Sea Blog: The Life of a Seafarer

USNS Algol

Chuck Fasst 2008
Sea Blog 1
Ahoy there maties. I am posting this here journal to my Myspace blog (and now Blogger.com) so those who may have a curiosity about the seafarin' life may have the chance to read a little about it. And if'n ye be a likin' this, then be sure to subscribe and mayhaps leave a comment, eh? In the past I have written reports to my list of seafarin and landlubbin friends I've met here there and everywhere. The past writings have been pretty much lost about two hardrives and a motherboard ago. Shipboard life has been hard on me as well as my laptop. In the beginning I kept detailed written journals which so far have remained private. Perhaps in the future I will find the opportunity to share those wonders of faraway lands and high seas adventures with the rest of the digital world.

It is an odd life we live - those of us who go to sea. I don't recommend it for an old geezer like me. But for a young buck yearning for adventure and a boost up in life it might very well be worth a shot - if you've got what it takes. I got into it because i needed a boost in life. Mine had slowly coasted to a stop. I was going nowhere which did no good for my life long hankerin to race cars. Cuz that ain't a cheap way to go. And I will mention that I was and still am a frustrated fisherman. So why not travel the world so I can itch that fishin scratch a bit and make bank so I can get back onto the racetracks. And that is what I've been a doin.


Drifting is the form of racing I am moving into. If you dunno what that is, just google the word. You'll get the picture - or watch my video casts here:

Flying Dutchman Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4EF15E77EC97FADC

Be sure and click on "More from this user" if you want to view my other videos.

It be a darn sure thing fer me to be a doin fer sure as there are some key similarities between the sport and the ship drivin' I be a doin out here. But enough of this drivel.

My last report came from the North Atlantic. I spent the late winter of '07 on a Car Carrier ship plying the Northern Europe. That was a rockin and rollin experience. That stormy North Atlantic ocean in Winter is absolutely sumthin else I tell ye. After that last report I would proceed to have another one o' them near death experiences to add to my list of about nine or so. The ship was traversing one of many locks back there all thru northern Europe. Dunno why they need so many in the English channel. Anyway it was always a crazy time getting thru those damned things. Hard to tie off the ship in all those currents and shifting waters. I was at my station running the stern winch as the Mate frantically motioned me to keep tightening on the mooring line (ropes about 4" in diameter). That required me to keep banging on the handle, grinding the gears in the winch drum while kind of overriding the overriding clutch. The captain was radioing he wanted the line tighter. But there was only one line out and one was not enough we would find out.

The parted line turned my ear green! Good thing I am Fasst - or I'd be a dead man now!

Every sailor who works out on deck will tell you about how dangerous those lines can be. There was an explosion like a shotgun blast as the line parted outside of the ship. I guess about forty feet or so of line came back into the stern. Of course I didn't see it as it was traveling at the speed of a speeding bullet. I might have ducked my head an inch or so, I can't say for sure before it came - a little kiss from the grim reaper. It came right across my left ear, knocking me to the deck. Standing behind the winch as I was should have put me in a safe zone. Well forget that! I didn't get up for awhile, I was feeling for my ear and the side of my head, hoping it was still there. I came out of that with nothing more than a green ear and my fastest brush with death so far - I'd say about one hundredth of a second - give or take!

Later all the stories would come out about the decapitations and sailors who were cut in half and the like and I would be hearing about how lucky I was to be alive to tell the tale. The line had come back inside the ship like a snake. It whipped across the stern spreading debris from it from one end to the other. It had busted out the overhead lights above me and coiled itself onto the deck behind me in the time it took me to fall. I fell into the middle of the coils. It was all over in about a hundredth of a second or so. I came away with a new appreciation for the fucked up way some ships are tied off. The ancient practices that remain in the shipping industry - oh don't get me on that. There is absolutely no excuse for many needless deaths that occur at sea due to outdated practices and equipment. In this day and age there should be NO lines breaking on ships. But cheap ship owners won't replace old decrepit mooring lines and won't spend the extra money for the newer, stronger stuff. Because many of today's ships, in spite of all the rich maritime history are nothing more than corporate entities. Every shipping company has their bean counters watching the bottom line.

Anyhow, I got the hell off that ship as soon as it got back to the States. I had to fly back across country from Baltimore to Portland on my own dime -and was quite happy to.

Now just before that ship, I was off on a mission quite similar to the one I'm on now. Last year, just before Christmas '06 I signed on to a Navy ship to transport it from Portland down to Oakland. It was coming out of Drydock and a crew was hired on to sail it on down and shake it down. We would do sea trials and deliver it to its home in Oakland where it lives as part of the ROS fleet. These ships are kept in reserve with a skeleton crew to maintain readiness in times of need. This particular ship, the Cape Mohican carries bridge building components. It was an 8 day gig. and we proceeded to sail straight into the teeth of a fierce Pacific storm.

Well enough of that too, that was last year's gig. Get back to that at a later time. I got to get with the present cuz I ain't got much time. Already days have passed since I started this. I signed on for a mission that was supposed to last 5-10 days. Just like last year I came aboard about a week before Christmas to sail a ship from dry dock and shake it down at sea with speed trials and such. It is the Military Sealift Command ship Obregon. This is what's called a pre positioning ship. Later it will be loaded up with all the latest fighting equipment to support a battle group of Marines. It will then sail to good ole Diego Garcia, the first place I went after my Merchant Marine AB training. That place is something else again. And I will have to share info about that island at a later time. Anyway, the island is out in the middle of the Indian Ocean. And if a hotspot should develop on that side of the world, the ship would be loaded with a hundred and some Marines and immediately sail to the location to offload and commence combat.

So I flew out to the ship yards in Mobile, Alabama and came aboard this ship. As it turns out, it would be sailing to New Orleans - not far. Before we could get out of there a major storm would blow through complete with tornados. We set sail after that. As it would turn out, I would end up steering the ship out into the Gulf of Mexico. So I have to say that was something. But even better - steered it up the Mighty Mississippi River! 4 years ago, I would never have imagined in my wildest dreams (and I do have wild ones) that I would be doing such a thing. I have never been within a thousand miles of this part of the country. But don't ask me much about the area. I have been busting my ass ever since arriving here, like on a chain gang. This ship had its Coast Guard inspection coming up and they've been working us like dogs hauling out all the fire hoses survival gear and such and a WHOLE lot more! Half way through this ordeal my back gave way causing me to have to visit the Chief Mate who had to write a medical report. But I have kept going and it has been the most painful mission yet not to mention the hardest physical labor.

