Because the running costs of keeping the ship out here are so astronomical (on the order of 100k a day apparently), we can’t afford to work normal office hours.
The JR has to be kept ticking over 24 hours a day, or it’d take an extra two months to achieve our drilling objectives. And you guys - the taxpayers - probably wouldn’t be too keen on that…
So we’ve all been split into two shifts, either the day shift (12 midday to 12 midnight) or the night shift (12 midnight to 12 midday).
A few lucky souls get the 6am to 6pm shift, and a few very unlucky souls get the 6pm to 6am shift (yuk), but most of us have one of the equally awful 12-12 slots.
Standing on deck in the middle of the night is a bit scary. The hum of the engines, the strangely lit catwalks and dark rushing water all around. Makes you very aware that if you fall in… well, you’re not coming back… ::gulp::
I’ve been put on the night shift, which is requiring a total reorganisation of my body clock. And the poor thing has already been shifted all over the shop in the last fortnight…
Firstly, the 8-hour time difference between London-Tokyo and the associated jet lag, meant that I basically rolled from one daytime straight into another one without a proper sleep. That was fun.
Then we lost an hour two days ago as we steamed east into another time zone. So we went straight from 11.59am to 13.00, which meant eating lunch in double fast time!
And now, my working day starts at midnight; which means I try to go to bed at around 3pm in the afternoon, wake up at 10.45pm, shower and eat breakfast at 11-ish and then get into the lab at about 11.45pm to do the handover from my counterpart in the day shift.
And it feels weird. Really weird.
I guess the major perk is that I’ve got to see the first sober sunrise of my life. And way out here with no buildings or trees, it’s truly spectacular:
I’m finding it especially hard to make my body go into shutdown mode in the middle of the afternoon, when it’s really bright outside and I feel like sitting in the sunshine on deck. I think the trick may be to just go straight to bed after your shift ends without going outside, but then you wouldn’t get to laze on deck whale-watching….
(I am approaching 86% on the how-much-does-your-life-resemble-The-Life Aquatic-scale. No Jaguar Shark as yet though…).
Meals are served four times a day at 5am-7am, 11am-1pm, 5pm-7pm and 11pm-1am. And you can get a choice of delicious meals at pretty much any of those times.
However, it was quite baffling being asked – 25 minutes after I had woken up yesterday evening and was trying to get into morning mode – “so do you want a steak young lady?”
A steak, for breakfast?
What do you take me for… an American??
You, and doubtless the whole of Blighty, will be pleased to know I declined and plumped for some toast and a pot of raspberry conserve instead.
x
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