Sinbad Sunday

Well yesterday was probably the most fun at sea I have had yet to date. Every cruise, the ship shuts down all class and work (except watch) to hold inter-divisional games. The school's Corps of Cadets is split into two Companies. Each Company contains 3 Division. Each company sails on one cruise. This year 1st cruise went to Blue Company. So yesterday all 3 division's competed in an assortment of events in order to win a bag of goodies, but more importantly the right to be the first Division dismissed from cruise, easily one of the most coveted prize able to be offered on cruise.

The events of the games were a mix of different nautical skills that put everyone to the test. There were events such as the lifeboat crank, where the whole division teams together to hoist up one of the lifeboats. Oddly enough this was the one event that left me bruised. I guess it just shows my dedication. There were other events such as plumbers nightmare, which presented a 8 ft of pipe with probably 30 problems and a running fire hose on one end. Whoever could plug the most holes and raise the pressure at the other end of the pipe the highest won. Other events were less amusing such as heaving line and hauser toss where it just involved throwing things. But 2 events in particular, took me back to my days of Sea Scouting events. There was knot tying and Boatswain's Chair. Knot tying is self explanatory, but Bos'n's chair involves tying a french bowline around your self and then being hoisted 20 feet off the deck as fast as possible. Now back in the day (which was a Wednesday) this was my event. But oddly enough the team I was now competing with was filled with other Sea Scouts from teams I used to compete against. Quite an amusing thought indeed. Unfortunately in the end... despite me getting 1st's in all the events I participated in, my division ended up getting, hmm how do I put this: second runner up, 2nd loser, 3rd place and dead last. *Sigh* it was fun none the less and was a good way to start the home stretch of cruise.

Well it is official ladies and gentleman, I will officially submit my "2 week notice" tomorrow. I cant believe 2 months is almost all but gone, but it couldn't be done a day sooner.

Stay Frosty,

Safety Restraint Systems

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures.

ECUADOR! ECUADOR! ECUADOR!

Guayaquil Ecuador... What a place!
We made our 4 hour journey up river from the sea at about 0400, did the customs and security dance as is standard procedure. We had our liberty restricted from the usual midnight restriction to 2000. Despite this severe cut back in time, we without hesitation set off into Guayaquil on the wheels of one of the countless crazy taxis that fly around Latin America. We were lucky enough to be in Ecuador on the day of the big soccer game versus Argentina. So my gangbunch and I sat back and watched. The interesting thing to see was how much of city shut down at the opening of the game. Luckily Ecuador won and the riot that the police were ready for, never came. That was basically all that we could do with our limited time that day. When I arrived back at the ship I hardly knew what to do with myself and all my extra time.

The next day was our educational day. We went and met with the U.S. Consulate in the heart of Guayaquil. This involved people more intelligent than I speaking about things that I am only lucky to have understood. After this we climbed back on the bus and headed over to the Banana Port (we were originally supposed to have gone to a banana plantation, but consulate security deemed it too dangerous). Now this port is run by Dole, and the amount of fruit that went out of that port each day was staggering. They had container upon container, each which held approximately 40,000 bananas. That is alot of bananas. After this and probably the second best pizza I've ever had, we went on a less than glamorous sight seeing tour. Do to some navigational areas we got to see a far less talked about part of Ecuador, we saw the slums of Guayaquil which was an unforgettable site to see. After this we finally found our way to our destination, a local Woman's Co-op. Via our guide's translation, we heard their story of how the co-op rose out of local depression and need. This day as a whole was truly indescribable, one that I will never forget.

The last day was definitely interesting. The morning was filled with Churches, statues and iguanas. But unfortunately it was not a great day for all cadets. One of the cadets I was with had too much to drink, and I decided that it would be best for to take him back to the ship. Unfortunately this took the rest of my day as I spent the rest of my liberty taking care of him, and helping him return to a state in which he could return to the ship.

This port more than others has taught me a great deal.

I will have a tale of the adventures which took place during the Sinbad Games today up tomorrow...

later days,

Steven Robert Schiesser

*insert witty/flashy title here*

Ok well, today I have a few updates and stories, which is exciting because I had something new yesterday too.

