might be coming home soon

Just leaving Jacksonville right now and headed to Haiti for another
trip. We'll be dropping off some cargo and supposedly picking up some people and cargo and bringing them back up to Fort Eustis,VA. At that point, the contract might get terminated which means that most of us would probably get sent home shortly after. It was fun while it lasted, but i might be looking for another job sooner than later.

Ship stuff

I sort of have a hard time writing much using my phone because the keyboard is so freaking small. Great for texting but not so much for paragraphs.

There hasn't been much happening that's all that exciting on my end.  It's been a lot of more-of-the-same. Were still going back and forth to Haiti but no one knows what were going to do until ten minutes before we do it.

Right now, we're bunkering in Jacksonville. Translation- filling the tanks (all four of 'em) up with fuel, and I'm sitting in the tank room with a fancy roll up tape measure taking fuel soundings so that anyone with a radio knows how full the tank is. We do this about once a week and it takes most of the day.  I think the total fuel capacity is somewhere in the neighborhood of 160,000 gallons. Not really all that much when you consider that this ship generally burns through a thousand gallons an hour.  OMG, you say - but consider our cruising speed is somewhere around 32 knots.  This boat can really move through the water.  Our top speed probably just under 40 knots.  Much faster than any of the other boats around our size that we've been seeing.

So, if you didn't already know, it's got a catamaran hull, but the really fancy stuff is what's under the water. It's got this 'ride control' system that involves these foils on the underside at the forward end of each hull that can move independantly and allow the front of the boat to sit out of the water just a little bit more as well as counteract the sideways rocking of the ship as it rolls around in rougher weather.  They call them T-Foils.  Then there are these things towards the back that sort of do the same thing but they're called Interceptors.  Don't forget about the T-max system either.  All hydraulically controlled, of course.  Oh yeah, no propellers. Just four bigass water jets. Like what jet skis have.

The ship is also super light.  It's all aluminum.  Seriously, e erything is aluminum.  Even the cabinet doors are made out of this lightweight honeycomb/cardboard structure Aluminum. Then the piping is also all stainless steel (expensive), and some PVC (for the plumbing- lame!).

So, it's a pretty slick ship. I put a few pictures up on flicker.  The link for them should always be at the top of this page. Something like 'fast boat to Haiti images' I think.

So far, so good.  We might be in Jacksonville for a few days this time so I just might get another chance to put something else up here.

Few pictures

Until I can figure out how to have a 'photos' link on the side of the
page which links to Flickr, just use this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45971768@N00/

ok, album is now posted at the top. Just click on fast boat to Haiti.

Greetings from Gitmo

Well, I'm not actually in Guantanamo Bay anymore, but when I was, that's what the headline would have been.

I'm not really sure where to start. It seems like so much has gone on in this last week but at the same time, one thing has remained constant and that's the fact that none of us know what will happen next.

I'm getting a little ahead of myself. A week ago, I signed up to work on a brand new high speed ferry that was supposed to go into service in Hawaii last year.  A different company now owns the two Hawaii Superferries as well as other ferries and is in the business of doing contract work for the military/government. Things like transporting troops and military vehicles I'm guessing.

So that's what we've done. So far, we brought a bunch of troops and vehicles down to Haiti and also refueled and spent a night in Guantanamo Bay.  Right now, we're in Jacksonville, Florida and it looks like we'll be loading some more troops on first thing in the morning. Supposedly, there's some sort of mobil kitchen in Veracruz, Mexico that we'll be picking up and bringing to Haiti. 

I don't really have much to report on things in Haiti. I barely got to set foot on land there. I didn't see any collapsed buildings or piles of rubble. I did see a group of Haitians in their own little boats selling hand carved goods. Right after we tied up, they all rowed up and started selling what they had.  

Anyway, things are going well so far. It's not exactly what I was expecting but I'm working with a good crew and the food is so much better than my last job.