Last night the training continued until around 1840. With the sun setting the first day was complete.  Today is our second day of UWT and everyone is excited for it! It started promptly at 0800 with a similar rotation as yesterday. Hopefully today we will conclude the training rotations -- if not it will be pushed out another day, but should not affect liberty.

Down in the warm engine room there was a lot going on, the engineers were answering the bells as they would go off. The ringing of the bells is very interesting to hear, each on means a change in speed of the vessel and the engineers must match the requested speed. Once they do that it takes some time for the speed to get to the requested speed. If it is not done in time the bridge will call down to see what happened and why it was not done in time. This is a great opportunity for engine cadets to learn how to respond quickly to a request. The ship will then slowly come to a stop and the process will be set up again.

Meanwhile other engine cadets were busy doing their daily tasks as needed. Some of these are taking soundings of fuel tanks as prior to and right after the transfer process. Some were throughout the ship doing tasks that came up throughout the day.

On the bridge there was a lot of activity as well. The cadets were up there working diligently calling the course and steering the vessel. Once there they would adjust as needed to ensure they were on course. This would happen throughout the day and go into the evening.

This Sunday the BBQ is on the schedule as well as the man overboard drill (MOB). This drill is very fast paced, and is an important one should a MOB occur. The goal is to get the person out of the water quickly, especially if the seas are rough or cold.

We are less than two days away from our port call in Honolulu and about 3 weeks from home. Everyone is excited and looking forward to having liberty, which we were not certain we would be able to get.  Some of the cadets  have some exciting plans.