Extra! Extra!

North Atlantic gray. Gray sky, gray water, gray outlooks. The 10 meter
swells on our nose have become 4.5 meter swells from north-by-northwest with
5 meter cross sea swells from the south, a confused mess that is creating a
serious yaw (twisting motion along the x-axis) and a pitching that has no
rhythm, whatsoever. We keep getting an error message of "maximum gyro turn
rate," an error message I've only seen one other time- while steering us out
of Singapore we took evasive maneuvers to avoid a tug and barge and the 30
degree turn rate set off the same alarm and message. The 50 knot winds have
moved around and are coming from south-by-southwest.

We did three drills today- fire in the starboard generator room, oil spill
while bunkering (fueling up) on the main deck, and donning our immersion
suits (also known as "gumby suits" because they make you look like Gumby- of
course). You're supposed to be able to put one on in 2 minutes or less... I
can do mine in about 50 seconds (Yay me! I live!).
We're all anxious to see how the upcoming longshoreman strike plays out...
Solidarity! But please no inconvenience... I really want to see Laura.
Weather, scheduling, and now labor are conspiring to deny us.

For the last two months the chief mate has gone fore and aft, from one "rose
box" (bilge) to the next, filling them up to get prime, then pumping them
out again and losing that painfully-acquired prime. Which is to say that he
almost gets the pump-system working. Almost. Over and over again. Like an
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. His diagnosis is that there is an
introduction of air into the system at the pickups (pipe inlets), but after
two months of the mates getting low or high bilge alarm calls at all hours
of the day and night (and grumbling about it), the deck dragging fire hoses
in and out of the holds from the tunnels (and bitching about it), and
endless hours of confused radio chatter about which pump, fire hose or
bilge, needs to be turned on or off and who can or can't hear what- the
Extraordinary Ordinary is crying "bullshit" and declaring the pump is- in
the technical nomenclature of the deck department, "fucked up."

You heard it here first.