As I write this now it is Thurs. night. It has been 10 days and they are still keeping us aboard. Today is probably the hardest work day I have ever had. All the fire hoses have been stowed back below decks. Tomorrow we tackle the upper decks. They are keeping us till Sunday. Very few of us are happy about that. It might not be so bad to spend a weekend in New Orleans. But we are moored in a little place called Violet miles away from Downtown. I'm talking sixty to eighty bucks in cab fare. And busting ass for twelve hours leaves little time or energy.

However on Christmas eve, we didn't work as late and a few of us got a ride into town in the ship's van, though we had to get a cab back. I was actually able to see a little of Bourbon Street. The highlight was The House of Blues. Rooster and the Tail Draggers Not their real name, unfortunately I forget). They were a really great New Orleans band. Rooster told me he's been doing it for thirty years in the town. See the pic: I had a roving artist draw a sketch of me and had him draw a pirate hat on my head. And that was about it. We had to find a cab to take us back into the sticks. I sure am glad I got the chance to see a little of that place. The following morning (Christmas Day) was just another work day. The high point was the Beef Wellington for dinner. Since then we have been working our humps off and my back has been shot. I hope that improves and I hope we can see something this weekend.

Chuck partying with The Rooster in New Orleans
 Again I find myself typing up emails aboard a military ship not knowing when I will be able to send them out. I was in the same position last month aboard the Pfc. Obregon in New Orleans. At that time I was suffering from severe back problems just as I am again.

I came upon this mission at the last minute after many frustrating attempts to get onto any ship at all. When I picked up this job I only had mere hours to return to Portland from the Tacoma union Hall, secure the household make all the calls and pack everything for a three month mission. Poor little Keeper the Cat is going to be starving for company for a while.

Wouldn't you know it that I would end up right back down in New Orleans again - one month later, this time on a different ship parked just downriver from the last one. But this is a different kind of ship on a different kind of mission oh, and the pay is much better. Less than a day later we were underway. Now I am on the Atlantic coast. By the time anyone ever sees this we will be on our way to the other side - or already there. Our next port of call will involve the loading of our precious cargo. I can't go into much detail concerning the whens and wheres of things but I will say that we will be loading M Raps among other things. Any one who keeps up on the news knows that these are the latest military vehicles to replace the Humvees and the Strykers in the war against terrorism. There "ship hull like" construction is designed to deflect much of the energy of an IED explosion thereby saving G Is from the worst kind of death and dismemberment. I can only imagine that being blown apart without ever seeing or engaging the enemy has got to be the worst kind of fate for a warrior. Now, many more will be able to hang onto their lives as a result of what is about to arrive on their shores.

So the long hours make it difficult to do much else, even take time to write like this. Much less, there is no internet or phone service. It remains to be seen if I even get this posted before I leave here. I will be adding pics and video. So if you are a Myspace person feel free to add me on as a friend so you can get updates when I add stuff. If you do Youtube, add me there as well, that is where I post stuff first.


Once I finally get off this thing, I will be really pushing to get squared up for New Years Eve in Portland. So if anyone from Street Magic is reading this I will be aiming for the party with Johnny Limbo and the Lugnuts. I hope that is where you all are headed. Of course I will be solo because - the sailor's life is a lonely life. :-(

Happy New Years

Sea Blog 2

The staterooms were colder than hell when I first arrived. I would leave on the incandesce
nt lamps to warm it up a few degrees until we sailed into warmer weather and the temp raised to a somewhat uncomfortable 74 degrees in the room. Around then, the engineers turned on the AC and the temp proceeded to plummet. So now, not only is it cold outside, the temp in the room has dropped to as low as 55 degrees. Kind of ridiculous. Well, I could go on but........ There is no end to the surprises. Most of the crew is replacements which makes for many interesting situations. Might seem strange to some considering the importance of this mission but - that's how shipping is. We have about forty civilian sailors doing what 100 Navy sailors used to do. We have one more stop then we will be fully loaded. We will have a nice long trip across the Atlantic to get up to speed on things.

I thought I might try to get off the ship. We are at a Navy port. There is a cab that can come on the base and take us to a shopping center for twenty bucks. Unfortunately, I spent my last dollar on the cab to get to this ship from the New Orleans airport. I was told there would be an agent waiting for me to take me to the ship which was in the town of Violet, which I already knew was located out in the tulies. And there was no agent when I arrived. So I eventually had to load myself and all my gear into a cab. It was a seventy dollar trip and all I had left was sixty. I ended up giving the driver all my cash and using a credit card to put ten bucks worth of gas in his tank - and I was getting off cheap at that. My Hindu driver had no idea where Violet was and had trouble finding it even with his GPS dash unit. I will get reimbursed for that but it will be tomorrow. So I scrapped that idea. Maybe I will be able to get off tomorrow. I will have the money, I just hope I will have the time. Working twelve hour days or more doesn't leave much. Then we are out of here - to cross the great pond.

We lost an AB at that port. Evidently he did not pass his background check and was restricted to his stateroom till we made landfall. Now we are at our 2nd. port and we lost a 3rd. Mate. Evidently he wasn't cleared thru his Union Hall for this voyage - always something new....

But at least I finally got off the ship only for a coupla hours (got the midnight watch at the gangway) and found a little internet place in town. Got a cab outside waiting. We sail for the far off places in the morning. Looks like this one might be taking me all the way around the world. How's that for Drifting, eh.......... :-)
So, smooth sailing to you all, FlyingD

************************WHERE WENT THE MOON? ********************

I think the whole crew breathes a sigh of relief once we get underway, once we pull out into the open sea, leaving the strings of civilization behind. For us on the Deck crew, we are more than happy to leave the frantic pace and back breaking work of cargo loading and line handling behind.
Personally, I am just happy that my back did not break, as my frail body is far from ideally suited for this sort of work. The pitch and roll of the ship seems to symbolize a more routine, structured environment for us, at least for now - until the next port 'o call.

Those of us who go to sea come to appreciate the simpler things in life, such as; comfortable temperatures in your living quarters - not excessively hot or cold, fresh air (sans salt), fresh food (such as produce) when you want it, to watch a TV show or news of any kind, to get a full night of sleep, to have a nice glass of iced tea with actual ice in it, to go out for a nice meal, movie, dancing or drinking, to go online, make a phone call - and so on. The seafarer's life is not one for those who seek to maximize comfort in their lives.

But then - there is no rush hour to get to work. Once there, most of us can turn our heads and see whales, dolphins, seals and great schools of fish from time to time. And there are many other things to be seen.

Once underway, as I reported to the Bridge for my watch, I noticed half a moon hanging upside down in the night sky just off the bow. I tried to remember if I'd seen the moon in that position before. It evidently has something to do with the latitude. In the ensuing nights I would look for that moon. But alas, it was not to be seen again. However as the voyage continued, there would be no shortage of sights to be seen.

