Update No 2

Good grief, how did two weeks just fly by without me realizing it? I was trying to blog about once a week or every 10 days but I didn't quite make it this time around. I'm not really sure where the time went. Here are some photos from last week. FS2 Stickel is a *great* cook! He's even got a sense of humor. My club sandwich made me laugh out loud. I love the blue corn chips hair. And the cherry smile was less crooked before I got a hold of the plate. I was eating lunch on the bridge while we did some recreational boating boardings near Hilo. I don't think the boarding team really understood why I was laughing so hard when I answered them on the radio right after FS2 brought my plate up to the bridge.

It seemed like a busy week. We did some more boardings near Kona on Tuesday. After visiting about half a dozen of the boating public, we went about three miles offshore and had a swim call. The pipe was "Now, all salty dogs, mermen and Poseiden acolytes lay into the deep blue sea, now swim call." I realized later we should have added the depth of water, since we were swimming in 1178 fathoms of water...over 7000 feet deep! The water was nice and warm and there was about a two-foot ground swell that made for a fun little ride. I don't remember how many folks got in the water, but it was most of the crew.

I tried to get some good action shots, but was having "technical difficulties" (i.e., I don't know how to work all the bells and whistles on my camera), so this was the best I got. There were some fantastically acrobatic dives, this one by SN McKinstry.

We swam for about 45 minutes, and then cruised on. I spent a lot of time this past week doing time, speed, distance calculations; 60d = st (read sixty d street). I was concerned about when we were going to enter the Maui triangle. I didn't want to drive through the triangle during the dark. It's whale season, and they are everywhere! The humpback whales migrate to Hawaii from Alaskan waters, arriving in late October. They hang out through about May. But January, February and March is calving season. The whales like calm waters that are less than 100 fathoms deep, and the water in the Maui triangle is part of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Sanctuary. So, we have to be careful driving through the triangle and other parts of the Sanctuary, and really most of the shallower water around the islands so we don't hit a whale...bad for the whale, and bad for the boat.

I had a couple of good one liners this past week. The first was one night when we were pulling into Honolulu right after sunset. My night vision is going bad; I really should have my glasses on when the sun goes down. But I had left my glasses down in my stateroom at some point earlier in the day, so when I went to take them from the case that lives in the corner of the bridge by my chair, they weren't there. I couldn't leave the bridge, so one of the QMOWs kindly went below and fetched them for me. So...there had already been a discussion of my spectacles. Anyway, XO was driving from the open bridge, since we were entering port, and I made a comment that the sky was tinted pink; it was almost glowing pink with all the vog in the area after the sun went below the horizon. I paused, and then said, "Oh, these must be my rose-colored glasses."

*I* thought it was funny. I think XO rolled his eyes.

Then, a couple of nights later, we were transiting through the Maui triangle. We were just south of Molokai, and all through the afternoon, there were whales everywhere, spouting, flapping fins, diving deep and jumping all the way out of the water. It really is very cool to watch. I went on watch just after dinner, about 5:30pm, just before sunset. It was a beautiful evening, flat calm seas, and the sun sinking into the haze. I didn't see any whales though, which kinda surprised me, after how active they had been during the afternoon. MKC came up right as it was getting really dark, and asked how the whales were. I said, "I haven't seen any since it got dark."

Really? Really?

Just for the record, that's not exactly what I meant, but it was pretty damn funny anyway.

Also just for the record, it's not always fun and laughter. Sometimes it's frustration and cussing. But that's enough for today; I need to go finish up cooking dinner. And there will always be the frustration and cussing to whine about later.

Update

We just got home last night from having been away for two weeks. It was a busy but relatively mellow patrol. Here's a few highlights:

We started out doing offshore security for the President of the United States when he was on his vacation in Kailua, HI. The weather was beyond beautiful, which definitely went a long way to making the four day period a good time. This was sunset on 2 Jan...notice the nearly calm seas.

I think I'm likely to end up one of those people who invariably talks about the weather. I check the National Weather Service Marine Forecast for Hawaiian Waters about four times a day, even when we're not underway. I cringe when the wind gusts over 15 knots when I'm ashore. I can almost calculate true wind in my head when I look at the anemometer that provides relative wind. My opinion about weather in Hawaii is that I really don't care how big the northwest swell is...18, 20 feet is fine, as long as the swell period is over about 13 seconds. This type of swell is a rolling ground swell; the ship just rides right over it, kind of like rolling hills in a car. Winds over 10 knots, though, usually makes a crappy chop. As the winds get stronger, the chop gets bigger and the ship just pounds into them, like beating into pot holes.

