MMA Sea Term 2008

Today was the shellbacking ritual, which was wicked cool! Unfortunately, the details are secret and exclusive to Shellbacks, so I can’t really go into them here. However, I can say that it was an awesome day! We are now steaming along to Panama, to go back through the canal and return to the Atlantic, and head to Aruba! Everyone’s really excited to get to Aruba, since it’s been the port most people have been looking forward to. I have watch again tonight 0000-0400 and tomorrow 1200-1600. I’ll check in again tomorrow afternoon.

Yesterday I had watch again 1200-1600, which actually ended up being sort of fun. About 15 minutes after I took the helm they started a series of man overboard drills, so I got to have plenty of practice with the ship’s handling and rudder control. I learned a lot of things about being the helmsman that I most likely would not have otherwise been able to learn and do. It was really exciting and a lot of fun being the one to make the ship maneuver and make the tight turns! Shellbacking is on Friday, and the energy is starting to build. Notices have been posted throughout the ship from Davy Jones warning pollywogs about trespassing. It’s pretty wild that we’re so close to joining such an exclusive group! That’s all for now, I need to get some sleep.

Yesterday was exam day for the first half of Sea Term. Everybody by this point has had a rotation of license training (either deck or engine) and a rotation of non-license training (either MSEP or Emergency Management & Business). There is a final exam for each major’s training, so testing is done halfway through cruise, and again at the end of cruise for the other half of training received. Today I had the Engine exam and the MSEP exam.. At the moment it’s about 0400 local time (0500 EST) and I just got off my first at-sea deck watch, where I started out as the stern lookout. On deck watch, everyone starts at a certain position, and is rotated every hour. From the stern I went to the bridge, where I spent some time learning about the various systems & operations there, and had an opportunity to be the helmsman! Steering the ship is a unique experience, because it doesn’t respond like any other vehichle I’ve ever driven. It took about 20 minutes for me to start getting a sense of how the rudder responded to the wheel. I’m confident that by the end of deck watch in a few days I’ll be a pretty decent helmsman. I’m looking forward to being on the bridge during the day so I can see more of what’s going on around us from that vantage point. Right now, however, I’m headed to bed.

Today is our last day in Golfito. Everyone’s had a good time, but I think we’re ready to be on our way. At the moment, however, most people are focused on the Super Bowl just a few hours away. We’ve been told, as I posted yesterday, that a projector is going to be set up on the helo deck so we can watch the Super Bowl as one big group, which should be a lot of fun! Tonight freshmen have a 2100 curfew, so we’ll all be watching it on board. I’m at the Maritime Bar writing this post, and they have the Super Bowl pre-game show on TV but the audio is all in Spanish, so it adds an unusual twist to the Super Bowl.

Last night was a lot of fun. The majority of Mass Maritime cadets on liberty ended up at the Maritime Bar, so we had another night of partying together. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Alert is in port with us right now, so the crew was at the bar with us. I hung out with them for a lot of the night, which was a blast!

Tomorrow we’ll be under way again, steaming towards the Equator to go through the infamous shellbacking ceremony. There’s been a lot of buzz on the ship about it now that we’re mere days away!

That’s all I have for now. I’m going to go hang out with my shipmates for the last few hours we have in this port.

On a side note: I took the video below the day we left Buzzards Bay. I think it’s a cool way to show parts of the ship to people that would otherwise not be able to see them. I’ve also provided a few pictures of Golfito and the Enterprise.

Just a quick update: SeaWave is currently unavailable on board the ship.  I will post about this again once it’s back online.

I’m writing this post from a place called the Maritime Bar in Golfito, which provides free Wifi. At the moment it’s probably in the 80s with 100% humidity since it’s pouring rain. There’s a gentle breeze coming through this open-air restaurant, which is also rustling the palm trees and other plants around. Bob Marley is being pumped out of the stereo here, and there’s a gorgeous 180 degree view of the bay and the ocean.

Our initial impressions of Golfito were not great, but I think it’s grown on us as a group. There are water taxis which will take you to various beautiful beaches around the area. Yesterday I took one of those with a group of other freshman to a beach about 45 minutes away, which was a blast! The beach was awesome, with some of the finest sand I’ve ever felt in my life. There were fantastic views of the bay and the Pacific, and the mountains around us. After returning from the beach, we went to a restaurant nicknamed the Maritime Bar due to its decor. It’s decorated all over with liferings, photos and other memorabilia from various Coast Guard, Navy, and Maritime ships. Of course, Mass Martitime was obligated to leave their mark here as well!

