Goodbye Halifax!

After a long and uneventful unloading of cargo in Halifax, we are on our way to Portland, Main. While underway this afternoon,  I was walking out of the work change room and saw the cheif engineer come out of the engine room, throw his arms up, and yell "FUCK". I went up to steer and from what I could tell from the cheif's conversation with the captain,  the no. 3 cylinder fuel pump broke again( that was why we had to anchor earlier in the week). It would take  several hours with the engine stopped to fix it.  We cant do that because its too deep to anchor and we can't just drift cause there is a building storm which would push us towards shore. In the end, they decided to just run the engine with that problem cylinder off line. Running undrr five cylindrs instead of six makes us go close to a third slower. Not something that Irving, who cuarters the boat wants. The reason they charter instead of own is to avoid responsibility if anything goes wrong, from minor setbacks like this to major accidents (knock wood).  But oh well can't really be helped right now. We will just have to keep steaming away through the storm tonight (woohoo six meter waves in the forecast, gusting to 60 knots in Halifax) and we will get there when we get there. You can already feel the ship starting to roll and pitch a little. Its pretty exciting. The plan for me tonight is a little poker with the crew, maybe a little steering, and an early bed time! I'm looking foreward to hitting the pillow already.