But we had great weather. The operations required a lot of attention by the bridge watch, but not a lot of involvement from the rest of the crew. So we fished about three to four hours a day, with three or four poles out at a time. We had no luck for the first few days. Theories abounded about why we weren't catching anything. We were going too fast; the best trolling speed is 7-9 knots; the ship doesn't clutch in until 9 kts, and we were usually going about 9.5 to 10 kts. The lines weren't put out behind the ship far enough; they were out about 150-180 feet...any longer than that and it's a ten minute work-out to reel in all the line. The area was fished out; but the weather is usually crappy on this side of the island, so there's not *that* many boats out where we were. The lures were sitting on top of the water, and they needed to be weighted down to be more attractive.

I don't know what it actually was, but on our last day out, after we had recovered an abandoned outrigger from an outrigger canoe so that no one else would hit it, we got a bite. When we fish, we just trundle along, as slow as we can. The fishermen are out on the fantail, with hand-held radio comms with the bridge. When a fish bites, the line zings out behind the ship, the fishermen jump up from their lounging positions and lunge for the rod. One of the other guys calls up to the bridge, "Fish on." As the fisherman straps on the fighting belt, the bridge pipes "Fish on" so the whole boat knows what's going on and stops the ship. Everybody piles out to the fantail from watching movies on the mess deck or reading in their rack to see all the excitement.

You can see the fish in the water in this photo...and all the guys on deck.

This was my first fish as CO, and it's been at least six years since my last fish call on a 110 (I didn't fish in the NAG...too scared we'd actually catch something). I wasn't really sure how to drive to help the fantail reel in their catch. The fantail did a good job of asking for what we needed, and I quickly realized that we just needed to keep the line tending aft, and not let the fish go under the ship...there's not quicker way to lose a fish than to have them snap it off on any of the underwater appendages.

Our fish was a fighter and jumped a few times. But EMC quickly reeled him in, and we had fresh mahimahi for dinner....fantabulous! FS2 baked some and sauted some more. I made ceviche the next day after a trip to the grocery store. It was a great afternoon.

We pulled into Honolulu the next day for a couple of days inport after being underway for four days straight. It kinda amuses me that I think four days underway is a lot now. MAUI would routinely be underway for 5 to 7 days, and on HAMILTON, we had one stint where we were underway for 42 days straight, with one brief stop for fuel and logistics...we got back underway the same day we pulled in. But, it's all a matter of perspective, and four days is good enough for now.

While we were out doing POTUS ops, I was busy writing my grad school application essays. Ok, really, I was going out of my mind and annoying everybody around me, writing my essays. My sister was a huge, grand, wonderful help. My first attempt, she told me, sounded like a high school student telling why she wanted to join the Honors Program...ouch. But she was right, and gave me some fantastic guidance on how to make it much better. (I was planning to post excerpts from it, but I'm at home and the essay is at work. Maybe later.) I'm happy with what I submitted, and now it's DONE! Whew, what a relief. Now I just have to sit back and wait for the acceptance letters to roll in :) Thanks again, Sis!

So after a couple of days inport, we got back underway for an escort, to protect national assets as they transit to/from port. I don't mind doing these escorts. I mean, yes, they require us to come to Honolulu a little more than I like, but actually doing the escorts doesn't bother me. I just got done at a unit that did something like the same thing for days and days at a time. The ones out here usually last only three to four hours. The one this past week tried me though. It was eight hours long, and we were at special sea detail for five and a half hours. In the same spot. We moved maybe three hundred yards in five hours. It's tough to keep people engaged for that long. And special sea details require nearly everybody on board. I think we had three people that weren't initially assigned jobs. After the first hour or so, we started rotating people through to get lunch and take a break. Most people just rotated positions though. And I decided that it's a good think that XO and I get along. Because it would really suck if we had to spend five and a half hours together if we annoyed each other.

We got through the escort, though, and went to moor at a mooring ball for the night. The next morning we had flight operations, training with Air Station Barber's Point. Flight ops went well, and we were off on our transit to Kauai. We fished the whole way; my only requirement was that we pull into port before it got dark, so we only had to make 9 knots to get there..."Down, down all lines; up, up all fish. Now Fish Call." But no luck.

