We would like to start this post by thanking the lovely aunts in our lives who took the time to send us food this week. It is all highly appreciated and extremely tasty.

Week 3 held a lot of hard work for both me and Kevin. Kevin continued with the welding classes that he started last week before moving to piping. In piping, he changed the automated ballast tank valves on the Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB). ESB is undoubtedly our favorite ship in the yard because of its undeniable elegance and low-profile design (not quite). He went through all of the pipe systems on the ship and learned how all of them are controlled. Later in the week, he sat in a room for two hours and turned a sink on and off when told to do so. Only an intern would be given such a task.

Throughout the week, my inspections expanded from the first stage of construction into the second and third stages as well. I was promised I would get exceptionally dirty, and that was fulfilled when I got to do my first level check. I spent my day crawling around underneath a block that will eventually be the pilot house. I was introduced to a lot of measurement equipment and now (mostly) know my way around a rotating laser. The best part about working in multiple stages of construction is seeing the progress of a certain plate or block. In the past three weeks, I’ve inspected newly cut plates that are now becoming blocks with stiffeners, frames, and bulkheads. Once again, the heavy workload made Friday come fairly quickly.

This weekend was another beautiful one, so I set a pretty ambitious course for more donuts and gorgeous scenery. I probably should have told Kevin that I was going to make him walk nine miles for a couple of donuts, but then he would’ve tried to talk me out of it. Plus, the donut shops we went to this weekend bring our donut shop tally up to eight, so it was worth it!

We eventually traveled north to Mission Bay Park, where we spent time admiring the water and any passing dogs.

After torturing Kevin on Saturday, we decided to have a more relaxed day in the Gaslamp Quarter. We walked around aimlessly for the first hour, and then finally decided to get lunch at Volcano Rabbit (recommended to us by Kevin’s uncle). We agree that it was definitely some of the best food that we’ve had during our time here (except our own cooking, of course).

Kevin even got to try one of the dockless bike/scooters (for free) that are all over San Diego.

Our upcoming week will mark the halfway point of our winter work, and it feels as though we just got here. We already feel like we’ve learned much more than we could have imagined, and we’re ready to learn even more in the weeks to come!

-Juliette