I arrived at the docks yesterday morning after a quick layover in Seattle. I had driven straight through from Sacramento as usual and crashed on the floor at my Seattle digs (where I rent a room) the night before. The Manfred Nystrom was dockside and undergoing some maintenance as I hauled my bags onboard and found my bunk. Since I'm cooking in this trip, I was hoping to find a stateroom that allowed my some quiet time and good sleep. I think I scored the better of the 4 available rooms on the main deck, complete with sink, medicine cabinet, and a few nicely placed shelves to set stuff on.
The boat is old, and originally named "El Zorro Grande". She's a Burton tug, 126' in length and built at Port Arthur, Texas in 1966. She doesn't boast too much in the way of upgrades, but she makes up for it in spaciousness. The galley and dining area is large and cozy with a large table and ample room to move around. There are only 6 of us onboard, so it's like having a little "extra" breathing room since the tug can easily accommodate 10 or more if need be. 6 is pretty standard for an ocean going crew, but these boats were built to do more back in the day.
The galley has all the creature comforts, 3 fridges, 2 freezers, large pantry, dishwasher, a few coffee makers, espresso maker, and everything you'd need to keep people happy for a few weeks.
After looking around and familiarizing myself, I headed up to the office and talked with the port captain about groceries. After which, I grabbed the keys for the work truck and headed over to Safeway to pick up our order. When the boat returns to port, the cook will put together an order to restock the boat, that way the new crew doesn't have to do all the work. The down side, is that you are kind of at the mercy of the prior cook, and you "hope" that he ordered the correct stuff to stock the boat. For the most part, our order was fairly complete. I had to order a few things additional, but nothing major except bottled water, which we only had enough for 1-2 days. If you mess up an order and run out of some thing critical (water, coffee, TP, etc), the crew is going to hate you, so it's best to check it over yourself.
So, I arrived at Safeway, paid the $2000 food bill, loaded the pickup truck and headed back to the dock. Once I arrived, one of the yard workers helped me load it all onto a pallet and the crane swung it over and set it down on the back deck of the boat for us to unload. By that time, the other AB had arrived and we were able to get it all broken down and loaded into the galley. It took me over an hour to put everything away, and I honestly was a little afraid that we weren't going to have enough room. But it fit. By the time I broke down all the cardboard, we were pulling away from the dock. I managed to hand everything off to the dock workers as we were backing away and heading out.
So we headed south to Seattle, fueled up with about 50,000 gallons of diesel, then met up with our barge, "made tow" and headed north. When you are connecting to the towing assembly (bridle) on the barge, it's called "making tow" and when you are disconnecting, it's called "breaking tow". The process is about an hour all said and done. It's fairly easy, but it takes time and many large components come into play, some of which are dangerous and freaky. All it takes is one component to fail, and it can kill you before you've had time to say "watch out!" So, we take it slow and "keep our heads on a swivel".
I made a spaghetti dinner during refueling and helped with deck work afterwords. As the cook, I still help with all the line work on deck, but my basic duties underway all lie within the galley.
Tonight (Saturday), I made a bomber dinner, with fried chicken, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes (real ones), salad bar and an apple pie. I think the crew is happy, but I'm sure i'll inadvertently give them something to complain about at some point. For now, meals are good. Lunch is a tough one for me. I'm supposed to prepare something easy and have it ready around noon, but I'm only on watch from 4-8 in the morning and at night. So, the crockpot is getting a bunch of use. I made taco soup this morning and it was ready go at noon, but nobody touched it. It sucks to put the effort in, when they just want to make a simple sandwich instead. Oh well, it's a paycheck regardless if they eat or not.
Tomorrow morning, I'm going to do eggs to order, and prepare some sloppy joes for their lunch, followed by either meatloaf or fish for dinner I'm leaning towards fish.
The crew is cool. A bit older and more "seasoned" for the most part. 4 of them have worked together on many trips, so they joke around a lot with each other and they seem to be pretty relaxed. They take their job serious, but they also are very chill with it, which is a nice balance to strive. The AB is 6 years younger than me and fairly new to the maritime world.
So, I'm off watch and we are slowly steaming towards Seymour Narrows. We are awaiting the right tide, so I think we are turning about 2 knots right now, basically going nowhere as we await the tide. Seymour can be dangerous during fast currents, so most commercial mariners schedule their passage around slack tides. It was once described as "one of the vilest stretches of water in the world" by Captain George Vancouver (yes, the guy who has cities and mountains named after him) :-). At any rate, we will be pulling into Ketchikan on Tuesday and immediately doing cargo, but I'll probably be heading to the grocery store for an order.
I'm going to hit my rack and log some hours while I can. The "house" is cold right now, which lends itself nicely to sleeping, but it makes for an uncomfortable lounging atmosphere if you just want to sit in the galley and blog.
That is all for now.....
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