It was nice out today. Finally!  So I went outside and watched deck students mooring exercises.   To the outsider, mooring exercise involve doing strange things with ropes as thick as your wrist: wrapping them, tying them, tossing them, hoisting them, cursing at them, throwing them overboard.  The idea is that eventually we will need to tie the ship to something that doesn’t move, even in today’s golden age of magnets.  Mooring exercises also require shouting things that make little sense to the casual observer:

“Fill it up, no locking tucks!”

“I’m heaving?’ In response: “No, you are hoeing!”

“Minimize your fairlead!”

             [Lots of line]

Eventually Britt Elliott and Makahla Downs, the deck training officers, organized a sort of mooring relay race between three teams.  It entailed freshmen throwing for distance and the rest of the team transferring the tension in a mooring line to a post using a stopper knot.   Team two finished the fastest and the losers were left to sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and stow the line.   They didn’t seem too upset about it, but then again their singing was terrible and team two helped them stow the line anyways.

[The bridge watches down on us]                           

[Nick Wulf launches line for one point]

[The whole group]

[Even though this picture was Kuulei's idea, she still blinked]

[The losers sing]

-JSF