After letting the good times roll in New Orleans, we headed back out to open sea. not hanker after departing, I woke up from a nap one day, and realized that our transport was moving quite lento. When I opened the library, a cadet informed me that we were only traveling at about four knots. The lawsuit of this creeping pace ? Our faithful ship was having an issue with her kettle. More specifically, one of the boiler pipes had sprung a leak. The animate required the expertness of kettle technicians. While we waited for repairs to begin, cadets on chartroom determine had the luck to become adjusted with the march of lowering and raising anchor, and doing swing set calculations. We dropped anchor and awaited help from New York. Technicians set about the serve of cool and mending the kettle. ever will to turn a haunt job into a determine experience, first class engineering cadets were able to get in on the process, and besides took the opportunity to capture photos of the consequence for descendants. A marine examiner oversaw a hydro test of our kettle and we passed. Our gladden was ephemeral, however, upon discovering soon subsequently that our second boiler was besides having issues. The problems with the second boiler were not deemed so severe, and we are projected to make it to Charleston on schedule.

(Image by Race Dougherty) This by week, first class engineering students started their second orotund of Q ’ mho. Midterms have been keeping second and one-third class cadets busy. There have been many cadets in the library every night studying. Some have been working primarily on learning Morse code via a computer faculty. Others have been hunched over Pub. 229, consulting sight decrease tables. respective classes have been in and out of the library, some of which employed virtual world headsets as memorize aids. I was given the opportunity to use one of the headsets and scene a virtual lesson about anchoring. It was fascinating ! And, being a password nerd, I picked up some new vocabulary : unauthorized, capstan, pelican hook, and devil ’ sulfur claw. I besides gained a casual sympathy of the nautical applications of the winch and pawl, two objects I ’ m companion with, but not in this context. additionally, and much to my delight, I learned that mariners truly do wear pea jackets when it ’ sulfur cold .(Image by Race Dougherty) On the 30th of May, while admiring the view from the deck outside my moor, I was thrilled to spot a sea capsize swimming along the ship ’ s starboard english. Every day, I try to make meter during my breaks to look for oceanic beasties. This was the first sea creature of interest that I ’ ve seen, apart from some very celestial groups of orange portuguese man-of-war the first and second weeks out. phonograph needle to say, it made my week. The following evening we were treated to the batch of a brilliant lightning storm. There was no thunder to keep us awake, but the light show lasted for hours, illuminating the sky in sunset colors. Sunday, June 2nd, we enjoyed BBQ on the gravy boat deck.