a reception for Transportation persons from Sector Houston .
One last day of liberty and my first day of cooking breakfast . At Quarters , I was presented with an Eagle crew cover ( baseball cap ) and spent the remainder of the day on liberty .
On Wednesday , June 15 , we left Galveston , accompanied by huge tugboats and a flotilla of Coast Guard boats from the local station .
For this leg of the trip , I was assigned to the wardroom galley . The galley was self-contained with a griddle , two stove “ eyes ”, refrigerator , oven , sink and dishwasher / sterilizer . Every day , I woke up at 4-thirty a . m . and was at work by 5 a . m ., to make coffee . Sometimes the crew beat me to the coffee pot and made the coffee ahead of time . Cadet mess cooks reported for duty and they set the table with silverware , glasses , water , juice and secured the breakfast meats and potatoes from the main galley . I cooked eggs to order , breakfast sandwiches , pancakes , French toast or whatever was
Flag Cabin dining .
their breakfast order and plates are prepared individually and served to them at the table . For lunch and dinner , this is repeated except that all the foods , except salads are prepared in the main galley . We were responsible for making fresh salads . After each meal , we washed all plates , silverware and serving dishes as well as cleaning the wardroom .
When we are at sea , we can do laundry on the ship . My first a�empt was an interesting misadventure — I put my clothes in the officer ’ s washing machine and while it was washing them , the water on the ship was turned off for Damage Control training .
on the menu . Officers come to When the water was turned Auxiliarist the door ofDavid the galley Green , place demonstrates back the on , the machine wouldn ’ t neapplication developed by Auxiliarist O ’ Connor using his iPhone . go into spin cycle . After several a�empts to reset it , a crew member helped me take the soaking wet clothes out of the machine , up a deck , across the next deck and put them into another machine in the crew laundry room . I was advised not to overfill the machine with clothes as ODU ’ s are
very heavy when wet and that combined with the movement of the ship , can cause a toploading machine to become unbalanced and stop working .
There are a lot of conventions that govern shipboard life . All the fresh water we used at sea was desalinated from ocean water by reverse osmosis ( RO ), so wasting water was not an option when you have 200 souls onboard . To conserve water , all the “ heads ”
OVER THE BOW USCGAUX FIRST DISTRICT SOUTHERN REGION - WINTER 2023 17