The Hottest Place on Earth

After my lesson in Marine weaponry...

We headed down into the engine rooms. OK. This was just nutty.

You've gotta remember... these guys get excited when they see "double digits" in the weather. Yeah... it's THAT hot outside all the time. And the water was 96º. That's not so good with helping cool down the ship... especially when their AC's keeping breaking on 'em. The Nassau had 4 of their 5 AC's down just a few days before we got there. 3 of the 5 were back up and running by the time we were on board. But I can't even imagine how hot it must have been for a while.

So THEN if you work in any of the engine rooms.... you might as well just surrender to the fact that you will have to live in a pool of your own sweat 24/7.

The first few rooms were really hot - you could visibly see the AC - it looked like fog blowing out of the vents... but it was just so hot in the room that the difference in temp was actually visible in the air.

I couldn't help but notice all the metal around me as we're walking around. I could touch it momentarily for walking up and down the stairs... but it's like a really hot plate out of the microwave... you can only handle it for a second at a time, or you get burned.

These poor guys literally have more sweat on their uniforms than they do dry spots. Right here, we are standing in front of the windows where you can see the fires that are all burning, turning water into steam for use on the ship... so... not exactly the "cool down" area.


These are the guys that are literally "sweating it out" to make sure the ship is moving properly. And yet somehow they had the most high spirits and were just giving each other a hard time for who got the better autographed picture. :)



And here... we are being told where we are about to go... apparently this wasn't that hot yet. (If you click on these pics it makes them larger... if you blow this one up, you can see the look on my face of - "Are you serious? It's about to get HOTTER than it is right this second?")


There's... this... room... I can't tell you much about this room because I think my body was in such shock, I couldn't possibly retain the information being given to me. I don't know what you have to do in this room when you work there... All I know is... the thermometer read above 143º I'm NOT kidding.


These guys work in 5-6 hour shifts and I don't even understand what that would be like. Maybe once. But every single day? This is the room you have to work in? It's mind boggling. They were all laughing at us because we were such wusses about touching the metal. But come on! All the nerves in my hands are still there!!! I haven't burnt them out by working in this room and having to touch things for the last 6 months. I mean - you can imagine how narrow and steep the stair cases would be on a ship like this. So there's no way to climb up or down without holding on... I mean, I tried not to hold on... but they felt sorry for me and had to hand me handkerchiefs to use on the railings. When I got to the bottom, I threw them back up to the top for the next guy. The Sailors thought that was soooo funny. :) But I'm cool with swallowing my pride on that one. I just couldn't do it.

So at this point it was about 3:30 and the show started at 4. :) The Colonel was SOOOO sweet and offered up his private quarters as a place where I could get ready quickly. It was amazing. And THANK GOODNESS they gave me the coolest hat in the world! I needed it after being in the hottest room in the world. I don't think I've ever been more excited about wearing a hat in my life. It SAYS NATALIE on it! SERIOUSLY?!?!? It's the official USS Nassau hat with my own name on it. Yeah. That rocked.

After that crazy tour, I knew I was for sure gonna have to dedicate a song to ChEng - the Chief Engineer of the ship. He had told me earlier in the day how much of a bluegrass fan he is. So of course, we did a little Orange Blossom Special in the show. :)

Tomorrow I'll be able to load some of the pictures from this epic show!!! :)

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie