Adventures in Panama

Hi all! I write this in the 20 minutes that I have to actually breathe and regroup my thoughts. Things have become SO busy SO fast (I know, I’ve been saying for a month and a half that I’ve been busy--- turns out, I’ve been lying, I didn’t know what busy was until Panamax started!)

We pulled into Colon, Panama last weekend. I’d have to say that GTMO and the detainee camp was a nicer port visit than Colon. Many of the sailors onboard joked that Colon (pronounced like the smelly perfume worn by men) should actually be pronounced like the body part, as that is more an accurate description.

Colon is at the northern outlet of the Panama Canal, where ships pull into and anchor around as they wait to go through the Canal. Only a few ships can go through at a time, and a lot of it is political, so if you have more money, you get to go through without having to wait in line or at optimal hours. (incidentally, the Navy gets to go in for free, but we go in at night- apparently we can’t afford the daytime rate)

We spent 2 days pierside in Colon getting ready for the exercises, but unfortunately Colon is apparently super sketchy and so we weren’t allowed off the pier. The pier did happen to have an oversized warehouse that had been converted into a duty free/pseudo mall area, equipped with all the perfume and liquor you could ever imagine, as well as a Pizza Hut, and multiple bars. There are few things certain in the Navy except that where there are sailors, there is alcohol within an arm’s reach. I was able to procure a large bottle of Petrone tequila which was relatively inexpensive and I am looking forward enjoying a margarita upon my return.

We worked a lot in Colon but were able to enjoy a few hours off at night. We were also pierside with USS Wasp and Mitscher. We are now in our area of operation, kicking off what has already proved to be an exhausting exercise!

Yesterday, we spent much of the afternoon participating in divtacs, where all of the ships maneuver at close ranges in different and changing formations. A helo was launched with a combat camera crew to get the whole thing on tape; earlier this morning we had them onboard to photograph our boarding exercises with a Brazilian ship and they said they took over 2,000 shots of the photoex (photo exercise). It is a shiphandling nightmare however, as the commands to move are given over a tactical fleet phone, and all of the commands are coded. I was the tactical signals officer, which meant I spent about 4 hours with a phone pressed against my ear, attempting to encode and decode signals from ships who’s English was not exactly clear and understandable, while 15 people around me were screaming as we were 300 yards away from like 20 ships. Did I mention we were launching our helo simultaneously?

After my 7 hours on the bridge as conning officer followed by tactical signals officer, we moved onto a dry refueling at sea (which means that we just hook up the cables and simulate refueling) with the USS Wasp. They had to do a RAS during a recent ULTRA inspection and were unable to, so we helped them out by coming alongside, while filming the evolution, so they could send it back to the inspectors.

The CO of the Wasp was very appreciative and while it is usually the receiving ship that sends back gifts to the other ship, since we were doing this for the Wasp, they sent over a box of tasty cookies and whatnot, which was exciting. It was also at night, so all we had to go by were the glowing flight deck lights. It was pretty cool, except I was tired after 9 hours on the bridge.

And then today happened. I woke up at the usual time for the morning watch from 6-noon. Again, much of the morning was spent on the red phone decoding messages from other ships out here. Then, I got about 3 hours today to actually do work (you know, like that division I have to run?) and then from 1600-2200 (with an hour and a half break for dinner) we did leap frogs with another ship. This exercise of course had to require yet another watchbill, which I found myself on again, as the tactical signals officer. (mind you, I wasn’t actually on watch at this time, this was during my 12 hours “off”) so, I was on the bridge again from 1600-2200. leap frogs are similar to when little kids play leap frog by hopping over each other in a long line (except of course, we don’t actually hop out of the water). Leap frogs consist of a few ships in a vertical line and the rear ship passes all the other ships in front of her, while coming alongside at a distance you would use to refuel at sea, coast along for awhile side by side at the same course and speed, and then move on to the next ship. When the last ship gets to the front, she becomes the guide and the new rear ship hops up. I got to take a spin on the conn which was also exciting. Overall it was fun, except for the fact that after leap frogs concluded at 2200, I had to go BACK on watch from midnight to 6am. If you have been following the math all along, that would be 18 hours on the bridge in a 24 hours period. And those 6 hours? I WISH I spent them in bed, luckily I had 6 hours to actually get some real work done.

Also, in more exciting news (and by exciting news I mean, news that increased my work 10 fold), our PAO is no longer with us on board, so I am the newest Public Affairs Officer for the Sammy B. this means I have to write a whole bunch of press release articles for DESRON about what we’re doing, as well as put together the ship’s newsletter. So, while many of you probably didn’t read the last one, now that I’m going to be spending half my life making this one, I will be sure that every last one of you receives, reads, and appreciates the news from the Sammy B in the form of our newsletter and the other 300 press releases I have to write.

Today we are having the “Holy Helo” visit us onboard- yes friends, you read that right- a holy helo, from the Wasp (we don’t have a Chaplain onboard) so we have 3 chaplains spending the day today conducting Catholic and Protestant services, as well as offer counseling and anger management classes (although I doubt that 3 chaplains in one hour can manage all of the anger that is festering on the ship). I don’t think I need any counseling, but I do miss getting hugs; I never realized how much I took advantage of hugs (there are no hugs in the Navy esp on ships) so I look fwd to coming home and hugging everyone I see. Well, not everyone, but everyone I know.