We pulled into Nawiliwili, Kauai right at sunset. One of the other COs out here asked me why I was going to Kauai when I was so worried about bringing down my days away from homeport. I do want to bring down my days away from homeport, but not at the expense of knowing my operation area and taking advantage of being able to visit other islands. So we spent two days in Kauai.

Friday, a group of us went out to the northwest coast of the island for a hike. The Na Pali trail goes all the way to Kalalau Valley, an 11-mile hike that takes all day one way. We went out as far as Hanakapiai Beach, and then turned inland to Hanakapiai Falls. These are pictures along the trail to the beach. It was a glorious hike.

This is Hanakapiai Beach, where the trail splits to either continue on to Kalalau Valley, or goes inland to Hanakapiai falls.

And these are the falls. The pool at the base of the falls is icy cold; we figured about high 50s. Of course we all had to swim around in it. My skin burned after about 30 seconds in the water. It took me a good 20 minutes of the hike back to get warm to my bones again.

So you may be wondering, why, after all those beautiful pictures of Kauai, there's a picture of a metal grate at the end of this post. Well, the trip to Kauai ended rather morbidly than anyone expected. We were making preparations to get underway on Saturday afternoon, and one of the guys was disconnecting our potable water shore tie, underneath this grate. After he was done getting our hose back, he went to replace the grate, but it didn't sit right immediately, so he grabbed ahold to straighten it, and it fell into place with his fingers still wrapped around the edge. He lost his fingertips.

We had just done first aid training while we were underway for POTUS ops, so the first responders' actions were just about as good as they could have been. The ambulance was called, and he was whisked away to the hospital. He was in good spirits yesterday when saw him upon pulling in to Hilo.

Still, I hate it when people get hurt.

So, that's a wrap-up of the last couple of weeks. This took longer than I expected to post, so now I need to actually get myself to work.

Happy New Year from KISKA

It’s a long time nautical tradition that the smooth log midwatch entry for New Year’s Day be written in rhyme. I can take absolutely no credit for this piece of poetry; it was all XO.

A HUNDRED FEET OF WATERLINE, NICELY MAKING WAY INTO A NEW YEAR.

WHERE POTUS STAY? ALL WE KNOW IS HE STAY NEAR.

WE'RE IN POSITION XX-XX.X NORTH, XX-XX.X WEST;

SOMEONE LET THE PRESIDENT KNOW HE HAS CHOSEN THE BEST.

AS SN PASOQUEN RINGS IN A NEW DECADE

KISKA STANDS THE WATCH AS THE EAGLE'S BLOCKADE.

YOKE HAS BEEN SET AND ALL DOORS ARE CLOSED TIGHTLY;

OUR ELECTRICIAN HAS THE NAV LANTERNS ALL BURNING BRIGHTLY.

IN ALL HIS GENERATORS AND MAINS, CHIEF TARKER TAKES PRIDE,

BUT TONIGHT HE'S CHOSEN TO RUN ONLY THE NUMBER ONE SIDE.

SECTOR HONOLULU HAS ADMINISTRATIVE, TACTICAL, AND OPERATIONAL CONTROL;

WHILE EAST OF OAHU WE CARRY OUT A BRAVO-2 PATROL.

KIS-1 RESTS NEATLY IN HER CRADLE AND IS SECURED FOR SEA.

KAILUA'S FIREWORKS WOULD SURELY AWE EVEN FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

BRIAN GORACKE HAS THE QMOW, FRANKIE GUERRERO THE DECK AND CONN;

LATER TODAY JAMIE RUSSELL PELTIER WILL PIN HIS ANCHORS ON.

I had the 2000-2400 watch last night. We’ve got a TAD guy from our sister cutter on board, helping XO and me out with our watches, so we’re back to four hour watches…thank goodness! We were steaming a couple of miles offshore, and had great seats for the fireworks displays from shore. The weather was great, though we did have a patch of storms roll through at about 9 pm. We had a full moon, peeking through the clouds. Fireworks started going off just as it was getting dark, and continued until a little after midnight. A lot of the fireworks from inland neighborhoods were blocked by hills and valleys, but we could see the reflection off the clouds overhead. I wasn’t sure where to watch, there were so many explosions over the whole coastline. It was a great way to welcome in the New Year.

Happy New Year, all! I hope this decade brings you peace and happiness in your lives.

Belated Merry Christmas

I went back to the east coast for Christmas and had a very nice time visiting family and friends.

Here's a little video from an afternoon of ice skating...my favorite part is my friend's cackle. I never said I was *good* at it.


