Don't Look Down!

Hey Everyone!

Just a quick note to let you guys knows what is up out here. We finished crossing the ocean today, and have started making our way into the Med. If you recall, I went to Spain for my 3rd class cruise, so up until today we have been sailing in familiar waters. Today marks the point at which the seas we sail will be all new to me. Things should also get a lot more interesting from this point on. Crossing the Atlantic is dreadfully boring most of the time. There is nothing to look at out there except the stars, which are magnificent, but constant. From here on out, at least for the next month or so, every new watch will bring new sights and new places.

As for myself, I am doing well. I am starting to get settled into the rhythm of life at sea, such as it is. My schedule follows a pattern of sorts, but it isn't the kind of pattern which lends itself to developing any sort of comfortable routine. Sometimes bedtime is 2200, sometimes its 0815. I often find myself sleeping at lunch time or working well past midnight. The good news about keeping that kind of schedule is that it almost completely obscures the passage of time. There is no regular pattern of waking up in the morning and going to sleep at night. There is no established work day or quitting time. Additionally, we change time zones about every two days. All of this combines to make it almost impossible to establish any real sense of how quickly or slowly time is passing. I have decided to embrace this fact and use it to my advantage. I call it my "don’t look down" approach. My plan is to try my very hardest to ignore the existence of time. If I were to allow myself to think about how long this deployment will be, I would surely find myself frustrated and unhappy with the amount of time left to go and the sluggishness with which it passes. Given that I don’t really need time out here (and given that I find it hard to keep track of anyway), I have decided to tune it out entirely. It is much the same as a rock climber or sky-scraper iron worker who refuses to look down. Looking down and seeing the distance he has to fall will do nothing to lessen the distance, but will increase his anxiety and therefore his risk of falling. Therefore, I will look only as far ahead as I need to, which typically is about 15 hours. My hope is that this deployment, like childhood, will fly by in a blur of unawareness while I run blindly along, blissfully oblivious to the existence of anything beyond my next meal.

As for professional progress, things are moving along on pace. I am working pretty hard on my qualifications every day. I am boldly pointing the firehose of information directly at my face and opening my mouth. I don’t know if I will be able to keep this pace up for the whole deployment, but for now I am making good time. I am becoming more and more comfortable with all things nautical. I can understand the language, and am working on learning to speak it. "I am becoming tolerably amphibious", to quote Dr. Maturin in the Patrick O'Brian novel "Post Captain."

I am extremely excited about our upcoming port visits. I can't really say where they are, but if you read the Odyssey you will get a pretty good idea of where I will be for the next few weeks. For a classical buff like me, there are no more exciting waters to sail than those. After that, looks like I might get to hunt some pirates. All of you know me well enough to know how happy I am about that!

I hope you are all doing well. I miss everyone already. Let me know how everything is going with you all back home.

Love, Jed