SST: May 24, 2009
24 May 2009
Another beautiful day at sea. Partly cloudy skies with unrestricted visibility. SW winds of 8 to 14 knots with gusts to 22 knots, wind gradually shifting to NW Sunday evening. Minimum Temperature: 68F/20C, Maximum Temperature: 77F/25C, Sea Water 68F/20C. During the night we advanced one hour to Mid-Atlantic Time and are now separated by three hours from New York. Today we celebrated Caner Ozdogan’s birthday.
Sundays are well-deserved days of rest for cadets, crew, and officers. No classes! No work details! Watches are still kept, of course, and necessary work continues. But for the most part everyone gets the day off to relax and do what they wish. There’s an inspection in the morning, so it was good to see students in their dress uniforms for awhile at least. I celebrated the Holy Eucharist on the Sun Deck at 1000 hours for a group of officers and cadets. I was ably assisted by Cadet Roy Mulwhinney, a member of Maritime’s lacrosse team. Roy helped me arrange the altar and then he read one of the lessons during the service. Next week I’ll train him to be an acolyte.
At 1100 an all-day barbeque began on the Sun Deck. Our dedicated Chartwell’s staff was out in force grilling hot dogs, hamburgers, and chicken. They continued doing that for most of the afternoon and then changed the menu to steaks for dinner. Cadets came up when they were hungry and picnicked on the main deck and fantail. It was a joyful scene.
At 1700 I conducted another Holy Eucharist in the Officers’ Lounge; this time with Cadet Patrick Houst, another lacrosse player, assisting. Afterwards, at 1900, I went to the Cadet Lounge to give the cadets and crew a talk on “Everything Azores,” focusing on highlights of the island of São Miguel and what kind of activities cadets can look forward to when they’re ashore on liberty. Afterwards, students settled in to watch the two movies being shown for the night, Tropic Thunder and Ocean’s Thirteen.
Fr. John Farrell
Chaplain
