Don’t forget to visit my other blog at http://teacheratsea.WordPress.com/category/Teachers/staci-deschryver to see what sorts of scientific shenanigans I’ve been up to! (Especially fellow educators and students if you are out there following!) I visited an underwater petting zoo! Now, if that doesn’t get you to visit that blog, I contest that you are a large curmudgeon.
In all reality, I did have a complete and total blast in the last two days, particularly during the attempted homicides, but let’s face it, it’s way cooler to talk about these sorts of activities as though I’m having a near-life experience. Which, I can say in absolute honesty, I did. Below is a verbal re-enactment of Death Match I. I figured I would go the Harry Potter #7 route on this installment, because there’s nothing like stretching out a good story.
The first portion of the morning was spent quietly eavesdropping on frightening topics such as fighting fires and avoiding getting racked by moving ship parts while milling about in your daily duties. Part of the training included an activity involving a shipwreck and fifteen survival items. I had to rank order the survival items by importance, 1 being the most important to 15, being the least. It was a friendly competition to see how well we ranked these necessary items in comparison to the experts. I won. This is a scary notion, in my humble opinion, though not overly surprising given my recent obsession with the impending 2012 apocalypse. However, I can’t quite put my finger on why the fact that I won was so frightening. I have narrowed it down to three plausible reasons, of which I would like you to be the judge.
Reason #1: I am a teacher on a boatful of sailors and burly crewpersons. Given my skill set, Charles Darwin indicates that I should be the first to go…not the first to survive.
Reason #2: I based my reasoning on item ranking specifically by determining which items could be used for starting and/or maintaining a fire…on a rubber life raft.
Reason #3: I didn’t really pay much attention to the importance of food because Bear Grylls says I can live for two weeks without it. I figured we would be picked up by then. (Some of you will be pleased to know that I did, however, place the 160 proof rum as #4 on the list above all other food items – but not for the reasons you suspect).
Not only did I get a really cool activity to use with my students (Thanks, XO!!) I did win a prize for my surviving efforts – a waterproof cigarette case, of which the contents would surely kill me long before the need to build a fire on a rubber life raft would. It’s actually a really cool case that can be repurposed for my wallet and/or various sundry items – I’m thinking a variety of fun-size candies will do well in a receptacle such as this. One should never sacrifice chocolate to the soggy-sea monster.
After a nice lunch, the afternoon took a turn for the fun. We went out on the back deck and watched a deployment of a survival raft. The lead safety officer chucked a barrel over the side of the boat where it crashed 28ish or so feet below on the water.
What’s really neat about these rafts is that they are self-inflated by carbon dioxide tanks attached to the side. I always wondered who drew the short straw in needing to blow up the life raft in the event of an emergency. It turns out the answer is nobody. They think of everything around here.
 |
| This is how the life raft is "packed". We got to use ones that recently expired so that we weren't wasting any money or expending life rafts that may need to be used later on. Yes. Life rafts have an expiration date. |
Now comes the part where they made their first attempt on my life.
The lead safety officer casually glances up at the crew and said “Who would like to don an immersion suit, jump overboard, and swim to the life raft?” I pondered for a moment. Do I want to put on a survival suit and jump into the ocean? A million questions flooded my mind.
Jump off the boat from 25 feet up? Are you kidding me?
Don a survival suit? No thank you, please. I am currently surviving just fine onboard this dandy seaworthy vessel, and see no reason to alter my current state.
Jump off a ship that’s working perfectly fine and swim to one that must be powered under my own capacities?
Do I suppose that school of jellyfish in the water below will sting?
Did I not just eat a delicious slice of pizza a mere twenty minutes ago? Aren’t there strict regulations against swimming for thirty minutes after a meal?
As I pondered all of these questions, I realized the most important consideration of all. If I’m going to jump off a boat, get stung by killer jellyfish, experience side bending post-meal cramps and drown, a Coast Guard base is probably the best place to do it. Meh. I guess that settles it. Do I want to don an immersion suit and jump into the water? Indeed, I do.
Thankfully, we moved down one deck for the jump, reducing the chances of death by about 15 feet. Not thankfully, I was informed by Ren, the Chief Medical Officer, that sometimes when too much air gets in your survival suit, you might, in fact, come up feet first, rather than head first. Great. So now I will jump before I know if I’ve secured my water wings to my arms or to my ankles. I may as well just grab them.
