Our second leg of our Summer Sea Term 2025 cruise has been really fun! During this leg to Belfast from New York, we saw a lot of whales, flying fish, and other marine life. We also recently just hit our halfway point, which means Maine Maritime cadets switched deck/engine focuses on cruise. From 5 May to 10 June, I was on the deck department side, which was the main focus for maintenance and watch. I was additionally named one of the Cadets of the Leg from Galveston to New York, which puts me in the running for Cadet of the Voyage! Cadet of the Leg is a nominated award from company leadership for excellence in performing everyday duties, 2 cadets from each company are chosen: 1 upperclassman and 1 underclassman.

This leg so far has been pretty calm. I was expecting the North Atlantic to be really rough and stormy, but it was quite the opposite! Our daily tasks for the final days of my deck side work were insightful into the different operations and tools needed for day-to-day work in the industry. We wire-wheeled 3 engineering tables, which was just scraping rust off of the metal tables, then coated them with a high-heat spray paint. I also got to watch the mates drop a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute research buoy off into the ocean! We dropped it in a dissolvable cardboard box safe for the environment at certain longitudes. These buoys collect data and send it back to WHOI for monitoring and research.

Last night, I stood my first engineering watch. I was not excited whatsoever; my friends who were on engine the first half always came back to the berthing tired and drained, mainly because the engine room had varying temperatures, the highest being 140 degrees by the D.C. heater. However, it was the opposite! I had a lot of fun in the engine room, learning new things I didn’t know before that can help me in the industry. We did engine room familiarization, which is locating all emergency exits and went over secondary routes in the event that a watertight door closed where your main exit would be. We also did a boiler round, which is a 100-item list of gauges you must check in the engine room your first hour of watch. After we completed that, we started tracing the main steam cycle and then observed an upperclassman do a sounding of the fuel oil settler tanks.

Overall, cruise continues to excite and educate me in new ways every day. From visiting new places I have never been to actually getting hands-on education as to what I will be doing in the industry for years to come, it is fun to learn about every little aspect of the deck department. I cannot wait to learn more about engineering, continuing to grow and explore the different little parts that make up a ship.

MIDN 4/C Braeden Cunningham
Marine Transportation Operations