Saltiest Body of Water on Earth (Tuesday Jan 30)

Well howdy ho neighbor! Tonight I find myself in the Red Sea. You know, they say you can float on your back no problem in this salty sea, too bad we’re not stopping to find out though. It was funny, after I told one of my coworkers he and a friend decided to test out my theory. They dipped a bucket over the side and tasted the water – like I said, S-A-L-T-Y! We passed through the Suez Canal with no problems. It was amazing to see land so close on each side of the ship. The scenery was interesting too; on one side of the canal were lots of trees and green grass and on the other was nothing but sand and rock. Security was tight with Egyptian armed guards on both sides of the canal; they followed us from start to finish. We are starting to smell a little funky though because we were in restricted waters and our ship could not make potable water or flush CHT (a.k.a. poop) overboard. That means no showers for about 30 hours and poop tanks dangerously high – Yummy! I find myself often imagining what this trip would be like if I were on a wooden ship from the 1700’s. Forget CHT tanks, instead we would take our little skinny butts over the side! And showers?! Who needs showers, just fix me some rum drinks (grog) and gets rid of me scurvy, YAR!
Like I said before I am busy busy busy. Now we are standing six more hours (on top of our already six) of watch per day. Before I start this story, remember, I welcome the challenge. Bring it on! It all started with Rick endeavoring to switch watch teams. One of his team members had recently done something stupid (not going into details) and Rick had a hard time working with him. After two times, the third attempt at proposing to switch teams resulted in the s*** hitting the fan. Rick’s timing/setting in which he asked to switch wasn’t exactly great. We were in a meeting with the senior watch officer (who recommends the watch bill to our #1 boss) and the #2 boss. Rick proposed that we switch sections in order to learn what other watch team captains had to offer us as teachers – setting. On top of that, most of my coworkers are behind in our qualification process – timing. End result … since we learn and progress towards qualification while on watch lets assign more hours! Let’s just say I know what a medical intern feels like. Sleep is treasured and hard to come by. Last night I went to bed and just passed out, no tossing or turning for me.
P.S. Thanks so much for the package and pictures you are sending me! I could still use more pictures though J.

Miss you guys! A lot!
Mark

p.s. My best friend out here, Rick is now a proud father of a brand new baby boy - Richard Riley Rivas (RRR)! 8 lbs 3 oz (or something close to that). Congradulations!