Where a naval officer ought to be...

So, we sail tomorrow. It'd sound really cool to say we sail at dawn, but we won't. Still, we're heading out. Awesome. After almost two years of terra firma, I'm ready to have steel and water under my boots once again.

It won't be easy, with reqs and passage planning and watches and drills and briefs and whatever else they throw our way. Luckily we get 4 days at sea, 4 days off for Easter, then another 4 days at sea, so nobody should die of sleep deprivation. The OIC (CO) doesn't want anyone to go without sleep anyway, so if people start taking too long on navigation planning he'll just put a cap on it. As someone smart once said and less-smart people keep repeating, planning will take as long as you have. My goal is to go down to two hours per passage, but that might be a bit extreme--I'll be happy as long as I stay under 3 hours per 10Nm.

I'm pretty sure I'm ready. I've got the theory part down, I got an almost constant stream of positive comments in the NABS, and the Navy has decided that at this point we're ready, anyway.

Our OIC has told us that it's possible, after our reqs are done and we're almost done with the sea phase, that some of us might get to act as full-blown OOW, instead of 2OOW as we'll be for most of the course. (The idea being we're 2OOW so if we screw up the OOW will step in and keep the boat safe.) It's pretty cool, because it means we might be in charge of a ship, for a watch or two, in just over a month. It's far away, considering how much we have to do before then, but it's an exciting idea.

The only cloud over our departure--literally and figurativelly--is that the forecast for tomorrow shows a thunderstorm in the afternoon/evening. And it should rain practically all week. I guess it's not too bad; we'll be in a nice enclosed bridge and everything. It's just that I don't really like restricted visibility all that much, and if it rains hard or there's fog because of the rain, we'll be in textbook ResVis. Not looking forward to that part.

In any case, I'm excited, I'm ready, and I can't wait to get moving.

I always get the shakes before a drop... The Ship's psychiatrist has checked my brain waves and asked me silly questions while I was asleep and he tells me that it isn't fear, it isn't anything important - it's just like the trembling of an eager race horse in the starting gate. I couldn't say about that; I've never been a race horse.
-Starship Trooper