All the new activity on the board has inspired me to share part of my day today, and glacially slow connection be damned!

Went aloft to replace a burned out bulb. First picture shows where I was in relation to the closest hard surface, and the second picture shows one of our sister ships so you can get an idea of where I was (look at the black mast aft, I was all the way at the top). Unfortunately as sea air is highly corrosive I was not able to open the fixture, soaked it in PBBlaster and will head up tomorrow to try again. I did play with it for a bit but the winds were picking up enough to make the platform I was on move a bit (think when you are driving across a suspension bridge with lots of big trucks).

Enjoy!

 

Sea air sounds like Rochester air.. :P

What does your ship do? Spread democracy to the middle east or somethin fun like that?

And are those nets in the 1st pic suicide nets, because if they are they really don't look very effective

 

My current job is on a Maritime Prepositioning Ship. Basically we sit around with equipment loaded to support the military, when the proverbial **** hits the fan we go to where the trouble is and the troops fly in to get their gear. There are three squadrons situated around the world, the program was set up before the first Gulf War. Most people have this notion that stuff is flown in, but there is no way feasible to get the amount of equipment needed into a place by air. Enter the merchant marine, been doing it since forever. The US fleet is pretty skimpy nowadays but we are still around. Not as glamorous as the military but we have our losses. In fact in WWII statistically we lost more people than all of the services except the Marines.

Those nets around the helo deck are to catch people who might get blown off by the prop wash. Don't think I want to test them out as it's a loooonnnnggg way down.

 

You couldn't get me up there unless I was blindfolded.

 

If you went up there blindfolded you would definitely be in a world of hurt. I have a healthy respect for heights, by that I mean my ******* gets noticeably smaller when I look down. However I have always liked climbing things (monkey in my blood) so it isn't a big deal. After all, someone has to do it and I won't ask anyone to do something I won't do myself...well, work related anyway!