During my night watches, I began to take note of a bright object viewed through the back window starboard side from the Bridge. It was way up in the stars - like a star but perhaps not as high. I could see a red and green light on it. I would certainly think it was a man made object but can't be sure. No one else has had the interest to look at it. That was many nights ago and we have traveled a long distance since then but it appears to remain in the same location in the sky all this time. Though I know not what it is - it is always there when I look for it. I call it my sentinel in the sky.


Once we had entered into the Mediterranean Sea I proceeded to see the sky lighting up during my night watch. I thought it was odd being that it was a clear night ahead with exceptional vis. We could spot contacts from twenty miles out. No one seemed concerned though I could spot no storms far behind us. Something was doing it. I guess light travels a long ways. Later I saw something more. From straight out in front of the ship, a falling star streaked straight back across the night sky and disappearing over the top of the ship. It was very bright and left a long firey tail. I would go on to see two more of the more ordinary variety but they could not hold a candle to the awesome one. I must say the skies are something else when viewed from far out at sea. I remember this from my Navy days in the Pacific some thirty years ago. Some nights they are like a dense, lit up ceiling not far above, almost as if one might be able to jump right up there and grab ahold of one.

It was a dark night when we cruised through the Suez Canal. We had high security. The ship was locked down and we were not allowed outside. We chained all the hatches so no one could sneak in. The Marines and Navy FAST team were locked and loaded. That is a very threatening area. Everyone was relieved once we had finally traversed it 24 hours later (see my vidcast in My Videos). That night I was relieved to see that the moon had finally returned, now visible to the rear of the ship as opposed to the front when we had left the States. It was still a half moon but now positioned like an eyebrow rather than hanging there upside down. Go figure! And it was way orange.


Oh there has been plenty to see and I expect plenty more. We still have a long, long ways to go. The other day I saw a rainbow. I said look, Mate can we alter the ships course. There is a rainbow and there is the end of it right over there, not far off the starboard bow. But alas we were not mining pots 'o gold on this mission. We had more important fish to fry and would continue to maintain our straight and narrow course full speed ahead across oceans.

Sea Blog 3:
The Mission Continues
As we continued our relentless march across oceans, the days melded into weeks as we pressed on. I would find little time for Blogging and, as it turned out, would have no opportunity to access the internet to post a Blog. The days would get tougher and tenser as we pushed on to completion of our mission. I would find little time or energy for such things as writing. As I sit here now, weeks remain before we see the good ole US of A again. I am happy to say that we have completed our mission - safely, too. We have since sailed out of harm’s way and entered into the Indian Ocean for our return journey which, as it turns out, will take me the rest of the way around the world!

Our journey has been long and not without hazard. Strange, foreign boats and ships have challenged us. We have had to respond accordingly and we certainly have earned our Hazardous Duty Pay on this one!

Two Navy Security Craft Remained With Us While In The Gulf

Our route has taken us across the Atlantic to the Straights of Gibralter to the Mediterranean Sea to the Suez Canal to the Red Sea, into the Straight of Bob el Mandeb into the Gulf of Aden to the Indian Ocean to the Arabian Sea to the Gulf of Oman, Persian Gulf then to our first port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. There was no mistaking once we had entered into Middle Eastern waters, channel 16 came alive with all kinds of multi cultural chatter the likes of which I could not begin to describe (see my vidcast: Drifting the Persian Gulf). The channel was supposed to remain clear for necessary ship traffic but no such thing in these parts. It reminded me of the CB radio days.

It was here that we unloaded a large portion of our cargo - but not the most important! This procedure took place so quickly and we worked such tremendously long hours that I would have no more than a brief opportunity to set foot on solid ground. I would be denied the opportunity to contact home before the ship suddenly sailed out ahead of schedule. This was a real armpit of a place and secretive. I would risk a $2,000. Fine just taking photos of anything there. We didn’t even bother to fuel up. Instead we steamed out to an anchorage ten miles out into the ocean and took our fuel there. Much speculation remained as to where we would sail next. This kind of Scuttlebutt ran rampant throughout the ship. The never ending mis-information was relentless - and continues.

We ended up in Kuwait as I had originally suspected. There we unloaded our precious cargo along with its U.S. Marine custodians, which completed the “secret” part of our mission. Again the cargo was done quickly and we would be worked relentlessly and again prevented from going anywhere. I was only able to pull off a quick phone call home before we again pulled out ahead of schedule. Well, there was one other time - I walked down to the port clinic to get another Anthrax shot and lovely things they are. We need to get a series of six shots over time. They can have interesting side effects. One of the 3rds lost all of his hair!

M1A1 Abrams: One BIG Honkin' Tank!

Now we are loaded down with a ship load of old used up and parted out military vehicles retired from action in Iraq. We are bound for San Diego with this load. Our time for racing across oceans has come to an end. We are no longer the fastest ship in the sea. We have slowed down to a comfortable eighteen nautical mph and blend in with the rest of the traffic in the seas. However we continue to run with our AIS radar I.D. signal off, if a foreign military ship hails us, we will continue to refuse to identify who we are. On the other hand, if any vessel should come too near us they will receive the following message:

<Script to be added in a later sidebar after the conclusion of this accounting>
We are a solitary ship in the sea and prefer to be left to our own.

The Briny Deep Gives Up Her Bounty

Now it became time for our return journey. After much speculation we were finally assured that we would continue South on out of the Persian Gulf and take a left. So we would continue East, the rest of the way around the world, arriving at the left coast of the U.S. This would be a long journey. 


I guess all the tension involved in trying to get out here on such short notice most have all gone into my back because it was shot before I was finished packing. Sheesh I never even finished before I had to hop a cab to airport in the wee hours of Saturday morning. And so began the most painful deployment yet in my short sailing career. I'm still amazed I even made it aboard. But I made it through the last few days and am on the mend. I hate to think about it but it could be that age is catching up with me. Well the big test will come soon when we tie up to our next east Coast port. Line handling is going to be a brutal experience. This ship is huge and its mooring lines are as well. They are called Samson lines and are bigger than anything I have previously worked with. Anyone who read my earlier blog may recall that I don't do well with mooring lines. These ones are about six inches in diameter. They are VERY heavy and hard to get my hands around. And this ship has no winches OR gypsy heads. They use these little mushroom shaped capstans to wind in the lines. The tieing up procedure is archaic and back breaking - I swear!

