the ever changing schedule...

Dear Loyal Readers,

I am so sorry for not posting more recently; I think it’s been almost 3 weeks, maybe the last story you heard was about the man overboard drill? I can’t even remember now. However, this post will be devoted mainly to the ever-changing schedule of the Samuel B Roberts which I think will relinquish me from the title of worst blog poster ever.

So we left Curacao the morning of August 6th, looking forward to a week and a half of searching for drug runners in the central Caribbean. All was going well, and by well I mean had yet to actually spot anything even remotely resembling a drug runner, I was becoming more and more confident as the conning officer and working on getting accustomed to the 42 hour work days sandwiched in between 20 and 18 hour work days when we discovered a lube oil leak in the main reduction gear, which was leaking like 300 gallons of oil a day into the ocean (obviously NOT a good thing!) and so for about 12 hours the rumor mill of the SBR was well oiled and running as to what remained to be the fate of our fine ship. The worst rumor was that we’d have to go back to Mayport to get it fixed and that would mean that we would unsuccessfully completed the deployment, meaning that we would be surge deployed, ready to take the next 6 monther that they needed to fill. Obviously, morale was NOT high for those few hours.

However, the decision was made that we would pull back into Curacao the next day (a Sunday, exactly 7 days from being there the week earlier) to see if we could get it fixed. Hell must have frozen over and my duty section did NOT have duty that day that we pulled in, and liberty was called in the afternoon and around dinner time I was able to leave the ship (while the problem was in my department, it wasn’t my division that had to fix the leak so we were all free to go). As excited as I was to get off the ship, I realized that it was a Sunday (AGAIN) meaning that the shops were once again not open. However, luckily for myself and the other 200+ folks of the Sammy B, we were as happy to be able to frequent Mambo Beach one more time, probably as much as the locals enjoyed our presence and while I was not able to shop for Dutch collectibles, we were able to imbibe in the local Caribbean beverages, something we were all grateful for!

The rock stars of the engineering department fixed the leak in the middle of the night, and the next morning, we were off and running from Curacao back out to the ocean, looking forward to our stop in Trinidad, which was only 4 short days away!

However, as you can imagine, since you haven’t yet read any posts about a fabulous trip to Trinidad, that’s because… drum roll here…. We didn’t go! However, that decision took about three days of 1) “we may not be able to go to Trinidad as a US sub just was there and there was apparently a sighting of some Islamic fundamentalist boat” 2) Just kidding, we are definitely on! to 3) just kidding, we’re not going!

So, that was definitely a bummer. However, we still needed fuel (obviously) so on Wednesday we met up with the Wave Ruler, a british oiler to do a RAS (refueling as sea). I’m sure most of you know about this, as I’ve talked about doing them on past summer cruises, but this was exciting because it was on my own ship (OPS O was quoted as saying to us baby ensigns: “now savor this guys, because you never forget your first RAS” which I thought was a little extreme, I mean it wasn’t THAT cool). The babies got to Conn alongside the oiler which is really cool once you realize that we are between 140 and 180 feet away from a massive ship, attempting to steer on the same course and speed to keep the fuel lines running between the two ships aligned; obviously a difficult feat; something about the Bernoulli property: a high pressure zone is created between the two ships which wants to make a suction of the two ships. Anyways, it was really cool and while I can’t send pictures off the ship, I got a bunch and will post them upon my return.

After that, we began planning for another return to GTMO for FFVs (fresh fruits and vegetables) which we can’t get out to sea; since we’re not in a strike group, we can’t rely on a supply ship and supply helos to transport stuff out to us at sea, we have to pull in to get it (which explains why my roommates in the Gulf; a location significantly farther away from the Caribbean; have received mail I sent the day we left, even though they’ve only made one port call and we’ve made 3 and I have yet to receive anything sent to me. And, since I don’t think you all are lying about mailing me stuff, I am expecting a barrage of mail the next time we get back to Mayport, so in the interim you probably shouldn’t mail anything else… wow that was a long digression). We were looking forward to about 3 and a half days in GTMO, not that there’s THAT much to do there, but it would give every duty section a day off. Day off? What’s a day off? What a crazy notion! I think I’ve had a day off before… August 5th I think?... it seems so long ago… I miss days off (sorry, just a little exhausted from having one day off in 4 weeks straight)

But GTMO does provide us with a bowling alley, a McDonalds, a Pizza Hut, a real gym to workout in, and pay phones where you can call the states for 100 minutes for only $10. now, I don’t even LIKE bowling, but I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about it once a day for like a week straight.

