The Best of Times

Happy Hallowe'en! Today was another busy day, mainly vetting laptops, setting up & repairing accounts, and learning about the ship. There's a constant stream of new information out here for which I was not prepared, nor could I have been. There must be 12 different passwords for different resources around the ship, and even the MCSs scratch their heads for a while to remember which goes with what. It's not like we're super-organized on shore, but the transitory nature of the MCS position lends to a certain amount of chaos and disorder on the ship, as one crew hands off to the next.

The bad news for the School of Rock is that seas are apparently too heavy for the JR to sail to the Juan de Fuca drill site. We had intended to re-cement the site there partly as a demonstration of ship operations for the visiting educators. Unfortunately, this procedure is more precise than simply re-drilling a hole - any heave over 2 meters would risk damaging the equipment we intend to secure. Current predictions are for 20-26 foot seas at the site, so the trip has been cancelled for now.

The good news, of course, is that we will instead head directly south for smoother, warmer seas...

This evening we took advantage of our last night in Victoria by going out to eat. Mike, Dwight, and I wandered along the docks until we found the SwiftSure restaraunt adjacent to a hotel about a mile from the ship. As luck would have it, the restaraunt was outfitted with several big-screen TVs, all of which featured Monday Night Football!

Suddenly I found myself right at home: a Steelers game in a sports bar, good food and a waitress dressed as Cat Woman... Mike & Dwight left at halftime, but I stayed on to watch the Steelers beat the Ravens 20-19. All is right with the world...



All is right with the world - Monday Night Football in Victoria

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