I'll start off with the boring stuff. We had another drill today and suddenly 5 1/2 weeks in they decide to show us how to get into our life boats... seems kinda late to me. Well at least it happened before you know, we really needed to know it. Anyways, the drill is not out of the ordinary. It was the pyrotechnic demonstration that the Deck department held afterward that was a change of pace. Now in all honesty it was pretty boring, especially after I taught a class on emergency signals, and probably shot off 100x more signals then they did, it was fun to see that I still sometimes know more than some Marine Transportation majors after being in Sea Scouts. But it was rather frightening and hilarious, the amount of times the "MT's" almost shot each other in the face with rockets and magnesium flares...

In other more relatively exciting news, we received word from our teacher, that we are most likely going to Mexico now, all we have to wait for is U.S. State Departments final clearance, but the captain, I quote, "Feels good about us getting our clearance." So hopefully we get cleared because in all honesty I do not want to be going to San Diego. Not that there is anyting wrong with being in San Diego, just I'm going to be spending July there, so I would much rather pass.

Other than that, I believe food is getting worse day by day. I am finding less and less interest in eating ship food. Can't wait for some Ecuadorian cuisine and then some home cookin.

later days,

SRS

C/C and more

Star Date: 200906080000

MIDN's LOG

21 Days to go, 2 countries and 1 equator crossing and this little adventure will be all but done. Our next stop, for those of you who have been following along, is Guayaquil, Ecuador. In order to get to Guayaquil we actually have to make a 4 hour trip up river (not sure which one) in order to reach the Port. We will be making our attack run on Wednesday and it should be lots of fun.

But why not something that's a change of pace. Today I had what is called C/C duty today. I think it stands for cooking and cleaning duty except that all I did was the cleaning part. I had to wake up at 0530 and worked til 0900 in the garbage room. then went to class (completely slept right through it (we were debating whether drugs should be legalized or not, so I didn't miss a thing)) then for lunch I worked in the scullery from 1100 to 1330. The scullery is where we clean all the dishes, it was surprisingly not that bad and it didn't smell as bad as the garbage room. Then for dinner we worked from 1600 to 2000 had a BBQ on the fantail as is tradition for Sundays here on the TSGB. I spent the time running between the galley and the stern and then sweating up a storm in the scullery (you'll learn some nautical terms, just stay tuned). Due to our hard work and my obviously dashing good looks, Mom, the ship's baker,(who calls us all "Son") has promised us a pie and great big chocolate chip cookies all to ourselves tomorrow. Then for the final act of the day we emptied the garbage room by throwing the paper and food over the side out of nice little hatch in the side of the ship, that is nice and body sized. We compact the plastic and then incinerate it, well the incineration fun saved for more qualified individuals. Altogether today was at times gross, but not to hard, just really long.

I would now like to take this time to thank those who make all these post worth while with their continuing emails of encouragement. In particular, my brother, who despite: midterms, finals (ive been on this boat too long) taking care of my dog, the shingles, looking for a Job, his senior project, and work; he still manages to email me every day or so, for a sanity check. But thank you to all of you who have emailed me, I mention my brother, because he was the brains that made this blog possible. OH! and if you email me and i don email you back that day it means one of two things. My email blocked you because it is over protective, and in that case I will email you as soon as I get Vallejo to unblock you or, I'm in port and thus not on the ship to check it. But again thank you all for emailing me, keep it up! and if you haven't, (Santino Borling) there is no time like the present to start!

Thank you again, take care

remember to spay and neuter your pets

S.R.Schiesser
MIDN 3/c USNR

Chile Pictures

a Day on the Bear

Hello there people on terra firma

So I feel I Should let you in on what exactly it is that I do on a daily basis. First off we have class every morning from 9 to 11, all week long. After class we have lunch then we have "Quarters". Now the purpose of Quarters is for accountability for the cadets, and to make sure nobody has fallen off the ship or something along those lines. Well we get up there at the same time everyday, and then wait around 10 minutes while they talk to the corps officers in a private meeting in front of the formation and then they call us to attention and dismiss us. Yeah thats basically it. We stand around for 10 minutes for less then 1 minute of activity. Then the afternoon differs depending on the week. Either I have a work day or I sit around and basically do nothing. Then around 1600 we have clean sweep down. Each person is assigned to a group that is asssigned an area of the ship to clean. My are is the Fantail of the ship. So each day I report there and clean the same area day after day. I admit, sometimes I have to pretend to be cleaning because it can only get so dirty some days. After all that nonsense, we have chow and then start it all over again.

I hope everyone is doing well, feel free to send me an email anytime!

S