"I want to see you drive."

Well, it's gotten better, and this is our last night on the boat. Tomorrow night I'll be sleeping in my bed at Venture, using a real flush toilet, and taking a hollywood shower instead of pusser showers. (Pusser showers, to save water, consist of getting wet, turning the water off, lathering up, rinsing off, and toweling off. Conversely, hollywood showers are when you stay in for 20 minutes, just enjoying it.)

I had a bit of crappy navigating this week, but mostly it went well. OOW watches went very well--the biggest problem I had was getting yelled at by the CO because I was using standard helm instead of hard helm on a MOBEX. Today, though, my driving was spot-on--the "man" (a stick with a flag on it) came just where it was supposed to, and I conned it so it just went down our side so we could catch it. FixO went pretty well, though expectations were mounting--I'm pretty much the best FixO onboard (I thought I was tied for best, but the other guy who's about as good as I am at the practical parts said I was better than him), so they expect me to be on the ball all the time.

The past two weeks are turning into one massive blur, really, with a bit of a patch in the middle when we were in Vancouver. It's been fun, though, and I'll miss the boat, especially the Nav team. We have good chemistry and even though I don't get along too well "socially" with one of the members, we're unbeatable as a working pair. We have our teams for next week, and I'm once again in a 4-man team instead of 5-man, but that just means we'll get more practice/attention, or less total time in NABS (huge computer games) which would mean shorter days and more time to spend on planning/relaxing.

I also learned that I'll have to do the FNO course (Fleet Navigating Officer or something such, basically super-advanced stuff such as using sextants and navigating by the howling of wolves or something) even though I won't, hopefully, be a navigator. It appears that all MARS submarine officers have to go through it, which is a bit of a piss-off; I'm good at this nav business, but I don't like it very much. The topic actually came up (again) last night when one of our academic phase instructors was on our boat. He mentioned that he hadn't seen me navigate yet and that he wanted to see it. ("I want to see you drive," as quoted above.) I asked if he'd heard something bad and he said that, no, he just thought there might be something going on here. I told him I wasn't going to be a nav, and he said "oh, there's a list, and you can't get off it." I thought it was funny.

That makes two possible predicted career paths (as predicted by serving officers): staff officer, and navigator. I'm not sure which I'd like best, really, so I'll stick with trying to go onto subs. I mean, pirate rig, sweet-ass dolphins, and the admiration of all the women in the free world? (Okay, maybe not the women...)

Another thing that I've noticed is that I'm taking a very pro-active leadership role during this sea phase. I point out things to the NETP-O guys and help them out and stuff, and from the looks of it they (for the most part) sortof look up to me--they ask me for help and such when they need it. Also, at some point last week, when entering harbour, we secured navigation (which means MARS III students got off the bridge) I decided to stop just sitting around the training room and help out with the lines, even though it's totally not my job. I didn't do all that much, and I wasn't as good as the NETP-O students were (I hadn't handled lines or fenders in a year, literally) but more bodies never hurt, right? They apparently very much appreciated, and went so far as to make a point of letting the Buffer (Chief Boatswain's Mate, the authority on seamanship onboard) know I'd done it and that they liked it. It came in handy, because I forgot about cleaning stations (when everyone cleans the ship) and the Buffer was pretty angry. Another guy forgot about it, and he gets to polish the capstan tomorrow (the capstan is a winch on the focsle, and it's exposed to elements), but because I went and handled lines, I only have to polish the bell, which is stored inside, and the support for the bell, which is outside but not as exposed as the capstan, and it's much smaller... and I got shafted to do the bell last year anyways, and I hadn't done anything bad then, so it's not too bad, really.

Anyways, it's been fun, and part of me wishes it'd go on, but the realist part of me knows that this is driving me nuts--I'm making the geekiest jokes ever and I'm using more and more bridgespeak in day-to-day conversation.