Now I'm back in Hawaii...without my luggage, but with the start of a nasty cold. That'll make this next week interesting.

My Mentors

I originally wrote this post about a year and a half ago, just when I took over MAUI in Bahrain and started blogging. It was probably my second post ever, but I think it's good enough to repost, especially since I've been talking about doing it for a while. Maybe it's solely an opportunity to brag about myself and my successes, but these five women, whether they know it or not, had a huge hand in my current situation.

The first and most influential is my very first boss ever. I was 14 when I started working at Larriland Farm for Lynn Moore. I was very impressionable. She was my boss on and off for seven years, as I finished high school and entered college. I didn't know much about myself, what I wanted to do, or where I was going with my life. She exuded confidence as she ran the family farm with her two brothers. She took care of the marketing, selling the fruits and vegetables produced on the farm at the on-site barn market, in the pick-your-own fields, at a satellite market, and at about half a dozen farmers' markets in the local region. Looking back on it now, I'm impressed all over again at how many moving parts she kept track of...I mean, for goodness sake, Lynn kept a crew of nearly 20 teenagers motivated during the sticky humid heat of East Coast summers to actually care about making sure all the strawberries/tomatoes/blueberries/peaches were completely picked from each row before moving on the next one.

But on to some of the lessons I learned from her, with their translations that I've figured out over the last (good gawd!!) twenty plus years:

1. Always put tools back where you found them. Translation: Be responsible about equipment. Even a stapler. Someone else depends on being able to find it when they need to use it. CG translation = configuration management

2. If someone asks you a question, and you don't know the answer, politely say, "I don't know, but let me find out for you." And follow through with an answer. Translation: Customer service is important in nearly every job anywhere. As a supervisor, my subordinates are my customers and I need to make sure they have what they need to get their jobs done. And following through ensures that something is done correctly.

3. Before you start an engine, check the oil. Translation: Take care of your stuff; don't abuse it. It'll last longer that way. CG translation = Preventative Maintenance Systems (yes, the acronym for that is PMS, which I've always thought was a little unfortunate)

4. Be knowledgeable about the details. Translation: Know your stuff. Bluster will only get you so far if you don't have any credibility.

5. From her brothers (who are both over 6 feet tall), push the seat all the way back when you get out of the truck. Translation: Be considerate of other people, embrace the diversity of perspectives working with others provides.

6. Product quality is singularly important. Translation: Uh, duh. But even with the simple stuff, make sure there're no typos, commas are in the right place, and use spell check. There's so much more credibility in appearing literate.

7. Presentation, presentation, presentation. Translation: People pay more attention when something is attractively presented. Use colors and be creative.

8. Always wear sunscreen (I wasn't ever so good at that one), a hat and sunglasses when you go out for field work, and take a jug of water.

Those are all basic job skills. One of the leadership skills I learned from Lynn was the importance of giving people the opportunity to learn and develop skills on their own. I remember being sent out to the blackberry field to prune the canes. It's not a particularly hard job, but in order to maximize production and make picking easier, there's a certain amount of skill required. Lynn took a group of about six of us out to the field, talked through what the goals of the project were, explained why each was important, then gave us a demonstration on a handfull of sections. And then she left us alone! She came back in about an hour to check on our progress, gave us a couple of pointers and then left again. It was brilliant.

I learned later, from LAMS (Leadership and Management School), that tactic works well with motivated, but unknowledgable subordinates. There's a whole matrix: unknowledgeable/unmotivated, unknowledgeable/motivated, knowledgeable/unmotivated, knowledgeable/motivated. Lynn's practice gave me a concrete example of the benefits of knowing and understanding your subordinates.

And somehow, despite 80+ hour work weeks around greasy tractors and farm equipment, dirt roads and rotten produce, she managed to have the most beautiful hands.

My next mentor was Dr. Carolyn Orr, the Agriculture Department Head at Berea College where I got my Bachelor's degree. She was the youngest of five professors, and the only woman in a heavily male-dominated field. All the others were old white men, very firmly entrenched in the agricultural practices developed during the Green Revolution in the 1970s.

Carolyn taught me the importance of presence. You knew when Carolyn walked into the room. Sometimes it was because she was loud and yelled at people to get her point across, but more than that I think it was her own self-confidence that did not allow her to be ignored. And god bless her patience with my best friend and me as we cracked jokes and snickered our way through the summer job program at the College Farms.

