)). Still, I have another week at sea, where they'll be pushing us harder, and then a week or two of development in the simulators, before being assessed. I will definitely pass this course, unless something goes royally wrong.

Planning has been a bit hard, as we often have passages where two or three of us have to work on one chart, and for the most part I'm stuck waiting until everyone is done, but luckily we generally wait until everyone is done before we go to bed. I've learned my lesson, though, and from now on I'll attempt to take a nap while the other trainees are planning, and plan for a few hours after they're done--and they can go ashore or sleep while I finish up. It works out to going to bed between 2330 and 0030 every night, and as wakey wakey is at 0630, that works out to not enough sleep. Today I was starting to stutter pretty bad every once in a while, and I'm quite certain half of this won't make very much sense when I re-read it before posting it.

One funny thing about being immersed in bridgework all day, every day, and using terminology at night while planning, is that I'm starting to speak that way during normal conversation. I say "stand by" instead of "hold on" or "wait", "correction" when I make a mistake, "disregard" when I say something wrong, give numbers one by one (one-eight-three-zero instead of eighteen-thirty), and, most importantly, there is a LOT of "I recommend (blah)" going on. Some of it is jokingly because the other trainees pick up on it sometimes, but honestly a good chunk of it is unconscious. I speak more clearly and slowly now, though, which is a good thing.

Speaking of which, my conning (and reports and such in general) are, I think, a lot better than what they used to be. I'm assertive, I still pause a bit too much but generally I plan out what I'm going to say so it generally flows well, I speak loudly, and I've stopped conning by questions--giving conning orders with an inflection that would normally indicate a question, like saying "starboard fiftEEN?" instead of "starboard fifteen!"

As far as the "relationship" between the crew, I get along really well with the buffer (Chief Boatswain's Mate), the instructors, and the NETPO guys, and although there are some temper flare-ups and some rubbing the wrong way with the other MARS III onboard, we generally get along great and even when tempers do flare up, it's temporary and after a few minutes we're back to just working and joking.

I feel much more like an officer on this course, than I did before. We're actually placed in a position of fairly considerable responsibility--we have to actually keep the ship safe, and although we don't legally have charge of the ship, we're treated as though we more or less did. Furthermore, helping out other trainees (especially NETPO trainees) seems like a good way to flex my "leader" muscles, so to speak. Also, unlike RMC "leadership" positions, this is actually responsibility- and action-based, rather than paperwork-based, which makes it more of a "leadership" thing and less of a "manager" thing.

All in all, it's been a good week, full of learnding. The academic phase had a steep learning curve, but this was a learning wall. We had to claw up that wall, and for the most part we're coming up it. I wouldn't go so far as to say we're at the standard expected of us, but we're definitely getting close.

I'm going to relax and do nothing this weekend (except plan on Sunday) and we'll see how next week goes!