Whistling up... OT?

At the end of my 2000 to midnight watch there will be 8 days and a wakeup
remaining before I am back on the beach. I will have been at sea for 216
straight days, working a 56 hour work-week (before overtime), 7 days a week,
and I will have averaged 5.14 hours of overtime a day- which means I will
have worked (on average) 13.14 hours every single day since October 14th,
2012. That is 2832 hours. Which is equivalent to seventy-one 40 hour
work-weeks... but who's counting, right?

It is amazing the difference a day can make. Transiting the Suez I was in
shorts and a teeshirt, as I have been since March 17th when we last came
through, carrying my ever present water bottle and hiding in the shade. A
single day out of Damietta and I had dug out my wool base layer. Today I'm
wearing my hat and fleece and I'm still shivering... I had just gotten my
body regulated to working in 100 degrees, 99% humidity, in the shade
temperatures and the sunny 60 degrees now feels positively arctic. I
suspect no one in Seattle will feel my pain, but my peoples down in the Low
Country will know exactly what I'm talking about.

So I'm starting to throw away work clothes and the detritus of life that
gathers in drawers, cabinets, corners, under and over furniture nooks,
window sills, refrigerators, et cetera, in preparation for the end of my
incarceration. I am gifting any and every thing (memory foam mattress pad,
cotton sheets, carhart foulies, boiler suits, playboy calendar- gifted from
the last bosun, of course- water filter, quart of honey... you get the
picture) firstly to the Fisherman, aka my brother-from-another-mother,
secondly to Gipetto's apprentice, the most courteous but physically
diminutive Philippino AB who is, through no fault of his own, everyone's
favorite mascot, and finally to the trash- b/c everyone else on this ship
can kiss my ass.

Late tomorrow or early the next day (I haven't bothered to look, actually)
we pass the Rock, so in two days time we'll be maneuvering the last of the
European fishing fleets and crossing the Africa-Europe ship traffic in the
Atlantic. Tonight will be all about weather predictions, I do predict...
usually it's a conversation had sooner before hitting the Atlantic but this
mate I'm watch partners with is a bit... um... well. If you can't say
something nice, right? I'll ask the Chief Mate when we relieve him and get
the skinny, but a good storm would require a massive lashing gear tightening
spree and I might be able to get more OT- which I want, of course. So I've
started whistling. A lot.

Bring on the OT!