I’ve jumped off of high “things” before into water, but typically I avoid the balking that would ensue otherwise by refusing to look over the side so that I don’t know what I’m hucking myself off of until I’m mid-air and there’s nothing I can do about it. This policy has served me well in the past, particularly for the purposes of preserving the image of being an adrenaline-seeking beast. In this case, however, we had to walk carefully to the side of the rail, climb up, and do the one thing that would make my aforementioned beasty façade wilt like a daisy in a hothouse. I had to look down.
I didn’t know what to do. Do I climb back down, disrobe the gumby suit and watch in shame as those below gleefully splash about in the water? As I’m pondering my current state of affairs while balancing precariously on an eight inch rail, the CO of the ship (Commanding Officer – yeah, the big boss) who was in full scuba gear in the water for safety purposes says the word I could have waited all day to hear. “Clear!” Uh oh.
“Now?”
“Step out and away from the side. You’re clear.”
“It’s okay for me to jump now?”
“Yes. You’re clear.”
“So, I can jump down now?”
“Yeah, whenever you’re ready. You’re clear.”
Are you kidding me? I’m not ready…
“I’m gonna float, right?”
“CLEAR!”
I took one full breath, glanced around at all of the people in the water who were standing by for anything that could possibly go wrong, considered once again that I was on a Coast Guard Base swarming with people who would jump at the chance to save anyone stranded in the water – even me – and I climbed dejectedly off the ledge and back into the ship.
To those who know, it was a total HOLD IT! moment for me. This experience ranked in the top 3 things I’ve ever done.
Being in a survival suit in the water is like wrapping yourself in your own pool floatie. It’s not a wetsuit – I had pants and a sweatshirt on underneath and remained comfortably dry (for the most part) the entire time. Swimming is a bit cumbersome, but they recommend doing an elementary backstroke to get to where you need to go – in this case, the life raft. The immersion suit was so floaty that I thought I should require a pineapple drink to enjoy in the water, as all people who float this handily certainly do. I then realized I was there for experimental purposes and we were conducting a safety drill, so I snapped back out of it and rejoined the fun taking place in the ocean.
We got pulled in to the life rafts, we jumped out of the life rafts, we switched life rafts, we tested the capacity of the rafts by putting eight people into one, we practiced flipping them over and re-flipping them back again, practiced paddling from inside the raft to a specific location (which is actually really difficult) and paddled about with the jellyfish, which were actually moon jellies – the kind that don’t sting.
I have to say that climbing into the life raft and sitting cramped under a canopy with eight people was difficult enough on its own. I seriously don’t know how people can do it in rough or stormy seas. Rarely does a ship go down in the glass calm weather we practiced in today, and never around a network of people who were ready to jump in at the first sign of trouble. There are only two entrances (exits?) on the raft. We were basically huddled up in a giant kickball. I thought about what it would be like to be tossed around on the ocean with that many people essentially trapped inside the raft. I also recognized my gaff at prioritizing fire-starting items in a covered rubber environment for survival purposes. I have heard stories of rafts getting flipped with people inside who did live to tell the story, however I wondered what incredible miracles had to take place for them to be able to do so. I can assure you, when you hear those stories, the people who tell them have probably softened them to a great extent, as this situation is not for the weak of heart, stomach, or any organ, for that matter.
When we finally got out of the water, I asked one of the NOAA Corpsmen, Matt, how often they get to do something like this. He told me that they only get to do it about once every two years, and rarely off the back of a ship into the ocean. To my knowledge, Cat and I are the only Teachers at Sea who have had the chance to do this. The abandon ship drills are typically not so…ahem…involved. We usually bring our survival suits to the deck with the things we need and sometimes practice getting into and out of them so that we can remain well practiced at a skill that certainly needs to be on autopilot when things turn for the worse. I haven’t even done a standard abandon ship drill yet. I just flat out abandoned ship.
It was an extraordinary experience – both fun and sobering. Even though we have not left yet, we’ve experienced a lot of things that we otherwise would never have had the chance to do. I’m just glad I found the courage to participate. It made me really appreciate the dangers of this line of work. I always respected the stories of the people who have been through something as terrible as a ship sinking, but now that respect has another edge to it – I almost know the feeling. Almost.
No comments:
Post a Comment