So I am on an FSS- US Navy Fast Support Ship. This is the longest ship I've been on - exceeding the length of three football fields. And it is the fastest of its kind. It will do an amazing thirty knots. Uncle Sam is in a hurry to get this cargo to the Persian gulf. Yep, we are Kuwait bound. Soon I will be in a Hot place! Security is more than I've seen, as well! There will be plenty of briefings and we will be carrying teams of armed military security. Terrorism is, of course at the top of the list.

We currently have no email service. Hopefully the captain will bring online an email only service soon. But there will be no web service. So if I want to post this to my blog I will have to find service at a port. I don't know how that is going to work out. I will get precious little time on terra firma. I will be Drifting the Deep Blue for days on end. Ha, so there you have it. This is nothing like land Drifting but certainly much more important. So this is my mission - get through this, then there will be time for the Drifting on good ole terra firma - a preferable choice for me - no doubt. But as long as the Drifting I'm doing now doesn't take me down, I will be more than happy to help out those soldiers in their time of need. Right now it is night and there are some gawd awfull noises coming from somewhere in the ship. I never like that. We are hitting some pretty big swells, I wonder if that has anything to do with it. Well, it ain't stopping, so I'm stopping.
Later
************************************************************************
Well here we are and a couple more days have gone by. That noise eventually stopped. And there have been others that have come and gone. Evidently this is a ship of many noises strange and loud. One must get used to that fact and not be overly concerned with thoughts of impending explosions or attacks if one wants to maintain some peace of mind, as in - NOT GO CRAZY! HA HA HA Ha HA HA HA ha ha ha ha ha har.......

My back is on the mend and I made it through the next trial with flying colors. And what a trial. A wind squall came up just as we were approaching the pier at about 3 AM. We spent the remainder of the morning getting the ship tied off and hoisting down the 36 ton loading ramp. I was totally soaked and frozen. Now that the back is starting to release its grip of pain I am beginning to feel it more throughout the rest of my body. I have gone from relative inactivity to walking and climbing miles every day. It takes a while to adjust.

Our next stop was back to the same anchorage off Fujairah where we had dropped the hook before. This is a popular anchorage. I would count over 65 other ships, those that I could see through the ever present brown haze. We would take on more fuel and a new 3rd. Engineer to replace the one hauled off in Kuwait. I think he got something in his eye while cleaning a toilet. Then we would end up remaining there for two more days as it turned out. We had boiler probs with our steam engine. It would need to be fixed if we were to want to retain our top speed capability. Later, we would use that.

So, for the first time, I took the opportunity to unpack my fishing gear. I saved back some barbecued chicken from the evening meal and baited up for a short evening of ship fishing. It had been a while since I had done this - my first shipping assignment in Diego Garcia, three years ago. However these waters were no where near bountiful like that place - and much deeper. I did not realize we had anchored in four hundred feet of water or how strong the current was. I never was able to hit bottom.

Later I observed some surface swimmers. They were odd looking but they looked familiar. I reeled in and removed my sinker, allowing the baited hook to swing back in the current. The first couple to take a look said no. Eventually another caught the scent and homed in on my bait from a distance. I must say it was cool watching from far above as this fish made his approach. He came he went he came back and then he took. It took some doing to get this two foot long fish all the way up the steep hull to the deck. Once I got a close look, my suspicions were confirmed. It was a Remora - a fish without a home!

I had only caught one of these once before - in Diego Garcia. This is the fish that attaches itself to the sharks and feeds on the scraps that result from the shark’s vicious feeding style. Evidently these poor fishes in this ocean must have had a shortage of hosts to which to attach to - forcing them to free range for their own food. This one was returned to hunt again and that would be my only fish from the Persian Gulf. So that became one more strange fish to add to my list of strange fishes from around the world.

Prior to pulling the hook a launch would arrive and we would say goodbye to our Navy FAST team. We would be again on our own with their fifty caliber machine guns and 727 M-16 Automatic weapons replaced by an old M1 Carbine and a box of shells up on the bridge. We were no longer considered to be in harms way as we exited the Gulf.

After this we would have one more interaction with a warship as we made our way back through the Gulf of Oman. I saw this ship one evening as I was returning across the deck from the chow hall just after getting off watch. It came in on us, flanked us and pulled in behind, in our radar blind spot. Later I would find out that it was an Omani Corvette. I have to admit that I cannot quite say where the country of Oman fits into all of the Middle East conflicts. So the Captain, after warning the ship and failing to receive an answer on channel 16 poured the coals to the old steam engine and we left the sleek warcraft in our wake. The fastest ship in the sea moved on.

 Dark Nights

It was a restless night - that one was. The moon which I was so happy to see again - had reappeared the night before, out front of the ship. A orange, half moon hanging upside down just as I had remembered seeing it when we left the U.S. In fact we had watched it rise from beneath the rim of the ocean out front of the ship. At first the lookout called out a contact as he observed the first light of it peaking over. But it would soon be obvious that the radar would not be tracking this contact. Aw, but you know what they say about good things… that was then and this was now and the moon was again gone and the skies were black as ink. No stars or horizon was visible.

However, something else had returned for a visit as the entire sky suddenly lit up in a flash of light. The dry lightening was back. Again I had pause to ponder just what it was and from whence it came. The Mate says it is positively charged ions in the air like static electricity. It seemed like it was always following us, originating somewhere far behind us. The only way to look for it was from the bridge wing outside. And oh, is it warm and muggy out there in the middle of the night! But it is bearable. The ship is doing eighteen knots and the sea breeze takes the edge off, not to mention the good view of almost the entire sky.
I notice that there are dark clouds looming far off behind us. Above us stars are again visible and off to the starboard, more dark clouds loom. We are surrounded by a semi circle and a mighty flash cuts loose, illuminating the tops of all the clouds for a split second. The mighty flashes of light seem to originate from the top sides of the clouds. Never any thunder - just silent light as if King Neptune hisself has risen up on high from the briny deep…. with his new flash camera that lights the skies as far as a man can see. Perhaps he wants a shot of his subjects. Indeed there are many worthy Shellbacks aboard this fine vessel. What is a Shellback ye ask? Aw yes - that is fer another time maties ;-)


There is much work to be done aboard ships. Every ship is different. How things go; good bad or indifferent generally depends on who’s in charge. This ship has found some of us deep inside her innards, chipping away at the parasitic rust that attacks the insides of ship’s hulls. Some have been negotiating an array of ladders, tunnels, ledges and pipes leading down deep into holds near the bottom of the ship where the air is musty and hot. Some ships will have the OS’s (Ordinary Sailors) go down. Others will hire Phillipino riders to come aboard and do that work. On this ship, the Abs are sent down. I had occasion to worm my way down into the labyrinth where a couple of the bruthas had been chipping away for some time. AB Vic, my watch pard and AB Paul 4x8 have been working on this overtime project. My mission was to put some primer down over the treated metal where they had been banging away with their needle guns.

