We finally made it to St. Louis about 11:30 but had to wait on the tug to bring the crew we were replacing over and take us to the boat. It is laid out a little differently from my training boat but I have a big galley and pantry. The only thing I'm concerned about is the sleeping quarters are on the other side of the Engine Room, which could make for some noise when we are moving!! Right now we are on barge patrol, cause the river is so high that they aren't moving many barges. We move around checking the twenty or so tows they have built making sure they are secure. But for the most part we are sitting still. The cook left us a baked ham and some veggies for lunch.
I put my bags in my room and went to work in the galley. The cook I'm replacing isn't the regular cook. She had gotten some groceries, but there isn't much meat to choose from. Luckily the Chief and Leadman like to grill. We are going to grill porkchops tomorrow and smoke a butt on Thursday. That will get us to the weekend, Fish Friday, Steak Saturday and Chicken Sunday.
I finally got to my room and got unpacked about 8:30. It's been a long day so I'm hitting the hay and 3 AM comes early!!!!! I love my job but I hate 3 am.
Wednesday afternoon:
These guys aren't breakfast eaters either. So I made Breakfast sandwiches and wrapped them up. When I came back after my morning "rest", they were all gone. But they made up for it at lunch!! We grilled porkchops. I brought along some of the rub we used at Outtatown and they ate them up. I have a two butts marinating in the frig for lunch tomorrow. We are gonna put it on after dinner tonight. I made Cases's cookies and they were eating them faster than I could take them off the pan.
We still haven't moved anywhere, so I'll tell you more about my crew. I'm sure as time goes on I will be able to add details.
- Ray is our trip pilot. He is really laid back, been out here a long time. Looks to be in early fifties maybe, married. All his kids are grown and gone. I wish we could keep him but the guys really would like to have Eddie back. He is getting close to retirement though and if they tie us up again to replace the engines with bigger ones he probably won't be back.
- Pilot Miles is a long tall drink of water!! lol He is a good ole boy from Florence, AL. He is divorced and has a daughter that is a freshman at UNA and a 15 year old son. He says his girlfriend wants a baby so he's probably about to start over again. The Chief says that Miles may be our regular pilot cause he is training for the Lower Mississippi.
- Sean is the Chief Engineer and is the friend of the Chief, Randall, that I trained with. Super nice guy-35, married with an 8 year old and 3 month old. He lives in Fancy Farms, Kentucky.
- Teno is the Mate and man oh man, he is a worker!! He is a 5'3" ball of energy and is constantly cleaning something. He takes great pride in the boat and his job. He has been very nice so far. He is really conscience of the rules and we've done a different drill everyday after lunch. He's missing a couple of front teeth so he has a little lisp. I think he is a Italian Cajun!! He told me today that he has been married for two years but she is in prison!! I didn't ask for what.
- Tyrone is the Lead Man and he is really quiet. I know he is from near Mobile and is married, but he doesn't volunteer a lot of information. He told me if the boat tied up that they were taking me with them!! Supreme compliment for a tug boater to a cook! lol
- The three mates are a trip, Justin, DeRon and Gary. Justin and DeRon are good friends on land and live near each other near Birmingham. Justin is the baby of the group at 23 and always has something going. He helped me with some cleaning. I told him he didn't have to, but he says their job is to take care of the cook so she can take care of them. Love that!!
- Deron is a big (300 lb) teddy bear. I think he is 26. He is always planning his next big thing. He was late the first morning and then we had to turn around and go get his computer out of his truck. He is the resident computer and Internet guru. We are now FB friends!
- Then there is Gary, an over the hill hippie type that wears Harley Davidson do-rags and has a ponytail and sorta scraggly beard. He's on backwatch so he has my coffee made every morning when I get to the galley. That makes him AOK in my book. But bless him, the others give him a hard time, cause he's been everywhere, done everything, seen every sight and has a story to tell about it. This morning he told a story bout his girlfriend , but this afternoon, he talked about his wife. One of the guys asked him when he got married since we've been on the boat all week. He said she was his common law wife cause in Illinois it was five years. One of the other guys reminded him that they've only been together for 2 years. Like I said, Bless him.
Thursday:
We placed our grocery order and they said it would be tomorrow before we got it. I hope it is before lunch cause the former cook only left about 7 fillets in the freezer. I am going to strip them and have frog legs and Garlic Shrimp to fill out the menu just in case. Teno calls in the order. That makes me a little nervous, cause I would like to talk to the supplier and make sure they know what I want!!! I know, control freak.
Still tied up. Teno and the guys have been cleaning the stacks and decks constantly because of the disel build up. Since we are just idling mostly the engines don't get cleaned out and the smoke is black. The Pilot, Miles, says he is going to roll the engines (rev them to clean them out. Sorta like blowing the soot out of a car engine.)
Friday night:
Spent the day cleaning and rearranging the pantry. Groceries didn't get here until after 5 pm. At least, it wasn't midnight. I have the steaks marinating for tomorrow and they are massive ribeyes. They have to be 2 inches thick!!! Luckily no one wants theirs well done. I have marinated some chicken breasts like we did at Outtatown and we gonna grill them up as well.
It is official. The crew says I get to stay. I did a Shrimp Boil for dinner with corn and potatoes. DeRon made a picture and put it on FB. He said he wanted folks to know back home how he good he was eating. Justin says he can't mention me anymore to his girlfriend cause he bragged on my cooking too much and made her mad!! Haha
They tell me if I can grill a steak and fry chicken I can write my own ticket!! Hot damn, its nice to be appreciated!!
Saturday afternoon:Holy crap!!! Miles cleaned out the engines about 2:00 am this morning!!! I thought the boat was coming apart and they forgot to come get me. My windows rattled (pretty scary), my bed was vibrating (not so scary) and I thought the engines were coming through the wall (amazingly scary)!!!! Told him this morning that we would be checking the smoke detector outside his room tonight about 8:30 pm!!!! Everyone thought it was quite funny but me! Teno says that's what it will sound like all the time when we are going upriver. Told them I was moving from the ghetto on the first deck to Upper East side on the second deck!! They told me I could, but I would have to give up my big room and new TV they ordered me. Sean just put speakers in for me in my ceiling. So I guess I'll suck it up and try to sleep. We lived at the end of the runway of Memphis International Airport in Southaven and I got use to that!!!
Steaks were a hit! Sean grilled for me today. We also cooked hamburgers, BBQ'd some bologna, and some hotdogs along with the steak and chicken. They can choose when they want their steaks so I have to cook three tonight. I'm going to peel the leftover shrimp and heat it up in some garlic butter, also. This afternoon I have made some Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies and Cherry Cobbler.
I have to go get my Easter baskets for the crew ready for tomorrow. I just did little ones since they are all away from home for Easter. I asked them if they wanted something besides fried chicken since it was Easter and the vote was NO. I brought a tablecloth and Easter napkins to set the table cause after all they are just big kids!!!
Till later..........
No comments:
Post a Comment