It's fixed!

Looking a bit better now, huh? At least they do in real life, which is what counts of course!

The issue from last post, as you might recall. The lack of contrast and all that sorts of things I was dealing with in my on-board made darkroom contact prints. It was the light alright, as I actually suspected. I was using a LED flashlight (way too expensive engine room thing...) but it turned out to only give me the low contrast tones when adding it above the negative. So what I did was two things. 
First I tested a small battery powered UV light we got inside the water sample test kit thing... but it was no good. I was not able to get any results out of it at all. It stained the paper alright... but all over as opposed to only around the thinner parts of the neg. 
So that could be thrown into the box where it belongs pretty quick. 

This is Fredrik. He's one of the guys who knows how to take this big lump of steel from one place to the other in the quickest and economically best possible way, taking into account weather, current, draft, available power and probably a million other minor things as well. 

The Cadet Engineer. You may wonder if he ever do anything else but looking into his phone? Well he is, I can assure you. It's just the best way to capture him due to the speed he's walking around with. You know, shutter times versus available aperture and film speed and all that sorts. 

I was looking high and low for some sort of light I could use, but they all seemed to be of the same boring LED type I had already tested. 
Frustration finally led me to try the most obvious thing really, to turn on the light in the ceiling of the room adjacent to the bathroom and leave the door open. 
And well, that did the trick. I had blacks coming onto the paper, and now it was only a question of balancing the amount of ceiling light and LED flashlight onto the paper. 
About three and a half seconds of hard contrast and two rather half-quick flashes with the flashlight, and you are as fine as you'll ever get on board a vessel of this size and type. 

The first engineer again. You have seen it before, so I'm sorry for that. It's a nice enough snap to have a second look at though :)

The day? Well, it's been a busy one believe it or not. Busy and a strange one. 
We seemed to have plenty of time up to a point when heading ashore, but due to the world being turned upside down we suddenly learned that the harbor would close this midnight, so there was a million things to do today to get everything we need on board to be able to leave before they close down. Seems like we just made it, so I'm quite happy with that to be honest. We will get the pilot on board in one and a half hours from now, at 2300 so that's close enough to call it a real success. 
We had all the project crew leaving the ship yesterday evening when we came in and alongside, which was weird to tell the truth. 
People are usually happy when leaving the ship to get home of course, but it was different this time. Very different. 
When sailing in to Galveston, the town itself was different. Very different! 
Well, we said our goodbyes knowing that many of us will most likely never see each other again due to the next project being put on hold now. Only the future will tell if this project is ever going to happen at all. Or if anything related to this business will happen again at all in the shape and form we know of up until now for that sake. 
Nobody can really tell. 
Not today, anyway.

Stay safe, friends!!