Working in those holes takes some getting used to - ask any engine man. This place will take your breath away. Once I snake my way into the work area I find them ripping apart rags to sop up the sweat that rolls down off their heads. It is not long before you are covered in sweat and that’s that. They look up and greet me, “Welcome to hell,” they say.

                                                                         Piracy on the High Seas


Some people might find talk of such modern day pirates as comical. Pirates come from the swashbuckling tales of yore. Not everybody knows that piracy is a growth industry and that it has remained around since those days of yore. In fact there is a new designation. Due to the influx of Al Qaeda operatives into the industry, Pres. Bush renamed them. They are now officially known as terrorists. Whatever you want to call them - they are out there.

About a year ago an attack on a cruise ship off Somalia made the news. Later a joint US Navy and some other country’s navy sunk some pirates in retaliation and that made the news. But the hundreds of other piracy events never see the light of day in Western newscasts. In fact most of them are hushed up. The shipping companies do not want the outer world to know the kinds of ransoms they are paying to retrieve their captains.

Now granted - what is the likelihood of a pirate attack on a large US Navy ship such as ours? We are not too worried about the regular pirates looking to rob the ship’s safe and ransom the officers. But what if Al Qaeda is planning a major hit, looking to make a statement to the world? Who’s to know when or where?
As I stand out on the bridge wing scanning for pirates, the humid, midnight sea breeze ruffles my t-shirt and my mind wanders. What if they were out there planning something? What might the conversation be like…　
Habib, I have a question for you, oh enlightened one.
Yes Yasheed, oh soon to be martyred one.
Yes, Habib, how is it that our God, praise be to Allah, insists that we keel everyone who does not believe, when other religions send emissaries around the world to help peoples?
Oh Yasheed, be careful to not blaspheme the name of our savior, praise be to Allah. He is the all knowing and He knows what is best for us - as it is written.
But who wrote that, Habib?
Do not ask. Only obey. Do you not believe that He is the all powerful one and He reigns over all other Gods?
Yes, of course He is the master of everything, praise be to Allah. I am still a little bit mystified about why I have to blow myself up and keel everybody around me including babies and all that.
Well for one thing Yasheed, you should not question Allah’s master plan and for another he is only asking you to keel a sheep.
A sheep? But I thought we would use them to pleasure ourselves?
Not that kind of sheep you imbecile! The kind that floats on the waters.
Oh that kind. You mean a beeg sheep.
Yes.
And my family will receive one hundred thousand Dinars after I keel the sheep?
Yes.
And I will receive sixteen virgins in the hereafter to use for my pleasure as I wish?
Yes.
How do Allah come up with that number?
How the hell do I know Yasheed. Oops, sorry Allah, pleez forgive. Isn’t sixteen enough?
Well I don’t know Habib, after all an eternity is a long time you know. I might need more.
So what do you want to do, bargain with the great One?
Can I?
No this is non negotiable you idiot. Perhaps now I am beginning to understand why you were chosen, do you want to burn in the fires of hell forever?
No Habib I will take the virgins.
Good then go keel the sheep.
Oh and why am I keeling the sheep again?
Because they are All infadels, now Go!
Yes, Habib.　

I begin to feel like I might be starting to lose few more of my marbles out here in the middle of the Straights of Malacca. “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, let me in now please.”

　Sailing the South China Sea
So here it is Sunday in the South China Sea. Again we successfully negotiated a choke point; our last choke point. Should be clear sailing from here on out. Well, there is the small matter of what the ole Flying Dutch Dude said to me that late night in that faraway place when I reluctantly er, relieved him of his watch, so to speak. So, I guess I should be expecting another storm, soon.

Uh well actually, there was that discussion concerning the locking of the bridge doors during those night watches. It seems not all the guys relished the thought of being more or less offered up as sacrificial lambs if they could not get back inside in time. The watchstanders might get keeled but at least the others inside driving could load the rifles. Perhaps an alternative could have been to offer up the good captain - for the good of the ship, of course. That might save the rest of us from being keeled and Cappy could be quickly ransomed back and we could continue on to Korea without too much delay. But I am not sure if that would be an idea that Cappy would relish. At any rate, this conversation did produce some results this time and Cappy agreed not to lock us out last night. Not that I was too concerned you understand. Sometimes it is good to be cursed for I know that the Gods are keeping me around for further bemusement.

But on this day, as I take the noon to four watch after toiling all morning in a hole, the blue sea stretches as far as the eye can see. Gone is the hustle and bustle of the Straights and the hundreds of ships we passed. The Captain has retired to his stateroom and the Pirate Watch has been relieved, leaving just me and the Mate in the wheelhouse. My watch partner is enjoying his two hour weekend. Hopefully he is enjoying it. I spent mine typing this thing, then relieved him half way thru the four hour watch. We get two hours off instead of spending it banging rust in some hole. Some weekend, eh? Well, we takes what we gets. Tomorrow it is back in the hole (that is what we do for overtime). We work twelve hours every day. That leaves little time for much else which is why I am excited about getting caught up on writing this Blog thingy. Our next stop is Pusan, Korea. Who knows maybe I will get ashore this time and manage to post this to Myspace.

But this day we are just cruisin’ easy. It is good to see the deep blue sea again. Where we came from wasn’t very blue. This sea is several shades of blue. It seems the sun and clouds are projecting large shadows onto the surface resulting in what looks like larger patches of darker blue dotting the seascape. And I’m sporting a new do, a kind of Dan Akroyd hairstyle with my hair standing up. I call it the windblown look. I wonder how it will go over?

And that pretty much brings us up to the present. As we approached the 2^nd. Weekend in March, midnight Saturday we officially began Pirate Watch. That was preceded by another mission of heat. We had to go back down into the holds beneath to crawl around the ladders and tunnels and secure all hatches that lead to the main deck. We had done the same thing entering the Persian Gulf. Who knows why we couldn’t have just left the damned things secured. So we do it all again - one can get lost down there. Once I finally climbed out of there, the sweltering heat of the day was welcome. And I was wasted for the remainder of the day.

Aw but it is just another day on a ship skirting the Equator through the Bay of Bengal. These things are done to prepare us for passage through the Straights of Malacca. This is the only passage into the South China Sea from the Bay of Bengal. It is a narrow strip of ocean between Sumatra to the South and Kuala Lumpur to the North. Singapore lies at the other end.