I am not signed up for any of the shore excursions here, but I’ll try to get some information about them to post here. Perhaps I’ll get a guest post from somebody who did one of the excursions.

Unfortunately, making phone calls in Costa Rica is not nearly as cheap as it was in Panama. The phone cards they sell at the pier are $8 for 20 minutes of talk time. I have a Skype account with SkypeOut minutes, so I was able to call home for only $0.02 a minute using my computer with the Maritime Bar’s free Wifi. The telecom company in Aruba is pretty good, so making phone calls there should be cheaper. They also have Wifi hotspots throughout the island that you can purchase access to for a nominal fee. I don’t know about cell phone service and cost, but I’ve heard that it should be available for Verizon as well as AT&T.

Since tomorrow is the Super Bowl, the plan is to set up a projector on the helo deck so we can all watch it together as a big group. I’ll be sure to take plenty of pictures and post some once we get to Aruba. Right now, though, I’m going go to enjoy the party with the rest of Mass Maritime!

I’ve provided a video showing the Maritime Bar below:

I’ve enabled commenting on posts on this site, but all comments have to be approved by me before appearing.  So, feel free to post comments and I’ll check them when I get to an Internet-connected computer.  More about Golfito coming soon!

Yesterday was my last day of engine training. We learned about various measuring tools, and about basic electrical wiring by building an extension cord. We learned more about electricity in class yesterday afternoon, as well as about various instrumentation. On Tuesday my group was in lab the entire day, working with black iron pipe and making a picture frame out of aluminum stock. The picture frame was my favorite lab because we got to work with so many different tools and have a useable finished product. Today we’re coming into Golfito, where we’ll be through Sunday. Apparently the port is so small that the pilot is only going to need to be on board for about 15 minutes, and we won’t be using any tugs to dock at the pier! Division 1 has watch the first day in port again, so I’ll be on board tomorrow. I’ve realized that being on watch the first day is actually the best day to have it, because everyone else can go out and scope out the port and report back, which saves you a lot of time. That worked out nicely for me in Panama. I’ll post more once I find out information about Golfito. Buenos dias!

Yesterday was my first day of Engine training. My group spent the morning in the classroom reviewing boiler operations and the systems within the engine room that we need to know for our exam on Febrary 4th. In the afternoon, we were doing labs. We have a list of activities we need to complete during Engine training that are spread out over the three days. Yesterday my group learned how to sweat copper pipe, join lengths of soft copper pipe using flaring and compression fittings, and join PVC pipe using various fittings. One of the projects we’ll do is to build a metal picture frame, which we take home with us. So far Engine training has been pretty fun! We’re currently steaming towards Costa Rica. It’s a three day trip between Panama and Costa Rica, so we’ll have liberty again on Thursday. Everyone’s pretty excited that we have two ports of call so close together, after having gotten a taste of what being in port is like! That’s all for now, I have to go to morning formation, and then head off to another day of Engine training.

Yesterday was our last day in port in Panama, and what a time it was! The past four days have been incredible. The weather alone has been a nice treat, and we’ve had tons of fun in and around Panama City. I spent a lot of time in a part of town known as the “Causeway”, a more upscale peninsula a few miles long lined with shops and restaurants, and many Maritime cadets. The street is lined with brick sidewalks and palm trees, and there are marinas on both sides filled with beautiful boats and yachts. Everywhere you go you can hear lively music and parties. It was definitely one of the more popular parts of town with the cadets! The highlight of my time in port was meeting up with the Panamanian Maritime Academy cadet who was in my company during Orientation. We happened to come back to the ship in the early afternoon and found him waiting outside the gate to the pier! We spent the rest of the afternoon with him, which was wicked cool since we hadn’t seen him since the end of August. On an unrelated note, I received an e-mail through this site a few days ago from a girl named Amanda that read as follows: “Hey! I hope your’re enjoying all your time at sea! I was there the day the boat left…and I was wishing I was on it soooo bad! I’m only a freshman in high school and I have decided to devote my next three and a half years to getting into MMA! I want to get in sooo bad… well hope the rest of the trip goes well.” I thought it was a cool testament to the affect Sea Term has on people both on the ship and off. I have training the next three days. I believe I’ll be doing engineer training, so I’ll update on that experience later today.