You get used to it. It’s an 18 hour day that starts the second you leave. The outside world clock no longer applies. You do 6 hours of watch, off 12, rinse and repeat for a few months. In that 12 off, usually you have drills and maintenance and shit. So typically you get 5-6 hours of sleep. Then back on watch.
Once you do this for a month, you are so exhausted and in such a routine that time just kind of becomes a blur of watch, eating, drills, sleep. It becomes robotic. You forget where you are. The boat usually doesn’t move much like a ship does. It’s like working in a tiny smelly factory.
Being closed in didnt bother me. It was the calendar. Most people will never know what it’s like to have a few months ahead of them with no off days. No breaks. No weekend. It’s just watch after watch after watch. Sometime when you do the math you have 400 watches left. It’s a mental struggle.
You can go weeks without contemplating the real danger of what you are doing, that you are stuck in a tube 500 feet below the surface and every second the sea is trying to get in to kill you. Too tired to think about it.
It’s like volunteering to go to prison with no yard time or phone calls. Humans are adaptable creatures.
Damnit man! I’m gonna have nightmares now of being in a tube under water! Much respect and thanks for your service! I’m actually sitting here reading letters my father in law sent my mother in law during WWII and he describes the calendar the same way!!
You get used to it. It’s an 18 hour day that starts the second you leave. The outside world clock no longer applies. You do 6 hours of watch, off 12, rinse and repeat for a few months. In that 12 off, usually you have drills and maintenance and shit. So typically you get 5-6 hours of sleep. Then back on watch.
Once you do this for a month, you are so exhausted and in such a routine that time just kind of becomes a blur of watch, eating, drills, sleep. It becomes robotic. You forget where you are. The boat usually doesn’t move much like a ship does. It’s like working in a tiny smelly factory.
Being closed in didnt bother me. It was the calendar. Most people will never know what it’s like to have a few months ahead of them with no off days. No breaks. No weekend. It’s just watch after watch after watch. Sometime when you do the math you have 400 watches left. It’s a mental struggle.
You can go weeks without contemplating the real danger of what you are doing, that you are stuck in a tube 500 feet below the surface and every second the sea is trying to get in to kill you. Too tired to think about it.
It’s like volunteering to go to prison with no yard time or phone calls. Humans are adaptable creatures.
Damnit man! I’m gonna have nightmares now of being in a tube under water! Much respect and thanks for your service! I’m actually sitting here reading letters my father in law sent my mother in law during WWII and he describes the calendar the same way!!