Just getting through the straights has been the problem for an increasing number of unfortunate ships. Though we are no longer receiving our hazardous duty pay, we are now passing through the most dangerous place on the planet for piracy. So we make our preparations. Across the fantail we have broke out the firehoses and mounted them. By day, they clean the soot from our decks. By night they are at the ready to provide a formidable veil of saltwater to any piratical types trying to board her from the stern.

By nightfall, we lockdown any remaining doors and hatches to hopefully provide an impregnable fortress to any intruders. For the next two nights we will bring another man up with us. An Ordinary will stand watch outside on one of the bridge wings, an AB on the other. This will be the only time we set foot outside of the ship after dark. As we asre agin restricted to move about in the tunnels within. This time, instead of binoculars, we hold a radio. Those inside will keep an eye on the ship traffic. Our mission is to observe close in. We keep an eye on the rear areas to make sure small boats don’t slip into our blind spot undetected. The doors are locked behind us, leaving us to the mercy of the elements and whoever or whatever might be lurking. If we need back in we key the mic and utter the words Hare Krishna. If for some reason we need to remain silent, we will key the mic five times, twice in succession. Inside, the captain has laid out the M-1 Carbine and 12 Gauge pump shotgun with double 00 buckshot. These weapons are for close in combat such as a gunfight aboard ship.

As we move through the straights we maintain a good clip of 18 knots. We move down into the inside lane to do some passing as we are traveling faster than the others. We pass seagoing tugs that are lit up like Xmas with their firehoses spraying across their sterns. They cannot leave anything to chance with their low freeboards. They can be easily boarded by pirates. They travel in packs.

....Next Stop Korea....
Now it is down to the eleventh hour. Days have passed and we are now due to pull into Korea early in the morning. I will try to get some rest tonight as it will be a long day tomorrow. I felt compelled to write a little first as it now looks like I may get the opportunity to post this.

I seem to have entered into a kind of sleep deprivation phase of some kind. My watch partners have experienced similar problems as well. We get fractured sleep with this 12x4 Watch we stand, considered to be the least favorite one. Some nights I have been unable to sleep before the midnight watch, only getting three hours or so after the watch. The arcadian rhythm must be messed up or something. I’m really hoping to straighten it out so I can get out to Korea. And we have been informed that we will have to use the buddy system anywhere we go here, outside the base. It is not always easy to find some one to go into town with you and stay with you the whole time. It seems we are in Force Bravo Security Level over here.
So, if I get this up, that will be it from me until I return to the Good ole USofA and I can’t wait for that!

****************************************************************　
Racing Across the Raging Main
Aw yes, well again, I find myself out in the middle of the deep blue - only this time it is the Pacific. Pusan came and went some days back. And I sure am glad I at least got this posted while there. But that is about all I got accomplished. As Always we came into port early in the morning, this time we were called out at 5 AM. That is one hour after finishing the midnight till 4 watch. Then we proceeded to work all morning, getting in until it was time for watch again at noon.

I signed an odd fellow aboard the ship while standing gangway watch. This funny Korean messenger came aboard with a package for the captain who had already split to town. He needed over $100. For it. Eventually the Bosun and the Mates forked over the dough. It turned out to be this stuff called Kim Chi. It was later set out for meals in the chow hall. That was the most awful lest tasting sh_t I have tasted in a good long while! I wanted to wretch. I say, these seafarer types are cut from a different mold.

On the other hand, I was glad to see we took aboard stores there and there were bananas. I like my bananas. They didn’t last long though. We are already out. I got the last one stashed for tonight. We are running out of a lot of stuff now, as we get closer to our destination.

I suppose not everybody knows that bananas are considered to be unlucky on fishing boats, unless you saw a movie with Joe Pesci and Danny Glover some years back. But on ships, they don’t seem to mind them. So I find that acceptable.

After my watch I got a couple of hours rest and then walked to the nearby Seaman’s Club and took advantage of their wireless access there. So I at least got this posted and briefly touched the outside world online. But alas there would be no trip into town for me - no visiting the hustling and bustling international marketplace or anything else as I would have to hurry out to again stand the midnight watch at the gangway. By then it was a bone chilling, cold experience.

And, as usual, our stay in port was shortened. We had been authorized for a thirty six hour stay. We ended up with exactly 24 hours in port - exactly enough time to have a failed pump rebuilt by a shore side facility. So, as it turns out, my one and only opportunity to see anything in Korea was spent in the Seaman’s Club. Aw yes, such is the exciting life of a sailor er - excuse me - Merchant Mariner. Sailors as in US Navy Sailors have if far, far better in ports. Actually we had run into a more serious problem with one of the boilers on the way in. We had to shut it down. For a while it was looking like we might spend up to a week there for that repair - but not to be. So we are steaming on one boiler now. I don’t think the government would like me talking about this at the moment but then hey - you won’t be reading this until a long time from now. By then it, along with some 24 other Cas Reps should be handled. Hey that is what these missions are for. We have to work the bugs out of these ROS ships that sit around so much of their lives.

So we pulled on out of Korea, sailed south down through the sea of Japan, dodged a whole bunch of islands with funny names and turned left. We set course to 089 degrees which will be our course all the way back across the Pacific. A straight line to San Diego and our longest crossing over water (Pacific is the biggest ocean). Actually its not so bad. We have our remaining boiler really spooled up. We are traveling at about twenty knots, still much faster than the other ships. It is a twelve day crossing for us. It drags on, though. I guess we passed on by St. Patrick’s Day. Wouldn’t even have known if the Mate hadn’t mentioned something. Certainly no need to wear green.

A couple of days ago something else transpired that I had been waiting for and wondering would happen: we became all alone. For the first time, there was nothing on the Radars or the ECDIS. No ships listed on the AIS Display (a VHF signal identifying any ships near and far). We were truly one with the sea finally. No other company for as far as the eye can see and well beyond and if there was anyone or any thing, we would never know. A bit unusual. Almost nowhere else on earth can anyone get further away from another living human.

And the sea was quite a sight. An endless expanse of blue, glassy smooth other than the gentle pacific rollers. Blue skies and moderate temperatures contrasted the biting cold from whence we had come. And there would be sights to see.
　Attack of the Shit Birds
When far out at sea it can be a lonely experience. We sometimes forget there is a teeming expanse of sea life just beneath us. Occasionally they will come to the surface just to let us know they are there. Like the time AB Chris spotted the porpoises racing in the bow wake on an evening when there was phosphorus. He said they looked like lit up torpedoes. I remember that phosphorus from my Navy days some thirty years ago when I crossed the Pacific in the guided missile cruiser USS Chicago. I would sit out on the fantail and watch the glittering lights streaming behind in our wake. He happened to be up on the bridge wing days later during my watch when I spotted a huge pod dead ahead. There appeared to be hundreds of them. Run for your camera now, he said. I was reluctant but did anyhow and of course they were gone upon my return.

