Sea. School.

Charleston Sea School has come and gone and I must say it was a very exciting and enlightening week for me! To work on a boat over seas you are required to take a course known as the STCW (Standards of Training, Certification & Watch keeping for Seafarers) --- Basically a safety and training course for working on a ship. Class went from 9-6pm, Monday to Friday at the Charleston Sea School office in Mt. Pleasant.

Our teacher started the class by explaining to us the importance of what we would be learning over the course of the week; because this information isn't just important for our jobs, or the safety of our crew, but it is crucial for the safety of our lives. He put it into perspective by making us realize that Anything can happen when you are 300 miles out on the water, so you have to be prepared for Anything since it could be days before anyone might be able to reach you. This includes fires, bad weather, injuries and sinking. So this course pretty much covered it all!

Day 1 & 2: We covered all the general rules, regulations and procedures of living and working on the ocean. There is a lot more involved than I realized!...everything from responsibilities of each crew member, laws of the ocean, pollution, alarms and procedures for fires, abandon ship, man overboard....I won't bore you, but you get the idea. Very useful stuff!

Day 3: CPR & First Aid...obviously not my favorite, but Hey!...I made it through with out puking or passing out, so I did good!

Day 4: Fire Safety & Training --- I have gained so much respect for our firefighters...they make it look so easy, but man it is Tough!!

We first got suited up with our boots, pants, jackets, hats and gloves. That alone is a task. And that's before you even get started with the oxygen tank and mask! All in all, the attire weighs about 150lbs and you should be able to suite up in under a minute. Luckily we weren't timed because I'm not sure I could have made it. Plus it was pouring rain, so we had the added weight and inconvenience of being soaking wet!

We had to learn how all the equipment works and about each 'class' of fire and what to use to extinguish it. We put out a propane fire, electric fire and a general house fire. The house fire was the most intense because we had to put on the oxygen masks, crawl through a building (with a team of 3 others), drag the fire hose, find a dummy and drag him out of the building, crawl up stairs to the second floor, find the fire and put it out!

Breathing through the mask was the scariest part for me. I was so afraid that my oxygen would malfunction or run out. When you are in a situation like that it is hard Not to breath super deep and quick...and then you start thinking you're gonna run out of air, so it makes you more anxious and you start breathing even deeper! We all did really well though and had a blast putting out fires. I couldn't do it for a living, but if I ever need to put out a fire on board I think I can handle it now!

Me putting out a propane tank fire!

The crew after a day of fighting fires.

Day 5: Water Safety & Training

Requirements included: treading water for 1 minute, being able to inflate the life raft and being aware of what tools come with it and their uses, being able to 'right' the raft (if it inflates upside down) by jumping on top and flipping it over, being able to board the raft with up to 8 people and being able to suite up in the 'life suite' and jump overboard in less than a minute.

Flipping the life raft right-side-up.

Wading around in our life suites after 'jumping overboard'.



All in All this experience was a very useful learning experience for what is to come. And like our teacher said, hopefully we will never have to encounter anything that requires us to use this knowledge, but if we do...we will know what we are doing.