jamie doom

A sketch I made of our captain last week. He is British. His arm got ruined, but he won’t say how.

Sorry if the above title seems over the top, but I keep getting new jobs and then realizing not long after that I’m a natural. Take my current new job. Marine Mammal Observer. I make sure endangered whales and turtles don’t get ruined.

I have only been working at this job for five weeks, and I am quite confident that not one endangered whale or turtle has been molested or harmed in anyway…at least not on my watch. That’s right, whales and turtles are now fleeing other parts of the Gulf of Mexico (say the parts where Alf is in charge of their safety) and hanging out near my boat where they know I will fight for them.

My job is extremely difficult, and it would take me hours of writing to give you a small glimpse of what it entails, but lemme try to briefly describe a typical day for me aboard my vessel.

A scene from a normal day at work. That’s me off on the side watching for whales and sea turtles.

5:40 AM Get out of bed. Brush my teeth (That’s right, I lived in China so I brush my teeth before I eat breakfast because Chairman Mao thought it was a good idea, and he was practically right about everything except metal smelting and bird killing, but I feel confident about the teeth brushing anyway).

5:50 Eat breakfast. I’m on a vessel that has lots of Norwegians so we have probably the best muesli in the entire Gulf of Mexico. And if you don’t know what muesli is, your parents probably spoiled you and let you eat whatever sugary cereal with cheap prizes that you wanted when you were growing up. In which case, I weep for you, your future and can only speculate the guilt your parents must be living with as I write this. And I hope you get out of prison soon. I eat one bowl of muesli, drink one glass of orange juice, and drink anywhere from seven to eleven cups of coffee.

6:10-6:12 Get rid of the coffee, muesli and orange juice. I’m not sure, but I think all this is due to the coffee. I won’t be crude here, but let’s just say some mornings I am required to flush more than once and have been known to have to flush as many as seven to eleven times.

6:15 Go up to the bridge and say good morning the First, Second and Third Mates. They are Filipino and let me tell you, that hemisphere should be glad Filipinos are so kind, generous, and peaceful. They are the chillest, downest brothers on the ocean. If they weren’t so smooth and felt like gettin’ all swoll’, Australians would be speaking Tagalog within three years.

6:16 Smoke my first cig of the day. It’s sad how weak I am, but without other comforts of life, smoking makes me feel a little…sunnier…a little more at ease. Then I go up on top deck above the bridge to my spot where I have a 360 degree view of the ocean. I must climb a ladder to my viewing station while holding my coffee, sun block, binoculars, notepad, pen, and q-tips (like smoking, having really clean ears makes me feel sunnier). But like the title to this post says so eloquently, I’m the best at this job. 6:22 Sunrise (I really don’t have anything to do with the sunrise, but I do note it every day and note the position it rises in relation to my boat. I see the sunrise before the entire state of Texas every day. Texans envy me, and as result I get a lot of Texan hate mail-Lance Armstrong has surprisingly good grammar. How do they have so much free time, what with all the people they have to execute every day?).

A picture I snapped of our vessel before we came out. I was forced to beat that smiling man in the picture down after he wouldn’t move out of the way while I snapped the picture. I explained to him that I was blogging this, but he was German and it was Florida, and he’s dead now. So I’m a real resident of Florida now I guess.

0635 I start noting things about the ocean on my notepad. I am required to make entries about the state of the ocean and the wildlife I observe several times an hour. I would do it even if I wasn’t required because the ocean is really interesting to right about…endlessly all day long. It’s funny, when I first started this job, I imagined my entries would be quite engrossing. I figured every seven week trip out on a boat, I would have a book…about the Gulf of Mexico and the stuff I saw floating in it. I imagined my entries every 15 to 20 minutes would read like Hemingway ( I would throw in references to Castro and baseball in between noting whales) or Jack London (gritty accounts of man’s temporary mastery over the sea). But alas, instead my entries read like Larry King’s column in the USA Today. “Four flying fish off our starboard stern. That Howard Stern sure is hairy. Sargassum floating by off our port beam. For my money, it doesn’t get any better than Golden Girls.” This is the only area of my job where I feel like I have failed in some way. And me failing is better than most people doing well. Trust me. I have read other peoples writing. They don’t even use complete sentences, and when they do the end of the sentence is usually where the prepositions are at.