Dr. Nancy Creamer was my graduate advisor at North Carolina State University and taught me the necessity of being passionate about my job. From what I remember about working with Nancy, she truly believes in the importance of the work that she does. It's practical and easily applied to real-world situations that can almost immediately benefit her target audience. While she puts in long hours, travels extensively away from her family, and constantly fights the inanity of an institutional bureaucracy, her work has meaning and the goal of making the world a better place.

While I agree with the Coast Guard's goals, unfortunately, I can't say I have a deep, underlying commitment to our methods. I will support them to the best of my ability, because that's what I do. My command philosophy states that [a job worth doing is worth doing to the best of my ability, so that I can look back and be able to honestly tell myself that I've faced every task and challenge to the best of my ability. This is the only way the sacrifices I've made will have been worthwhile.] But that's selfishly for my own benefit.

I joke sometimes that I sold my soul by being a cutterman, instead of a duck-scrubber, which was my original interest on coming into the Coast Guard over ten years ago. I know I made the right choice for my personal sanity. But, the cutter's belching diesel exhaust, lack of thorough recycling program and practice of discharging sewage outside of three nautical miles from land still go against my own personal beliefs of environmental stewardship and simple living. I guess the lesson I have to take from Nancy is to enjoy at least something of what I do. And I do absolutely. I love driving the ship, working with the people, and seeing all the fantastical sights there are to see. I think part of what I like about it is that I'm pretty good at it.

I took a professional break after graduate school and worked as a receptionist at a massage therapy school. The director, Kathleen Grey, was a very kind woman, dedicated to making people feel better and ease their pain. My job at the school was by no means challenging, but Kathleen taught me a lesson that I think a large number of professional, driven women forget...Take care of yourself. She made her students take Tai Chi and yoga to strengthen themselves personally before she allowed them to practice bodywork on other people.

I'm still working on the fitness attitude for this one...I do my best to get three workouts in a week, when we're inport. Underway is a *whole* 'nother story, especially with this port and starboard nonsense we've got going on right now. But regular yoga, occasional massages and nightly face cream are all vestiges of working with Kathleen that I really enjoy.

CAPT Beverly Kelley (ret) is the last of this group of mentors. She joined the military the year I was born. She fought some historic gender battles to earn her commands, and was the first woman in command of many of the units at which she served. I could not have asked for a better introduction to being a female officer than to have worked for her. I remember getting frustrated with her frequently for her seemingly embittered stance when it came to women in the military. I knew she had had to fight to get where she was, but why was she still fighting those battles, when things were so normalized for women in the military now? Well, nine years and five units later, I think I understand better. It is far, far easier for women, but it's still not a totally comfortable environment for, well, at least me. I should know better by now than to make generalizations that put word into other people's mouths. But CAPT Kelley, thanks for all you did along your way to make my path that much smoother.

So those are my mentors. One last note on this topic of mentors, though. I experienced a complete perspective shift when I was OPS on a WHEC, where I was the senior female onboard a ship of 160 people, about 20 of whom were women. By default, I became a mentor for them. I still keep in touch with some of them, and it's amazing to hear about their successes and triumphs, and watch them struggle through the difficulties. I never set out to influence them, but through my position and experience I was able to offer them some perspective on how to persevere through and be happy with themselves along the way...or at least I hope that's what I did.

I wanted to honor and thank those women that influenced me professionally. So, ladies, thanks! I wish the best for you all and am so grateful for the opportunities that I've had because of what I've learned from each of you.

Plate of Spaghetti

I'm a food-nerd...self-ascribed and-admitted. So it's totally in character for me to use food metaphors. Here's my food metaphor for my job...it's a double helping of oil-slicked angel hair pasta ('cause that's my fave), slopped onto a tea saucer. Some days I fool myself into thinking that I can keep every strand of pasta perfectly balanced on the plate. But most days I'm more realistic and realize that there is no way humanly possible that I can keep every single carb from falling off. My responsibility is to not let the important stuff slide off, and to decide what is less important that can be slurped up later.

I think that most operational units are like this. I really don't know about shore /support jobs...I haven't had enough of those to really make a call on that. But with operational units, you've got personnel, operations, engineering, guns, awards, classified material, training, medical, schedules, message traffic, SORTS, community relations, port calls and morale, readiness standards, AOPS/TMT, surging lines that need adjusting, meetings, inspections, human relations, assist visits, CASREPS, parts, budgets, and that's just the stuff from the top of my head in about two minutes.

