The Last Weekend

     Recently, I went on a Saturday jog through one of Monmouth County, New Jersey’s leafy neighborhoods. This is “Leave it to Beaver” America, a pleasant suburb away from the perceived crime of the city and the ticky-tacky of exurban living. This is the America that our military defends, and the birthplace of its officer corps. Of the 18 members of my Modern American History class at the Academy, where all graduates are commissioned, 17 came from suburbs or small towns- I was the outlier. It was a Saturday, and some residents were going to synagogue. There was also a yard sale. This Saturday morning experience was coupled by the realization that the weekend could be my last for several months.

     You see, a ship operates round-the-clock, seven days per week. While sailing aboard as a cadet, I needed weekends in order to complete ‘sea projects’, or correspondence courses for the Academy. Commercial ships operate on the thinnest of manning margins. As a permanent crew member, your presence is required every day: in port, you can have up to sixteen consecutive hours off the ship, and no more. On commercial ships, “you go to sea to work”. Or to say it nicely, “work prevents boredom”. If two mates were to become too ill or injured to stand a bridge watch, the remaining mate and the captain would be pulling two six-hour shifts per day, with six hours to sleep. Government ships carry a larger crew that can cover manning gaps, allowing for realistic contingencies for illness and injury, and for crewmembers to take weekend passes when the ship is in port. For mates and engineering officers, I heard that 32 hours is the length of a weekend pass; depending on their job and manpower needs, other crewmembers can clock out on Friday afternoon and come back on Monday morning.

     Fortunately, by union contract or custom, many ocean-going American shipping companies have avoided designating seafaring mates and engineers as salary employees: this clarifies the weekly work schedule, and allows for overtime. While seafarers are exempt from the 40-hour workweek law, union standards helped make “time-and-a-half” an expected custom in the merchant fleet. With time-and-a-half, a 56-hour workweek effectively doubles earnings from a 40-hour workweek. 

     Young people like myself are inexperienced, overconfident, and irresponsible with money. Yet there are certain advantages of youth: agility, freedom from familial responsibility, having little to lose financially, and- this one is from Albert Einstein- time for compounding interest. The manifestations of the opportunities of youth change over time; they include going West in the 1800’s; searching for Yukon Gold in 1900; joining the military; trekking around the globe with just a passport in hand; and working at a Silicon Valley start-up for stock options and an air mattress in the office. While I will find new seafarers with previous life experience on the same boat as myself, I couldn’t miss out on optimal timing. After graduation, I had the opportunity to “settle down” and get an 8-to-4 office job. But it was too soon…and I had the rest of my life ahead of me. So what did I do? Go to sea.  

Outside the Fence

Last year, as an associate editor of the school paper, I learned the adage:Old news is crud news. I wrote this expose on the surprise liberty the Regiment got the weekend before Labor Day weekend for Hurricane Irene, but, that was like, 2 months ago now! I'll find some way to post it so that I don't appear cras. But on that note, it was a welcome surprise to be tromping around a weekend before we were "supposed" to. Now that we're "Accepted" into the Navy and we got our eagles, we look at our former selves in blank-chested summer whites with a smile of amusement.

I'm not sure how prevalent automatically-graded online homework assignments are these days, but, looking back on my soon-to-conclude first trimester, I had a lot of homework. Sure, it reinforced concepts, but my notion of college as a free-for-all where you do homework for your own understanding and not necessariy for a grade, was smashed. Oh- that and sleeping in class. Acceptable at regular colleges, but not at an Academy. I guess it's the taxpayers who would rather have us learning in class than sleeping through it. But since we got caffeine privileges on Acceptance Day, sleepiness- in class or during evening study hours- hasn't been a problem for me. My fix- cafeteria coffee. Once or twice a day. Two-thirds of a mug, no nonsense, maybe sometimes with one packet of sugar and a bit of half and half. I treat it with care: I didn't drink it in high school, but in college, it keeps me working as late as I need to. I understand it's addictive, but I haven't built up a tolerance or physiological attraction yet.

Maybe I don't need the coffee anyhow. The upperclassmen say that first trimester is the hardest, because plebes aren't used a "working adult's sleep schedule". Wake up at 0600, regimental life to 0745, carry on about the school day, sports and homework and dinner, rack-in at soonest time possible (as in 2200/ 10pm if you're lucky; most nights closer to 11pm). So maybe I'm adjusting.

Power Squadron weekend trips for the two weekends before Columbus Day Weekend. First trip was on the YP 679, the Liberator, a true-blue-and white ex-Navy working ship. 108 feet in length and three decks, with a nice galley and mess, and a good rear quarterdeck for grilling and chilling-- and working the lines. Yes; a lot of what us plebes (or rookies, as we are called on the waterfront) learn while working and being underway on a boat is what we'll learn on paper in the classroom. It's good to have a leg up.

So we took the YP out to search for an anchor the sailing team lost the week before. Underway at 0600 on Saturday, first overnight trip: very exciting. We located the anchor, but found out that our equipment wasn't right for lifting the anchor. So we headed into Port Jefferson, NY, and had an evening on the town before retiring to the quarterdeck and shooting the breeze. It was a great time being out in the field, learning on the job and getting to know classmates and friends a bit better than before. A nice break from campus life.

So the plebes back on campus had liberty that Saturday the eleven of us plebes were out on the YP. Well, college kids do what college kids do; and we're held to higher standards than the average college student. And since most everything at the Academy is about teamwork, we sort of let the team down when we let a handful of our classmates, "our own", take liberty with too much liberty. For that, our Midshipman Training Officer promised us a "fun" weekend. So when the opportunity to get underway again came available, I sprung at the chance to go out to Greenport, NY, by Shelter Island near the tip of Long Island.

This time, we would take the trip in our regular Power Squad boat, a 46 foot Grand Banks known as Maximon. A fine yacht, with plush leather seats and good berthing areas. A smaller vessel, there were three plebes (rookies) and three upperclassmen, as well as the Waterfront Director (most comfortable boat, perhaps?), on board. Got underway Friday afternoon, rendezvous for BBQ with the other boats, as well as the Liberator, which also came, with a different and smaller crew. Some of the plebes from the last trip were present; others were back on campus. Studying, I reckoned. I had done most of my homework on Friday before heading out; and I brought some with me. I told my skipper, "as long as I can get my homework done on board, I could leave campus every weekend". We stood watch for 4 hours at a time, rotating with an upperclassman between handling navigation and taking the helm. Crusing through the night, we arrived bright and early in town. Each of the vessels made a day activity: one boat went fishing, another testing out the sonar, and the Maximon went for a crusie around Shelter Island. Good pizza lunch at an Italian place in town,and dinner at Claudio's Crab Shack. A nice clean evening as the town was pretty much closing up for the season. Port Jeff., in comparison, is an year-round town. "Good Morning Viet Nam! played on the TV VHS while getting ready to snooze. Underway for the Academy on Sunday.
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I just wanted to cut a post, so that my readers know that I'm about and well.
I'll write to you all soon.