6:45 Usually still doubled over in laughter at my own grammar jokes. I make grammar jokes to myself all the time when I am looking for whales, and boy do I crack myself up. Wow. I gotta compose myself here. Wow. Um….ok.

8:15-9:15 Off on break. I work two hours on and get a one hour break all the way until dark. Usually on my breaks I go down and check my email. We have two computers on our vessel for checking email. I can usually get on a computer. However if I walk in and two people are already on the computers, I have found that sighing loudly then slowly turning to walk back out the door is effective. Sometimes though, whoever is on the computer doesn’t look up from their Russian Brides or Filipino Friend Finder website no matter how loudly I sigh. These people are professional sailors and are not to be trifled with concerning internet usage. As a side, note, I was really bored one day, and some of those Russian Bride websites are great. I like to read the profiles because these girls are star actresses and models in Russia but willing to marry: “Any American man ages 26 - 59, weight 150-280 lbs, must be at least 5 feet tall.” Reading those personals make me feel like quite a catch. I now spend most of my free time playing hard-to-get with Russian Brides who may or may not look like their pictures which also happens to be the front cover of the Russian edition of Vogue.

11:30 All our chefs and stewards are Polish. Polish people are amazing chefs. Take my friend Brian Sonoskus. He is of Polish descent and nobody makes better shrimp and grits. Nobody. Anyway, these people are real Poles, not fake ones, like Brian. Lunch is always your choice of a red meat, poultry, or fish plus veggies, potatoes, chips (actually fries), salads, and rolls. To give you an idea of how difficult my job can be, let me tell you a short but tragic story. Last week the pastry chef was sick or lazy, and I had to eat one-day-old scones for tea, and then I noticed the homemade French rolls weren’t as flaky as I have come to expect. I almost jumped in the Gulf of Mexico and started swimming home right then. It was a disgrace. I eat a lot at sea because I have been told on numerous occasions the best way to keep from getting seasick is to keep your stomach full, and I don’t mess around with the seasick.

6:15 p.m. I go down from the top deck for the day after noting yet another amazing sunset. Sunsets are probably my favorite thing about the job. It’s the biggest perk, well, apart from my new Russian fiancée, Olga who also is a big fan of sunsets, and walks on the beach, and toilet paper, and American Idol. Three outta four isn’t bad.

6:16 Dinner. See lunch. It’s just better and more. I also like the ice cream selection at dinner a little more. A funny story about dinner: The other evening I was taking my plates and utensils to the dish room, and I dropped my knife which skidded across the floor and stabbed one of the British mechanics, who happened to be wearing sandals, in the foot. But luckily for me, since he was British, he was wearing big thick gray socks with his sandals, so he survived the ordeal with only mild discomfort. Also, I dropped a jar of maynonaise the other day. I put mayo on my fries…er chips. The French also have some good ideas,(when those ideas aren’t related to military strategy).

6:40-6:41 Google to see if there were any French military victories.

7:15 Working out in the fitness room. The treadmill in any type seas is tricky. On moment you are running up a hill. The next moment you are running down a hill. It’s tough with the free weights too. I feel either strong or weak depending on which way the boat is pitching. Walking smoothly on a boat takes practice. Rather than always walking too fast or too slowly, I just walk slowly all the time. This boat also has a crazy guy who comes into the work out room, turns on some type of fast-paced Punjab techno and jumps up in down for twenty minutes. Then he leaves. It freaks me out every time, and I keep my water bottle close by to squirt him in the face if he jumps too close to me. Anyway, after he leaves, I put my Pat Benatar CD back in, adjust my leg warmers and go back to sculpting my body.

Some of the crew hard at work. We have a saying on this boat. “Work hard, but work happy.” Our other saying is “Ramming speed.” Ben Hur is the type of camera I used to take this picture.

9:00 - 9:01 “Me time.” Because I have a cabin mate, Dan, (he’s a nice Hebrew boy, mom), I rarely have enough time to be alone and ponder how great an Marine Mammal Observer I really am. However during this time, I climb up on the ship’s foremast and let the world know. Sometimes, my cabin mate, Dan, comes with me, and of course at that moment it’s not “me time” anymore.

Dan and I clowning around after a hard day of work.

9:45 I go to sleep. Early to bed, early to rise keeps whales and sea turtles healthy, wealthy and unlobotomized. Plus I get really tired thinking about all those mammals and sea turtles counting on me.