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.