Enter Hurricane Dean. Our counter-narcotic mission was cancelled and we were ordered to steam in about 2 days to about 100 nms north of Puerto Rico. At this point I thought we should either a) pull into San Juan and enjoy a nice liberty port or b) just keep going north and home to Mayport. Alas, this is why I am nor the Navigator nor the CO. We’ve spent about 2 days running from the hurricane, and I was pleased when the worst of the hurricane passed under us with nothing over 1 foot seas (we were expecting like 9-12 foot swells!)

We have been busy the past few days working on maintenance, spot checks, PQS, and hurricane tracking while trying to plan a visit to GTMO (we still need those FFVs and some people who are supposed to be meeting the ship). In the interim, a bunch of US ships on the other side of Panama were ordered to Peru to help with the earthquake that recently hit there. There have been lots of rumors and changes in plans over the past few days, but this morning we just got the official word. It looks like our big multi-nation exercise in the Panama Canal at the end of Aug- beginning of Sept might be cancelled in the face of the news about the destruction of Hurricane Dean. (it wouldn’t really be appropriate for us to play “let’s defend the canal” while there are serious problems occurring right around us). It looks like we’ll be doing a quick jaunt into GTMO for some fuel and supplies before sortie-ing with the USS Wasp (LHD 1, which is like the ship I was on last summer; coincidentally the EXACT ship that CAPT Miller, the CO of UVA NROTC commanded right before he came to the Unit… I’m looking forward to seeing “Make Excellence a Habit” painted on his boat, for anyone in my ROTC class reading this)

While in GTOM we’ll be picking up thousands of MREs, thousands of bottled water and medical supplies to participate in Humanitarian Aide/Disaster Relief (HADR) in Jamaica with the Wasp. This is VERY exciting news for us; after weeks chasing around super-elusive drug runners, it will be GREAT to finally feel like we are actually contributing to society and that we actually have a purpose for floating around in the ocean away from our families and loved one (some guys have been on this ship for like 5 years and they say it’s the first time THEY’VE felt this way!) Unlike the Wasp, we don’t have a large medical treatment facility, so they will be the head of the medical aspect, they have doctors and ICU and dentists and a triage and whatnot, and they also have Marines attached who will be used for force protection and security in Jamaica, but we are still helping by bringing supplies none the less. We won’t be able to pull into Jamaica, since hurricanes can cause navigational aides to move around and it wouldn’t be safe to navigate there without the aides, but we will probably be like a mile or so off the coast, using our little RHIB boat and our 2 helos to airlift supplies over there. It doesn’t sound like we will be using our manpower (which is what we originally expected, as we were like a ship full of 200+ well abled bodies) since of the medical concern for disease that is there post-hurricane. But, guys such as the ones who work on the diesels and generators and my guys (the electricians) could find themselves needed on land to provide technical support.

