Thursday, Fill in and catch up

 Picture of the day:

Gerald Ford Air Craft Carrier

Today’s stuff:

I mentioned previously fire is dreaded aboard ship. I was forced to recall one just yesterday when I read of one lately on the Aircraft Carrier Gerald Ford, there was a big fire, it was reportedly started in the ships laundry, and burned thru compartments that contained a 600 beds. The ship was past it's time for over all maintenance and should NEVER have been deployed further. Someone dropped the ball. 12 months of 12-20 hour days kills moral.

After hours the entire ship is covered by sailors doing their after hours assignment as a ‘Fire Watch’. Each fire watch is assigned a specific area to patrol. The job is assigned to the lower pay grades and is broken down into 4 hour walks.

In my entire time at sea I experienced one fire. It just had to happen during one of my times as a ‘fire watch’. So after the shipboard notice was given over all speakers: “FIRE, FIRE 02 LEVEL FRAME 90, THIS IS NOT A DRILL, FIRE, FIRE”. It was my job to run my assigned area rushing sailors and officers to a weather deck. I will never forget one compartment the men were watching the movie ‘Rat Patrol’ on the TV, they were so engrossed they were fanning smoke from the screen, true dat. Sailors are crazy. They did leave, but did not want to.

That fire Report reminded me when blogging about shipboard life, I over looked the Laundry, a BIG part of ALL ships. Someone must do the laundry, right?

Try thinking of the amount of laundry on a carrier, associated with the life of 5000+ sailors. The laundry washes at least 5000 bed sheets a week. They wash every man's laundry. All clothes have the owner's name on it. On your Division’s Laundry Day, you come back from your job, and your sheets and clothes are piled on your bunk. 

Each man folds, rolls, his clothes and puts them away; then replaces his sheets.  Yes, there is a great system that ensures YOUR clothes are on YOUR rack (bed) every laundry day. They never lost even my underwear or socks.

It is hard to wrap your mind around the jobs and requirements to run a ship. There are plenty of ‘side jobs’ called ADDITIONAL DUTIES All low ranks must spend so many weeks a year on mess duty (assisting the cooks), fire watch, compartment cleaning, mail Petty Officer, passageway cleaning, security duty, and burn runs (burning out dated classified documents and messages). As a fire watch you definitely learn parts of the ship you never knew existed. LOL

Enough, every job, occupation, and just life, has some boring and exciting parts. It has been nice meeting folks on line, losing some has sure made me sad at times. Right now, I am hit hardest thinking of Jean of Opp and Paula, the cowgirl. Two wonderful women we met on Journals and Blogs. Amazing how close we get sometimes.

All people are important. EVERYONE has a life, there fore a story.  With the right writer, your life would make a best selling book.

See ya

Nite Shipslog

PS:

Life gets to you sometimes. Thanks for stopping by the Shipslog

Sherry is washing clothes today, and it is shaking the RV.