by I am going to share about my experience standing in during the night watch. On the Sikuliaq, the crew takes turns being the “lookout” for the ship. I decided to join in one night, and stand watch after the sun had set. You would think that there would be lights on the bridge, or at least some way to find your way around, but no, it is pitch black. The eerie glow of the monitors, and the red or blue lights used when plotting our location are all you get up on the bridge. When you take a look outside, you see the black line of the horizon, and the occasional spray of water as the boat crashes against the waves. While I was there, the crew taught me how to take a location on a map, disarm an alarm, and most importantly how to hang on using the overhead “monkey bars”. My favorite part was charting our location. Thanks to modern technology, the latitude and longitude are given, so all we have to do is correlate that to a map. We wanted to make sure that we were not too far off of our plotted course, and this was one of the quickest ways to tell. We would locate our lat and long lines along the map, find where they crossed using a handheld compass, and that would give us the closest estimation of our location. I find it fascinating that the crew on the bridge can manage to stay awake, in the middle of the night, for up to six hours and not fall asleep. Even with radar, it is important to be on the lookout for lights from islands that should be in a certain location, or other hazards that could have come our way due to possibly going off course.
I enjoyed meeting the captain, and the others up on the bridge. They shared their stories of how they ended up on the Sikuliaq, and it has made me want to continue my career path at sea. Not only do I love the waves, and the endless horizon line, but I surprisingly love life on a boat as well. Everyone here, I have found, has their own unique reason for working and living at sea. I am so thankful to STEMSEAS, and the opportunity I was given.
Thanks for reading, and see you in Alaska!
Karine Holmes
