red is for port green is for starboard (except in the USA)

Tuesday 19th September

Yesterday we learnt all about the international code of signals which is a flag for every letter Alpha through to Zulu. They are all different colours and patterns and all have different meanings from "I've got a pilot onboard" to "I am on fire and have dangerous cargo on board, keep clear!". We have to learn them all along with the Morse code for each letter and the phonetic(Thanks Grandad for teaching me those years ago it reduces my workload!). We will be tested on them in week 4. Today in the same lesson (Bridge and Deck watchkeeping) we learnt all about buoyage and how it varies around the world (typically the Americans have a different system to the rest of us!!). We were informed that this was the only lesson we will have on buoyage throughout our cadetship so we all payed attention! We have to be able to recognise all shapes and colours of buoy (there are loads of them!) and know what they mean, what light they show, and what pattern this light flashes.
Its all rather confusing as the differences between them are sometimes subtle and often the meaning is reversed if they are in a different part of the world. It all boils down to how we and our US counterparts speak. Whereas we would say "Keep the Port Marker to port" the Americans would say "Pass to port of the Port Marker" hence the confusion! We have also been learning about all the red tape we will have to complete at sea in order to maintain the ship and her crew. Ships officers evidently become very good at filling in paperwork. It would appear the IMO (International Maritime Organisation) in all their wisdom think that Navigating and managing the ship is not enough of a workload as we will also have to produce, risk assess, and sign a permit to work every time a sailor needs to change a light bulb. One which he has probably changed many times before. I am not really a fan of "risk assessments" etc but there are many many deaths each year when seemingly simple tasks are carried out without the correct equipment or safety gear. So perhaps I wont begrudge it too much. After all changing a light bulb at home is easy, changing a rusty navigation light up a 20ft mast on a platform thats rolling and pitching cant be very easy.