There are sights that would be fantastic to capture on camera but this line of work simply is not conducive to that sort of thing. Other sights can be just as well described as when we came across all the trash. It was either evidence of some earlier dumping or more than likely a convergence of tide lines. Leaving the Japan Sea, I observed a lot of floating balls. All but one were grey. At that time we were dodging droves of wooden fishing boats; dhows and junks. These are primitive craft. It is amazing how different they are in each country, though. I figure the balls must have belonged to their fishing nets. All the same it has been good to leave all the floating garbage of Korea behind. There is all manner of junk floating in the waters just like the Persian Gulf - oceanic trash heaps.

One time the Mate spotted a sea turtle coming down the starboard side. What was odd was that it was swimming on its side with one flipper sticking out like a shark’s fin. An odd thing, I’m not quite sure what was up with that critter. One time I spotted a spout off the starboard side and was able to glass it in time to see a whale jump. What a sight that was! It looked like a killer whale and it proceeded to free jump over and over coming straight up out of the water. Again, I can’t say what was up with that. It appeared another whale might have been following it. Another time AB Vic and the Mate called me to the bridge just as a large fish was jumping off the bow. Of course I just missed it. All those around me have been informed to keep a close lookout for Foxtrot one Sierra Hotels (fishes). I asked them what it looked like, wondering if it might have been a free jumping sailfish or something exciting like that. I dunno, it was big, they said. I asked if that was all the better they cold describe it and Vic answered by saying, it looked like you. Great :-\

The captain had mentioned the tuna birds that will lead you to tuna. One time I saw some on the move and followed them to the starboard. And sure enough, they led me right to a school busting bait on the surface off the starboard beam. That was cool.

The oddest sight had to have been the day of the birds. I saw them earlier in the day as I was working my way forward from back aft. They were flying up near the bow wake. They reminded me of the sea Boobie birds I had seen in Diego Garcia. I forget exactly what the Bosun called them. But they would accompany our ship in from sea, gliding along close to the bow in search of flying fish. As the ship makes way schools of them sometimes must flee from our path. I watched one snatch a flying fish mid flight off the bow wake.
Once I had later made my way up to the bridge for my noon watch I said What th…
 All the windows were dripping with white stuff. Then I remembered the birds. Sure enough there were a bunch of them flying around the bow in search of the flying fish. They were black on top with a black bonnet on their heads with the rest white, including their bills. Looking out over the bow there were ten thousand droppings everywhere. Atop one ladder well lay a fish carcass. It looked like perhaps one had disgorged it onto that spot smack onto the middle of the deck.

Several of the Mates were at the windows silently staring out. The Chief commented, I’ve never seen so many sea birds shit on a ship before.They left some time later that evening. Their evidence of their unusual visit remained for many days as the ravages of sea and weather slowly washed away the ten thousand stains, well there were also AB sailors involved in that cleanup process as well.

Well here it is 2^nd. Friday and I finally got out my note in a bottle. Hrummmph, now that sentence made a lot of sense :-\ Actually, I didn’t get the note out, now that I remember. When I was working the NCL Cruise ship in Hawaii, I launched quite a few notes in bottles with my message and email address inside. Who knows where they might end up, right? Well, the wind caught this one as I tossed it from the bridge wing (covertly - littering you know). It ended up on the flight deck under something. It was a short journey for that note.

Oh and are you wondering what 2^nd. Friday is yet? Me too - kind of. Well we crossed the international date line and - no Jethro - that is not the dateline where you can meet the Russian girls. We have been marching ahead in time all across the globe, turning the clocks ahead one hour night after night. Now this was finally the invisible line where we turn back a full day. So today we got the opportunity to relive Friday. A rather odd thing indeed. We have two Friday the 21^st.s listed on our pay sheet. We don’t want to walk backwards or look into any mirrors so as to not screw up the whole space/time continuum thing.

But we are not done with the clocks yet. We just collected a few hours in advance today. We will continue to give a few more back as we get closer to the US. Tonight I set the clock ahead another hour and of course, that means less sleep again. I guess we are passing by Guam and Hawaii long about now, hundreds of miles to the south. I wish we could get some of their weather up here. We are shivering every day. I did mention the storm right? Those calm seas lasted all of two days until we were back into the stormy seas. We have been receiving Force 7 winds dead on our bow for days now.
 Journey of Pain
I am more excited than ever of the prospects of returning. Especially since the toothache came. I have teeth chipping apart. I need to do that expensive repair work. One of them finally gave its all and now I have a nerve crying out for aspirin all the time. By the time I ever actually get into a dentist, that one will be a dead player. Oh well, it is a lot cheaper to dig it out than to cap it. Kind of miss it when chewing the steak though. I say this from experience gleaned from its predecessors that have parted company from my gums recently. I don’t want to belabor the point with any younger readers who may have accidentally stumbled across this offbeat blog, but lets just say that shit wears out as you get older. A byproduct of that is suffering a lot more pain all over. I know, it is not a lot to look forward to but, what can I say?

My body does get some exercise though, climbing around the ship like a freakin monkey.

Sea Blog 4 :
I’m Mad as Hell and Still Have to Take It Even More
And that is where my sea blogging drew to an end. I moved back into my video work in a desperate, cursed attempt to finish the footage for other crew members to view or possibly be included before the mission came to an end. But that was not to be as the video editing software fought me to a standstill. By the time the dust had cleared much of my invaluable footage had been accidentally destroyed and I was continuously prevented from rendering my final productions as the miserable Creator 8 software destroyed my long hours of work. By then all of my previous physical pains had been superceded by the extreme mental torture that would come along.

I will never know why all of those problems happened out there. I could chalk it up to The Curse. But there was plenty of cursing out of all the pathetic, techno geek eggheads of the world who foist their half baked, built in defective, unfinished and shot full of bugs, digital, products upon an unsuspecting public who no longer cares or is no longer even aware of what quality of construction and pride in craftsmanship once was L .
I am from the Old Skool and was not brought up within this digital revolution that is now so impregnated within society. I was dragged into this digital age kicking and screaming and have suffered terribly ever since. I was not prepared for the rapid onslaught and I know that I will never, ever catch up. Every last digital thing I have ever owned has not worked the way they were supposed to. That includes cameras, computers, printers, PDAs, VCR and DVD players and recorders, TVs, watches, software, ISPs, websites, cell phones and a host of others that - Gawd help me - I try to forget!

