Detour

Nothing is easy. This morning we got the news that a cadet had broken his
ankle while horsing around. The doctor deemed it serious enough that it
required getting him to a hospital ASAP. The injury was not so serious as
to require an airlift, but serious enough to get him off the ship. There
were two choices; turn around and go back to the Azores or proceed
northwest of our track to the nearest port with medical facilities, St.
John's, Newfoundland. The Captain decided that St John's would be our
best bet for keeping on our timetable to get back home on the 7th. We
made the turn and increased the ship's speed. We should arrive at St.
John's late afternoon on Monday and anchor in the harbor. The two Navy
medical corpsman on board will take the cadet ashore by launch and
accompany him to the hospital. It is assumed that he will be staying
there for treatment and then be flown home. We will then proceed home,
hopefully arriving on-time. I'll keep you posted.

So, I'll get to see another part of this earth that I've never seen,
Newfoundland. Newfoundland is Canada's easternmost province and its
newest, having only joined Canada in 1949. It consists of the large
island of Newfoundland and the mainland portion called Labrador. It is a
huge, sparsely populated region with a rich maritime history. St. John's
is the capital and most populous city. Strangely, off the coast of
Newfoundland, are two tiny islands that are the last remains of France's
North American colonial empire; St. Pierre and Miquelon. An odd thing
about Newfoundland that will affect us tonight is that it is in its own
time zone that is 3 hours and 30 minutes less than Greenwich Mean Time.
That means we set the clocks back 90 minutes tonight instead of the one
hour we were supposed to. We'll have to make up the rest of the 30
minutes another night this week.

On a related note, the Regimental Staff, when investigating the accident,
were displeased by the condition of the cadets living quarters. As a
punishment, the movies that I show every evening to the cadets in the
lounge outside of the library, have been suspended indefinitely. One less
job for me.

With all the excitement, our last Sunday at Sea continued as scheduled.
It was a beautiful, sunny day. The barbecue that Chartwell's food service
put on for us was as good as usual. Everyone enjoyed the food and the
rest. Six days to go.