Don't rock the boat baby!

Dont rock the boat I am on the usns mercy ship sailing away from Guam now! We left from Guam yesterday and so far no sea sickness! 

Emily Blotter and me before we boarded the Mercy for the first time!

Krystal and I made it!

Jenni our fearless driver in Guam

Party vehicle

Talofofo falls aka tourist trap

kind of pretty?

Swimming!

Sushi birthday dinner, the best!

Everyone is really friendly and helpful. All the navy uniforms are a bit intimidating At first but everyone is very approachable. Actually if you imagine top gun or pearl harbor with more of a navy emphasis thats what everyone looks like, so lots of josh hartnett eye candy everywhere! There are about eight other NGOs here besides the lds charities group that I am with. There are also people from the Canadian and Australian navy forces.  There are people from the air force, army, and marines too. It really is a joint humanitarian effort. Everything is in military time and punctuality is being 15 minutes early, which I guess will help me be more on time to things now. We wake up at 5:30 to go workout ( actually more like three different times a day we go to pt- physical training because besides meetings there isn't a lot to do) and then to chow(eat) as they call it!

Eating Chow in the mess decks

After that we muster, yes that is part of the navy lingo I am learning, which basically means to report for duty and roll call.  We then have to clean the berthing area (where we sleep on racks) and we  have to have our beds nice and neat looking. I am on the top bunk of three, so I am very close to the ceiling, which makes it a bit challenging to make my bed for sure.

 We have little curtains to close off our beds to block the light so we can sleep too. The ship has a ton of stairs! There are 81 just to get from the berthing area to mess deck, which we go up at least three times a day. Luckily all of the stairwells are color coded so you can figure out where you need to go, kind of like the different metro lines.  I am still a bit nervous about what I will have to do for the nursing aspect of it all but we are doing a lot of training next week before we reach country.  I am assigned to the casualty receiving area, kind of like an ER triage. I am eager to get started on it all though and start working! I feel extremely privileged to be here learning from people with lots of experience and knowledge. I don't know yet if I will be able to do any medcaps( getting off the ship to do clinics in country) but I hope I'll get to do at least one to make my JEV worth while. All the updates on navy life for now! Signing off civilian Whitney RN