I do my best to prioritize what I keep on the saucer. My XO says that my metaphor lends itself to just constantly putting out fires, which is definitely a possibility. But if I can define what is important to me, as the ship's leader, I can help build little birds' nest pastas that keep critical stuff as a basic building block of the whole heap.

I afford my personnel a very high level of importance. If I take care of my crew, they'll take care of me. Or said another way, I can't do their jobs, but I can make sure they have the tools, training, time and environment with which to do their jobs. Operations are also important to me...that's what this gig is all about, why it's fun. I'm also finding that material condition, readiness and sustainability are important to me. If the equipment doesn't work, we can't do the mission, and we're wasting time, money and effort until it gets fixed, and fixed the right way.

Jeez, I just realized I'm parroting an ALCOAST from a while back where the Commandant talked about People, Mission and Stewardship. But it's really true, those are the basics of what makes this organization work and last.

Those three things cover a lot of what's on the plate, but of course it's more complicated than that. All junior officers learn from a very young CG age that there are some things that you just don't mess around with because they are career enders. This list includes money, guns/bullets and security issues. So those *must* stay on the plate. However, because they're so important, there are myriad ways for them to be messed up. Two small pieces of guns and security slipped from my plate today. Whooooop, just slithered away. I see the durn buggers on my lap making gross grease stains on my trousers, but they're slippy and small and round, and really, really hard to get back on the plate once they've fallen off. I can make sure no more of that particular flavor of pasta fall off the plate, but I can't go back into the past, and return to the plate the ones I let slip off.

And I've got to get over the fact that they're gone. Learn from my mistakes so I don't make the same ones over again, and then...move on. It's harder than it sounds.

Just for the record, I'm not eating pasta tonight...I just had a bowl of some awesome homemade beef and barley stew.

"He's Going To Be OK, But..."

We got back from an almost week-long patrol this morning. It was a good trip, with lots of diverse operations. XO and I are port and starboard, so we stood six-on-six off for the week. That means I stood watch from 0600 to 1200, he stood watch from 1200 to 1800, then I stood watch again from 1800 to 2400 and then he had watch again from 0000 to 0600. It means neither one of us got much sleep. But it was easy to keep going, especially being surrounded by the perseverance and enthusiasm of the crew as we went from port, waterways and coastal security, to law enforcement, to maintenance, to law enforcement, to search and rescue. I think I'm the one that whined the most about standing soooo much watch, because I certainly didn't hear it from any of the crew!

When we left at the beginning of the week, we left behind one crew member. This is a usual practice for us, because we're overbilleted, which means we have more crew than we have racks to sleep them all. And I won't let people hot-rack, or share racks. Life underway is hectic enough without having your own personal space, even if it is only 6 ft by 3 ft by 3 ft.

The person that stays behind is usually busy enough anyway, getting mail, answering phones, running errands and doing stuff that needs to be done at the office. And handling lines for us when we get underway or pull in. So I was a little annoyed this morning when we pulled in and there was no one waiting on the pier for us to handle lines. It meant I had to maneuver close enough to the pier for long enough for one of the other crewmembers to jump over, and then continue my maneuvering the rest of the way into position. Weather conditions were good, so it wasn't overly difficult, but I was still peeved that we had to do it anyway.

Not being there as required was out of character for the young man that stayed behind this week, but everyone has slept through an alarm or something similarly irresponsible before. So a couple guys went to his apartment to roust him, but didn't find him or his car there. At this point, I started to worry. Before I had been thinking he had blown us off, but now...now I'm worried. XO went off to call the police and hospitals (after having been up since 10:30 pm last night, standing watch). It didn't take XO long to find him...there's only one hospital in Hilo.

So, he's going to be ok, but he's pretty smashed up after being in a car crash this morning. I don't really know any more details than that since the nurse on his floor hadn't talked to the police and he doesn't remember anything beyond sitting at a stoplight in the dark, and then waking up in the hospital with people sticking a bunch of needles in him. We'll follow up with the police on Monday to find out the whole story and get the accident details. But thank goodness he's going to be ok. A couple of broken bones and cuts. He won't be on the boat for a while, maybe at all again, since he had orders to his initial rate training (A school) starting in January...but he's going to be ok.

This was my first experience calling parents. I offered to call his Dad and let him know what happened. I started out with, "Your son is going to be ok, but he was in a car crash this morning." His Dad was calm and asked all the right questions. It sounds like he may come out here to see his son and help with recovery. I really, really, really hope I don't have to make any more calls like that one. And I'm so grateful that his Dad accepted the news so graciously. And that he's going to be ok.