A first for everything...

That there is. This past weekend was a huge pile of firsts for me. It was my first time ever being underway on a cutter, first time driving a single engine jet drive boat, first time ever notching said small boat, first time pulling alongside a moving cutter, yada yada yada..... you get the point. I will say that I drove the small boat alot better the second day than I did the first. I got quite a few complements.

The whole weekend was kinda bitter sweet. We all came together as a crew and got to go underway as a crew for the first time. It was all done on Easter Weekend. Ya it kinda sucks working the holiday, but I honestly wished we had more days underway. Those 3 days are all we got for at least another month and a half. The days were long and all of us were exhausted, but it felt good.

Sunday after training we were invited to a retired officers house. This is the guy who gave us extra tickets to the Championship game and is also the cousin of Thad Matta. Mark and his wife are such a riot. They had a shrimp boil for us. Of course we were late to get there but that only meant that it was ready for us. I don't know about the rest of the crew, but I had a great time. We were exchanging stories, drinking some beer, talking about Ohio State, and eventually he brought out the shots. I only hope I can be as salty as him when I retire.

Louisiana Bayou in the early morning