Final set up day!

This morning was the final set up day for the International Fleet Review. Today was a later call time than normal and as a result I was able to take advantage of the hostel breakfast! Toast with chocolate spread on the veranda in gorgeous morning sun hit the spot. 

I jumped in the car and sat in some rush hour traffic, watching all the bikes and men wearing Lycra shoot up through the cars. Apparently wearing Lycra gets you to work quicker in Sydney. I find a car much more comfortable. I arrived at the bay with a few people there already making good use of the new coffee machine. Needless to say I had a play with it too. Reading the sheet on the door the team would be split into groups which would be where individuals will be placed Saturday night. I am on a barge with a lovely chap called Andrew (a veteran with Foti). We started off by setting up our office in one of the shipping containers. We began on testing all the pyro onboard. The system we are using runs an autotest system that will read every connection and if there is a problem it will pop up on the screen telling you which one is the problem and where. How to rectify it is up to you however. 4 or so hours was spent running tests and rectifying the issues. I was taught how the system works and how to run tests through the laptop. 

Morning tea came around and we snacked on yesterday's lunch. We wet back to the barge to just do some housekeeping, tidying wires and making sure everything will be relatively safe in the dark. By the time this was done it was lunchtime so we headed back to a feast of sandwiches and wraps and finger food. I found some plates so everyone could stack up and yet people went back for seconds and thirds! 

So the afternoon shift came and everyone was feeling a little lethargic.

We did lots of odd jobs including some tests on the flame jets being used on the Sydney harbour bridge. Oops did I say that out loud that's supposed to be a surprise! 

We needed a work light for furring night so a chap called Ian and me set to setting up a floodlight on the container roof. I acquired a brand new one and we worked how we would strap it to the container. While strapping I was instructed "a little more, little more" and crunch. The plastics shattered and one of the legs broke. After many minutes I laughing I had to return it to the marque and exchange it with another one. Forch (the boss) had seen what I had done (even though it wasn't actually me) to his new light and jokingly said that's coming out of your wages, to which I replied what wages?! He laughed and I ran away with yet another flood light. I took it upon myself to strap it, without the help of Ian and everything was fine. I also have a nickname from all the crew now which is English, for obvious reasons. We did more odd jobs and tidying up before everyone was asked to man their stations for a time code test. We fired up the laptops etc and waited for the cue. It pinged up first time and the laptop went to work. It ran through the display seamlessly. This pretty much made up the day and it was an early finish. I headed back to the hostel in Friday evening traffic and did what I do every evening. Be boring, eat and sleep.

This is the finished photo of our hard work. Lets hope it goes to plan and runs like it did today!!

I also thought you might like to see this. It arrived silently today, refuelled and left without a sound. Pyro will be installed tomorrow morning along with lights and lasers!