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Rules of the Road

(The Cadet Experience, Class of 2012) Permanent link All Posts

This summer has already proven itself to be a very busy one. After a week of leadership class and drill instructor time, I found myself this week in the Rules of the Road (ROTR) course that serves as my five-day immersion into the rules of navigation for inland and international waters. We learned about sound signals, light signals, dayshapes of vessels, and proper ways of handling crossing, meeting, and overtaking situations involving different boats on the water. I had some prior knowledge thanks to ocean racing last summer, but there was still plenty I had to learn.

On top of having class for the entire day, we also had to get ready for commencement on Wednesday. This was not made any easier by a base-wide power outage that lasted all week! I had the wonderful privilege of standing duty in the barracks during the commencement ceremonies, taking care of what needed to be addressed due to the power outage and making sure everyone was where they needed to be. The graduation went without a hitch despite the generators that were needed and the pending rain showers. It was bittersweet, seeing people I had grown to respect and gotten to know pretty well leave the Academy, but knowing that soon I would be doing the same.

After graduation was over, I needed to do some studying for ROTR. Without power, command granted us liberty and we all went to Borders, Panera, or our sponsor parents’ houses in order to get online study guides and to take care of our laundry. Despite the power outages, grad week festivities, and tough course material, my class did very well on the ROTR exam on Friday afternoon.

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Posted by Leann Strickland at 2/10/2012 12:54 PM