The night before pulling into Naknek, I could not sleep a wink. We had done a great workout in the afternoon and I guess my body decided to come out of hibernation and was too fired up for rest. I tossed and turned, watched a movie, read my book, listened to music, waiting for the sleepiness to come, to no avail. So, I got up for watch and started the day, having been away since 12:00 the days before.
I wasn't alone. Dan and Jory (AB and 2nd Mate) too had the same problem, so BREAKFAST SMORGASBORD! Around 4am, the three of us decided to bust out a "breakfast of epic proportion". I was in the pilothouse prior to our breakfast idea and we started talking about food. I brought up an earlier conversation about quiche and how our cook had never had quiche, and the chief mate says "tug boaters don't eat quiche!"... So I being one to break stereotypes, said "that's it, I'm making quiche!" Down I went and busted out one of the best quiches I've ever made. Dan and Jory busted out hash browns, gravy, bacon, Canadian bacon in maple syrup and some other goodness morning creations. We had just brought n a new chief engineer the night before (flew him in from Seattle) and I was pretty sure he was going to think we were a bunch of tweakers. We blew the galley UP and ate good. It was a good thing, because the remainder of the day was brutal and I survived solely off of the early caloric implosion.
We got our call-out at 4:30 and started our approach to Naknek. About 2 hours later, we tied up to the dock and began un-lashing cargo at 7:30 am. We cut out for lunch at 12 and I did manage to close my eyes in my rack for about 20 minutes after eating, but then right back into cargo till about 16:30.
After that, I showered, grabbed 1.5 hours of sleep and then went back out for 2 more hours to finalize a total of 11 hours of cargo time for the day. I essentially (with the exception of my 20 minute siesta) went 30 hours without sleep and busted out a back-aching 11 hours of dragging chains and turnbuckles. At $20/hr (our cargo pay rate), I wasn't complaining too much, but it still hurt quite a bit and I'm ready for some serious rack time. I'm up right now, standing a 2-4am security watch, but then planning to rack-out for as long as possible after this... Skipping any "breakfasts of epic proportion".
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