Three Days to Go

I am once again at a point of change in my life, one that occurs about six times a year one way or another. Yes, it is time to depart the mighty MV Pacific Sword to return home to my family, friends and away from the restrictions of a life on the high seas. I still have three nights to go, two whole days of work and thinking about getting off. I am currently contemplating packing my bag, merely weighing up the pros and cons of starting now or leaving it till tomorrow. Maybe today is too early and I will have to route around amongst the nicely arrayed and folded clothes to locate a pair of socks to wear as the current pair makes an unbearable companion. Or I could leave the process until closer to departure day and throw everything in at the last moment.

It is generally accepted that a writer writes about things he knows about. I for a perfect example, tend to cover the sea and cultures crossed, electricians most likely will write about 'how to tap into the national grid without them noticing' and backpackers will waffle on about hazy landscapes and "first times". So here I am close to departure day, keyed up and ready to de-stress and I find myself mentally unable to write about anything else except 'going home'. I must admit that in the past however many times I have packed a suitcase the imminent change is always new, exciting and thought controlling so even if I wanted to write an article about engineering or a psychological profile of skippers I could not, I am tuned in to one subject only, that of getting off this mighty fine vessel.

In simple terms this inability to write about anything else during these times provokes me to write yet another article about it, to compliment the many others that I have written at similar times.

Here I sit with my jumbled and merry-go-round thoughts. I have flashes of the pleasurable future awaiting me, to seeing my wife and son once again and of being free! On one end of this large and constantly moving sea-saw in my brain I have those happy flashes of day trips and eating ice-cream on the beach and at the other end I have the engineer's wind-up to bring me back down from the clouds that I have temporarily escaped to! The future beckons wildly yet I am still onboard, still the Chief Engineer and still I must do what must be done.

For the most part Engineering and the engine room follow a set course. Machinery breaks down, equipment fails, and there are alarms to test and planned maintenance to plod on through. Life goes on and every day is a new day with its own set of hiccups, adventures and laughable moments! Yet, towards the end of a trip when those thoughts of home start to creep into the mind an engineer's attitude changes towards the equipment under his care. The last thing any engineer wants to happen is for a crank to throw itself out of the side of the main engine or the deck head to open up above the switchboard with the deck awash on his last day onboard. All that any engineer wants is for the job to go smoothly, for all planned maintenance to be up-to-date and in effect to hand over the vessel with a clean slate!

To equate this to something similar on land I could use the far-less important task of shutting up the house before departing on a family holiday. The last few days before catching the Club Afrikaans flight to Swahili the family have been running around with excitement bubbling forth like a washing machine after a whole box of soap powder has been thrown in! The Father is madly going over his list of 'things to do', lock the back door, switch the water off, cancel the window cleaner and make sure that the beware of the dog notice is vividly displayed in the window. Dear mother is running over who needs shorts, shirts or sheets, has she bought enough toothpaste and whether or not she can buy washing up liquid in the local supermarket. And the kids, with rather more excitement than their parents are making sure that friends and enemies are fully aware of their impending vacation and that 'sookie' the goldfish and Bert the frog are going to be looked after by the Aunty May who couldn't find a way out of that one!

Just as the taxi is pulling up at the door and the family are all but ready to pile in lock stock and barrel, Aunty May suddenly appears from around the corner with a goldfish and a frog! She thrusts these at the children and whilst running back the way she had come shouts over her shoulder "sorry but I've been called abroad on urgent business". Just as the children are pondering how to smuggle these lonesome creatures onto the plane, dear papa suddenly realizes that he's locked the keys inside the house and thus his family out - although maybe he never shut the back door! Mother meanwhile notices that they are one suitcase too short, that the telephone is ringing and that she had forgotten to cancel the plumber. Oh, and the notice that one of her children must have placed in the upstairs window (that read: all gone on holiday, nobody at home) must be taken down.

Well, to cut a long story short ………. The plumber who for once turned up on time found himself the caretaker of two little animals, a house, the task of collecting some forgotten dry-cleaning and answering the telephone! Although first he had to find a way into the house as father had after all locked the back door, about the only thing he had remembered to do!

So there we have it! All great plans are laid to rest.

What every engineer strives to do is too hand over the best job that they possibly can and to aid in this transfer of power from one engineer to the next a set of handover notes must be written. These writings are basically a rundown of what has occurred during the last few weeks/months, a reference if you may of noteworthy and important changes, machinery conditions, breakdowns, stores ordered, etc. The next engineer that comes onboard thus has an excellent starting point for the trip ahead!

I have written my handover notes. They sit on the computer, all eight pages of them, and I sit here hoping within hope that I do not have to alter them at this late stage of the game. To alter them would mean that something has failed, broken down or come loose, to make change is generally a negative thing as now I am not looking to fix anything else. I have done my best in the time given and now I am winding up the paperwork, cleaning house and thinking more of going home than how to fit an oversized Industrial washing machine through an doorway designed for Japanese Midgets or why the stbd main engine threw the crank into the turbocharger of the port thus producing a vessel with effectively zero horsepower!

My handover notes are written and I am basically at the stage of either packing my suitcase or going to bed. I suppose the action of packing a suitcase is the ultimate signal that the trip has ended and all that remains is to shake my relief's hand and to walk down that gangway for the last time! So to pack too early is extremely unhealthy with the array of calamities that could happen at any one-given moment in time. I will wait until the last day before packing my bag, I have no care or feeling if my suitcase is a mess of catastrophic proportions; filled with odd socks and shirts that have creased permanently; violently peppermint smelling after a tube of toothpaste has squelched its way out of the bottom of the tube; who cares!

I'm going home!