Hi all,
Hope you're all well.
Sorry I've not been posting regularly; finding the time to sit down for any length of time is quite rare these days
.
Anyway, to sum up the past few months, it's been fantastic. I'm currently on the Clipper Ranger (2nd term now), and out of the ships I've been on so far it's been the best. I've had a massive amount of bridge watchkeeping time, which has been a great benefit, rather than being stuck on deck all day. I load cargo with the Chief Officer in the morning at Belfast (At ungodly hours
), fiddling with the stability and filling out the stowage plan, whilst he directs the wagons on (I think this should be the other way round, but I'm not complaining
).
Probably the best bit about the ship has been maneuvering - I was given the opportunity in April and since then I do it regularly. Eventually I was allowed to take her out of Heysham as well, which as some of you might know has an entrance, rather than just gliding straight down the channel as we do in Belfast, so for the first time it was quite daunting
...it's not like Ship Simulator where you can hit Esc on your keyboard when it goes to pot unfortunately, but so far it's gone well every time, so fingers crossed
. The Captain tends to take a back seat now and just watches me; I take her down the channel as well and then hand over to the 3rd Mate at the start of the sea passage.
Mark posted a few pictures of me taking her out of Larne for those who want a nosey:
http://80.95.161.114/shipsim/forum/index.php/topic,28285.0.html 
.
Anyway, take care, see you all soon.
Jack.
