The Academic phase is over!!!

Today was our final exam for the academic phase of MARS III. I won't have my mark for a couple of days, but feel confident that I did well on it. It feels a little surreal that we are finished this part already, although not a day too soon at the same time. It has been full out every day since it began. The rewards to the efforts have been worth it so far as I am third highest in the class of 21 for marks so far. We leave for our sea phase next Thursday. We will spend the first weekend in Ladysmith and the second in Vancouver; returning here on Wednesday, June 9. From there, we continue doing runs in the simulator for two weeks and on the third, we are assessed on our runs in three positions (Officer of the Watch, Second Officer of the Watch and Navigation Officer). I am looking forward to the sea phase; putting together all the things that I have learnt over the past 7 weeks.

We now have a PMQ!!! Now to get the movers sorted out and we will be ready to go! I can't wait to have my family out here with me. I miss them so.

What a day to feel proud to be in the Navy

Yesterday was the 100 year birthday of the Canadian Navy. Here on the west coast, 2750 members of the Canadian Navy paraded downtown Victoria to celebrate. This was combined with the Freedom of the City Parade which the Navy marches in every year since 1985. The number of citizens who turned out to support us was amazing. They applauded us and cheered us and yelled thanks to us. It really did make me feel proud to be part of the Navy.

Studying continues to go well. Two more days before my Tides/Astro/Time Zones exam. I am feeling very confident in this exam; but have no plans to let up on the studying. There is still a couple of us that get together every night and work together. So far, no one from our study group has failed an exam and we plan to keep it that way.

I hope everyone has a great day.

Half way through the academic phase

Week 4 of MARS III is now completed. The academic portion of the course is 8 weeks long. We wrote our second exam on Thursday on the subject "Rules of the Road" or sometimes called "Collision Regs". It is the rules that you must follow while on the sea or inland waterways. There was a huge amount of verbatim that had to be memorized and the pass mark on the test was 80%. I finished with a 91%. Really, just glad that I passed and don't have to worry about a re-write. Four of our guys (there are 21 of us) did fail it and will have to re-write. If they fail the re-write, the have to go in front of a Training Review Board to see if they can get re-coursed or if they are deemed unsuitable for MARS and have to find some other military occupation. I sure hope they all pass.

Our next big test is on Tides and Astronomic Theory. So far, I am not having any issues understanding it. The math is simple, but there are a lot of steps required to get to the answer; so I will be spending lots of time practicing this one so that I have it down cold by the time we write the exam (which is this Friday). After that we have Passage Planning which is now done on a computer program. The first couple of passages (based on historical data) will take us about 7 hours to complete, and once we get used to it, some may get it down to as low as 4 hours to plan one passage. We will be doing a lot of these on our sea phase, which starts May 27 for 2 weeks.

We have a parade this Tuesday to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the Canadian Navy. The entire Pacific fleet will be marching downtown Victoria. It is a huge celebration day and there are a lot of events planned both by the city and at the various messes on base. The Chief of Maritime Staff has even directed the Navy to "splice the mainbrace". This is a long standing tradition spanning since the beginning of the Navy in which an issue of rum is given to every sailor. This is something that can only be directed by a very select few (usually the Governor General) and most of the sailors now serving can not remember the last time this was actually done.

The intensity of studying has been extreme, but I am not feeling overwhelmed by it. I think that it is because I have simply set my mind to putting in 110% to it and so far the rewards have been well worth it.

Have a great and sunny day.