It seems like modern day society is more than willing to put up with all this substandard garbage in our lives or is simply unaware of any other way. I guess we will continuously be bombarded with built in obsolescence. Unperfected products will not remain around long enough to be perfected before they will be replaced by the newest, greatest version of the same garbage. The consumers will continue to be happy to throw away the old crap and replace it with the new crap till we are drowning in it all. So that is my rant. I am not a techno savvy dude and I am just plain lost in all of it. It drives me insane. So any video of mine, any of you readers may have watched has come at a high price for me.

Some weeks have gone by since then and I now sit on dry land doing what I knew I would; upgrading this, that and the other in the never-ending attempt to do a better job. I don’t even know why I do it all… I just do. What was left of my footage has been completed and the three part vidcast series has been posted here on MySpace and to my YouTube site as well. So all the rest that transpired will slowly be committed to my hazy memory except, of course - what you read here.

Time Marches On
As we continued to move through the Pacific we would run into the old familiar rollers. Doors would proceed to start slamming around, sometimes at night. Late one night, my thumb would fall victim to one of them. I will be carrying around a reminder of that for many moons to come. The full moon would pay a final visit, rising out of the horizon some thirteen hundred miles out. The Sentinel star would make a reappearance, as if to guide me on through to the end. The heavy fog would roll in, obscuring all of that. There was nary a ship or boat to be seen for a thousand miles. Late one night we spotted a fishing boat off in the distance running a tremendously bright light. He was many hundreds of miles from anywhere. No telling where he had come from.

As we drew closer to the West Coast the ship’s radio up in the bridge, would finally begin to pull in an English speaking radio station. Don’t ask me how the signal could reach hundreds of miles out to sea, but it did. The reception was sketchy but the bits and pieces of news were welcome after having been virtually cut off from the rest of the world for almost the entire journey. Personally, I am lost without news. I strained to hear the words late at night while standing watch. And I must say it was not the greatest of news.
We would hear that the number of war dead in Iraq would finally hit 4,000. Then we would hear of something of particular interest to us. It seems there was a shooting in the Suez Canal, the choke point through which we had earlier passed. It seems the M/V Global Patriot (formerly Buffalo Soldier) had shot and killed some Egyptians or so it seemed. I knew of this ship it was similar to our ship and I had come close to being on it instead of this one. I had unsuccessfully tried for it at the Union Hall before getting this one. We would then learn that the ship was also on their way to Kuwait with a load of M-Raps.

A member of their FAST Navy security team had shot a small boat with the 50 cal. The boat had come too close and warning shots were fired but evidently something went wrong. Turns out the boat was no threat, just a vendor boat. We wondered if that Navy team might have been the same one we had earlier carried when we passed through. We were surprised to be receiving this news first from a US source. Then there was mentioned some possibility that there might not have been a death. I knew that the news would die down fast as it always does and we expected to hear more about it through our own sources. But it was not to be. All news of it just evaporated into thin air and that was the last I heard of it.




The Tides of March
We continued our journey, passing the length of Iran, Pakistan and India, back through the Arabian Sea to the Indian Ocean. By then, the month of February had fallen away from the calendar. Ahead were the island chain; The Maldives. At the very bottom of this chain, a thousand miles South into the center of the Indian Ocean lies the island I have mentioned before - Diego Garcia. We would not go there. Instead this would be where we would take our left turn and continue east around the World. We set a course for 086 degrees and proceeded into the Bay of Bengal. We had been traveling South - proceeding lower in latitude toward the Equator. It was around then when we fully realized we had slipped on into a hot place.

 The Long Day’s Journey into Night
It was Monday when it first hit. We knew hot days were coming and that the AC system on this boat was wholly inadequate. But all the same, the effect on the crew would be classic. Temperatures began to rise and the ship came under attack from all sides. As temperatures rose into the nineties and the sun beat down upon the steel structure of the ship heating up all exposed metal. The sun’s rays bounced off the surface of the ocean waters giving the hull a double dose of heat rays. The ship’s decks descending deep beneath the ocean’s surface also came under attack by heated waters. The sea temps in these parts is 89 degrees!
As the entire ship heated up, so did tempers. It seemed to descend upon and wash over the entire ship like a giant sneaker wave. From the Captain on down, across the Steward Dep’t. and thru the Engineering Dep’t. and seemingly the entire Deck Dep’t. Sailors knotted into groups, intense voices rising, discussions being held. The employment contract came out and point/counterpoint debates rolled on in earnest. Threats were made and grumbling comments, under breath accompanied sidelong glances. Engineers shut down the AC system for much needed repairs.

Eventually resistance wore down and all accepted their lot - not that there was much more anyone could do, drifting about in this hot sea. And so it went, just as it has on a thousand ships before and will be on a thousand more. As daylight waned and the workday drew to a close, individuals retired to their heated rooms one by one, clicked on fans and dug in for the duration. They would all need all the restless rest they could get for a new day would soon dawn. And it would be another hot one.

For some of us, the respite would be short lived. Myself and AB Victor and 3rd. Mate Phil would resume our 12 to 4 watch at midnight as we do every night. We know that heat rises and the Bridge is up top of the ship. It was a sweltering night and there would be more. But time marches on and indeed one of us would again go down and move the ship’s clocks ahead another hour like we had done many times before and many more before we are done as we circumnavigate the world in a counter clockwise direction. And we would cross invisible lines of significance. Somewhere during this time we crossed an invisible line in the sea that seemed to make the captain happy.

We counted down the minutes when we passed from the US Navy 5^th. Fleet Cent Com to the 7^th. Fleet. Eventually we will cross the international dateline at which time we will retrieve all of those hours - or so I am told.

 Midnight in Malacca Restless skies in the Med

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As it turned out, it would take a number of days for the longshoremen to unload all of our used up fighting vehicles, delaying us days in San Diego. We weren’t all that surprised but, I must say, it was quite an undertaking. Then we would embark on our shortest and final voyage up the coast to Alameda. There we would tie her up for the last time in a long time. In lieu of any national security emergencies, she is set to remain there for a good couple of years with her skeleton crew, waiting for what may come. Most of the Deck crew remained for a few more days helping to mothball everything needed for the long sit pierside.

Then we had the ceremony. Officials came aboard and thanked us for the successful completion of our mission. They knew it had been trying at times but we had all pulled through for the betterment of many soldiers in the field. What could anyone say. There had indeed been some times for some of us, even danger. But how could any of that compare to what those on the front lines experience day in and day out. Now more than ever, I can hardly imagine what their daily lives are like.

We all received certificates and medals. Then we left. And I was certainly ready to depart from the most intense job I’d ever done. This job involved ups and downs like a roller coaster but I must say, I had great watch partners and I am glad of that.

This is probably the only documentation of a mission like this. So you saw it here first.

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