Hello to everyone!
Today is our last day of training! We graduate tonight. Unfortunately one of the things we have learned since being here is that your MMD Card (Merchant Marine Document) is not something you get once you complete training . It is a card similar to a military ID that must go thru Homeland security, Department of Transportation and 3 other government agencies for approval. Very few people receive their card in less then 3 weeks....some poor unfortunates have been here at Piney Point more then 10 weeks awaiting their card. (that means $50 dollars a week, one pass a week to go to Target, and the same exact breakfast every morning!) Fortunately for us, they are closing down the training facility here and sending us all home to await the arrival of the magic card that means we can go to work! We think we will be sent home next week if our cards have not been printed so maybe we will see some of you soon!
By far, our most exciting day of training was yesterday. We did the firefighting and water skills portion of our training. This meant that we got to put on full fire gear and put out fires! We used two different fire extinguishers and then the big fire hose. We also got to crawl around on the ground looking for bodies in a pitch black cabin/maze. We were very thankful that we had a cloudy cool morning because those suits are hot. I have a whole new appreciation for the real guys who go climbing up ladders and stairs in all sorts of weather in full gear. Not an easy job by any means.
After lunch we practiced hauling people into life rafts, flipping over life rafts and putting on the oh so entertaining survival suit. These are required on ships that go into cold water so we won't have them in Hawaii but none the less we had to get them on in less then 60 seconds. As you can see in the pictures they were one size fits all and that size was Andre the Giant size. :-)
We are having fun and have enjoyed meeting and talking with a lot of our classmates. We have attended Bible Study several times and it has been very good. Internet is very poor here so we have not been able to get on-line very often. We hope that Internet access is better on the ships so that we can keep this updated and e-mail people more!
Matt and Steph
1 comment:
I'll entrust my life to the Kinter's on a boat :)Looks like there has been some fun along with a lot of work too!
If you need any help with the blog you can ask us. Ryan's a tiny bit expert I suppose.
Big bummer on the card thing. Praying it all is quick for you. If they DO send you home next week and you're at PDX on saturday maybe we'll bump into one another as we fly out to FL that day. That would be very cool. Though very very unlikely :)
Missed flight? Not fun. Praying for you guys!
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