However, this meant that we left our safe and calm position north of Puerto Rico to follow the Hurricane in it’s tracks. This was not taken very well by my stomach. I had been doing well for most of the deployment. Sunday is a holiday routine, which means other than watch, there is no work to be done (well there’s ALWAYS work to be done, but we don’t do spotchecks or drills or meetings and we try not to do maintenance and a different group on the ship… the 1st class, the Chiefs, the Officers, etc grill up a big feast for dinner on the flight deck which is a lot of fun) this has been our first holiday Sunday since leaving and my watch section REALLY lucked out! We had watch last night until midnight and then nothing this morning so I slept for NINE AND A HALF HOURS! This may not sound impressive, but it is the equivalent of 3 or 4 nights sleep combined on a normal day. Then I had watch, went to the picnic (which was moved to the mess decks b/c the weather was too strong to be on the flight deck, the fishing call and flight deck movie night was also canexed (cancelled exercised)) and now have another 11 hours off before my next watch. Basically, it’s AMAZING. However, this chasing the hurricane thing means that we had like 8 foot swells while I was on watch. First, I got sick in a little plastic bag (which one of the quarter masters like rodeo-threw it off the side of the ship, but not before 2 guys in my division looked up from the deck below to see me). Then about 20 minutes later, I got sick in a bigger trash bag (like the big black heavy duty kinds you put in garbage can), but the winds were so strong that I couldn’t get it open well enough to puke in it (think like trying to lay a beach towel down in the sand on a really really windy day) and had to get the port side lookout to help me. In between I tried eating crackers and sipping on 7-UP, which didn’t help and the next 2 times I got sick over the starboard bridge wing into the ocean.

The senior watch officer let me go lay down for 30 minutes (we have a junior OOD in my section, Christy my roommate, who took over the Conn while I was gone). At first I really didn’t want to, but he was like “if you don’t go lay down and hydrate right now, you’re going to find yourself in medical all night with one of Doc’s IVs in your arm so I suggest you go lay down now”

A 30 minute nap was definitely in order and I came back, had a Pepsi (yes, my first real soda in like years!) to give me some sugar back in my system and some goldfish and finished the rest of the watch successfully. However, not before the word of ENS Harris’ weak stomach passed to Combat via the guys on the bridge and to ENG thanks to the guy who witnessed me in all of my glory. All evening people are like “are you ok? Are you ok?” and I was like “what did the CO announce it over the 1MC while I wasn’t paying attention?!?!?”

Anyways, I had some beef kabobs and potato salad for dinner which were excellent (however, in the literal-ness of the Navy, the kabobs were called “meat on a stick”… you can guess than that the chicken kabobs were called “chicken on a stick”) and I’m trying to get my blood sugar back up so I don’t feel weak tomorrow morning.

This was the latest word, so I will do my best to keep you all updated on our HADR work in Jamaica. This will mean no more port visits or days off til the end of September (our other liberty port was Cozumel, which unfortunately may not be there in a few days) which is going to be really hard on the crew, physically, emotionally, and morale wise. We will stop briefly in Key West to pick up the inspectors for our ULTRA-S inspections and then drop them off a few days later to pick up our Tigers for the TIGER Cruise we’ll be offering for the crew’s families and friends for a night underway before we pull back into Mayport. I am happy to announce that Aharon Laufer will be my tiger for the transit (but I am going to make sure that it is a tough two days, full of mid-watches and 4 hour long GQ drills and mind numbing briefs so that he can see what my life is REALLY like) just kidding it will be fun: we’ll have a steel beach picnic and do man overboard drills and “cool” stuff like that.

Ok, I guess that’s all I have to say right now. Oh, we have a monthly newsletter that gets emailed out, if you want to see it to read about what all the ship is doing, just respond to this blog with your email, or talk to my mom or dad and one of them or Dan will forward it to you! (it’s like 10 pages which is way too much bandwidth to send off the ship, only like the CO has that kind of power to email stuff that big off)

Sorry I have been bad about writing, but in hindsight it would have been silly to update you all on things that changed every day. Thanks for everyone who emails me; it is seriously the only good thing about my days as I am exhausted and missing time off and you all. We are in the midst of planning our post-deployment leave period and I am happy to say that I will be in DC the weekend of the 13th of Oct for the Princi wedding (hopefully will see some of you there!) and then I will be in MD that whole rest of the week (hopefully see some of you Bel Air girls!!) and then off to Key West for a little vacation before getting back to work. As you can imagine, I am SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY excited about coming home!!!!

I will keep you all updated on our HADR effort! Thanks for reading this far!!!