I was on the USCGC Polar Sea (WAGB11). That's a real tub, I'm sure the AGB stands for Arctic Garbage Barge. Also called her the Polar Roller, and a few more colorful nicknames. Just a rotted out piece of junk through and through. Designed back in the 70's to be an icebreaker. Spend a few months breaking ice and everything rattles loose and shakes itself apart. She had a tendency to burst sewage overboard pipes and flood the motor room. Or diesel 2 would catch fre. Cover plates for the screws (propellors) tended to crack causing us to leak hydraulic fluid into the ocean. They were CPP. Handled heavy seas like a football in a swimming pool thanks to her icebreaking hull design. 15 foot swells would make her heave over 40 degrees. Lots of power, no speed. Everything was set up for torque, we went everywhere at 12 flippin knots. Since she was the worst duty in the Coast Guard for a FS (cook) to have we got served by the reject cooks that couldn't hack it at any other command. Mealtime was a culinary adventure. We used to live on Ramen Noodles we'd cook ourselves.
On this delightful bucket of rust I reported aboard as a Fireman. Which intitially wasn't bad duty. Until we got underway. I found out that when the boat is in drydock and shut off things don't break. Out at sea it's a constant battle of leaks, breakdowns, and band aiding the thing back together to limp her along. It was such a relief to do a month of messcooking to not have to deal with the constant headaches of keeping the engineering plant going. I had thought of striking Boatswains Mate in the deck department, but I wound up striking Electricians Mate instead. That was brutal, Polar Seas primary propulsion was diesel electric, and it had way more parts than necessary. Lot's of sleepless nights. It seems that we would lose a shaft at around 0230, go figure. Made it all the way to EM2 before I got out.
Being underway on the Polar Sea was like prison. Bad food, small places, non-stop labor, constant peril for your life because the darn thing kept breaking at the most inopportune time (a gale is a bad time to lose 2 shafts), couldn't leave, one cruise we had no port calls because we kept leaking hydraulic fluid. 6 months at sea, no port calls. Unless you call fueling at Mc Murdo station a port call. It was horrible.
Arctic Garbage Barge is right.
Then I got my ticket as a ships engineer and went to work for Carnival. Taxiing drunks around on the Spirit. She wasn't such a bad boat. Surprisingly weatherly, had her up around Alaska a few times and she handled those turbuent waters well. Not as clean in the engine room as the accomodations decks would have you believe. Overall not a bad experience, mainly hung out in the ECC. Most of the engineering plant can be operated remotely. Everything worked, things got fixed.
Sailed for a bunch of different commands under MSC. That was a real mixed bag. The skipper could be suffering from delusipns of grandeur (it's 1943 and I'm on the bridge of the greatest battleship ever!) or be a burned out wasted hulk of a man. I don't think MSC was all that picky about who crewed and commanded their ships. Warm body and a pulse were the primary requirements. The ships were generally in good order and the berthing was decent. The food was better than what I was eating on Spirit most of the time. We went some wacked out places though. I'm northern European, I don't handle that 120 degree Persian Gulf get the Navy ship it's toilet paper mission too well. That was brutally hot. I think they gave us whacked out Port Calls to cut downon MSC sailors catching a commercial flight home. I had quarterdeck watch in Bahrain. No pistol, no rifle, no stick, nothing. I figured if some bad guys wanted to board the ship and take it over I'd just jump over the other side and start swimming. Screw it.
Sometimes the drills got a little ridiculous. We were 500 miles south of Hawaii and the XO pitches Oscar overboard at 0100 for a man overboard drill. He lets the Polar Sea steam on til 0200 til he sounds the drill. Great, Oscar is somewhere behind us (Oscar is a mannequin in a Mustang suit), it's dark, and we're all very tired. Launched both helos and started the search pattern. Unfortunately Oscar was unconscious and unable to signal us with his strobe. We searched and seached and finally found him at 1700. We spent 15 hours with helicopters in the air searching for a mannequin. Millions of tax payer dollars at work. At least we were ready to do a SAR mission. With a Polar Class Icebreaker. Right...
I broke it down like this once. 96% of the time underway is spent being numb, bored, or miserable, 1% is spent in sheer mortal terror because the engine room caught fire again or something flooded or whatever, 1% of the time you feel like going onto the bridge and captains cabin with an axe, and 2% of the time you have an incredible high from something you've seen or done. My theory is that those of us that like the sea are addicted to the 2% high.
Mostly though, being underway is a miserable existence a lot like being in prison. It's like one of those semi-cushy federal prisons. But a prison none the less.