Safety First!

Safety is very important when we are out here in the ocean because we are over a day's steam from dry land and help! We can't just dial 9-1-1 if there is a problem, so everybody on the ship has to work together in an emergency situation. We do regular training drills on the ship so we know what to do if there is a fire or if we have to abandon ship or if somebody falls overboard. The ship's crew also instructed us how to launch the lifeboats in case of an emergency. When we hear the ship's whistle for the abandon ship drill, we all have to meet, or muster, to get a head count and make sure to bring our life vests, long pants, a long sleeve shirt, and a hat for sun protection to prepare for a situation in which we would be left bobbing around in the water for a while. The ship also provides immersion suits, or "Gumby suits," which are not the easiest things to put on (check out our video!), but they would keep us warm and floaty if we had to jump ship.



When we are working on deck deploying a mooring, we have to be very safety conscious as well. We wear steel-toed boots because there is a lot of heavy equipment out on deck that could fall on our feet. We also wear work vests, which are not quite as bulky as life vests, but would still provide flotation in case we were to fall overboard while working on deck. The ship has 2 cranes aboard to help us move around our big, heavy equipment. Whenever we are moving things around we have to make sure to hold the equipment using tag lines (check out the photo) so it doesn't swing out of control when the ship moves with the waves. And of course, we always wear our (PINK!) hardhats.