While the days right now are very long and we are so busy with this exercise, plus getting ready for ULTRA, I am definitely feeling as though things are starting to wrap up around here. Luckily there is a lot to keep us busy and I no longer spend 6 hours of the midwatch thinking about exactly what I want to eat for dinner my first day home. Surprisingly though, after all that thought, I still haven’t come to anything conclusion as to where I want to go to dinner. Go figure!

I am really looking forward to our Cozumel port visit, and while we will be busy entertaining dignitaries and prepping for ULTRA, it should be a fun port call, definitely beating out GTMO and Colon. I am getting sad though as I read lots of emails from people starting classes at UVa and spending weeks on end at the beach and starting “real” jobs (those kinds of jobs where you get more than 1 day off every 2 or 3 months) and going to Homecomings and getting together for Molly B’s wedding; things that I wish I could be around for and people that I know I won’t be able to see for awhile because I’m in the Navy. That’s kind of sad and so I try not to think about it- hopefully we’ll stay busy so I can stop being sad.

Looking forward to seeing everyone I can in just a few short weeks! Be looking for another update as we move into the next phase of our deployment! Thanks!

Haze Gray and Underway…

Sorry to all that I haven’t written in a week; I promise my goal for this week is to write once between now and Sunday but we’ll see if that actually happens. I lucked out AGAIN this week and had the noon to 6pm watch on today’s holiday routine which meant that I got to sleep for 9 and a half hours last night before getting up for a workout and pancakes before watch and now am enjoying a few hours off and a real night’s sleep again before watch. Today the weather sort of held out for us and we were able to have our steel beach picnic out on the flight deck, complete with burgers, dogs, potato salad and chips--- it was really good! The sea state was a little rough and choppy so we had to cancel our swim call (when we stop the engines and let the crew jump off the flight deck to swim in the ocean), which was ok with me because I was going to be on watch anyways and while it wasn’t sunny, for once it wasn’t like 95 degrees on the bridge (there’s a pathetic excuse for an air conditioner, but we keep both bridge wing doors open so it’s really hot) and you could actually stand outside and enjoy the breeze. We could have been off the coast of Maine for all I knew because the weather wasn’t the bright cerulean color blue it normally is, instead the ocean, the sky and the ship were all the same shade of gray. However, we did see dolphins today; they like to swim along the front of the ship in the wake we create, the dolphins were small but so pretty to see them jump out of the water.

In keeping with this deployment, as soon as I wrote that last post and we pulled into GTMO, we learned that Hurricane Dean didn’t hit as bad as expected so we were no longer needed for HADR efforts. We stayed Monday afternoon through Wednesday morning in GTMO, which was AWESOME because I didn’t have duty at all and was able to enjoy some time off the ship once work was done around 1700 both days. On Monday we went to the NEX to restock on some goods and then went to the only source of entertainment on base: the bowling alley. I never thought I could be so happy with pizza hut, beer and bowling (well let’s be honest, I can get excited about pretty much anything) but it was great enjoying a few hours off! I was also able to restock my magazine collection. It was disappointing however, as the magazine section at the NEX was like 90% about cars, sports, and half nude women… I could figure out what audience they were catering to! But I was able to get Gourmet, Bon Appetite, Rachael Ray, and Foreign Affairs, to satiate my food and current event cravings.

The next night, we had a Hail & Farewell for the MPA who was leaving and his replacement at a little grill/restaurant on the base, which was fun to hang out with everyone. The pier at GTMO also has a little pay phone shack with cheap phone cards so I able to call home, it was great to finally hear people’s voices!

Today is an exciting day, because it is August 26th, which means exactly ONE month til home (a little less… because as I write this, I will probably be enjoying a GREAT meal and a glass of wine in exactly one month)… also this half of the deployment will be more predictable: we have the big PANAMAX exercise and then a trip to Cozumel and the big ship-wide inspection and then the tiger cruise which means we will be SO busy and there will be so many ways to break up the next few weeks. I am looking forward to getting to Colon, Panama, although I recently learned that it’s pretty sketchy there so we aren’t allowed to leave the pier. They have like pay phones and a little convenience store and “beer on the pier” to satiate sailor’s needs, but we can’t go anywhere else. However, I don’t really mind because being in port means no ridiculous 6 hour watches every 12 hours… in port you only stand watches every third day when you have duty and the watches are only 4 hours--- its amazing how fast 4 hours goes by when you’re used to 6 hour ones!

I will probably be really busy while underway for PANAMAX- we will be doing lots of exercises and tactical maneuvering and stuff which should make the watches go by quickly but definitely add on to all the stuff we do on a normal underway day such as training and meetings and maintenance. Hopefully I will be able to keep you all updated on it, but if not, at the end of the exercise, we pull back into Panama for a few days for a big “debrief” so I will be able to catch everyone up on exactly what we were doing (since I’m still a little confused) However, the schedule does include a reception on a Chilean ship for our wardroom, so Caroline, if you’re reading this, I am looking forward to it after hearing your stories of crazy parties with the Chileans! (they have a tap in their wardroom… the US navy is definitely lacking!)

I am definitely getting a little homesick, I am SO sick of being around like 300 guys all the time! There are only 3 other girls, and I only ever see one of them—I need me some serious Chi Omega in my life right now!!! I miss my roommates a lot and think about them a lot (they got into the Gulf at the beginning of the month so keep them in your prayers!) and also sad thinking about everyone going back to school right now: if you’re reading this and at UVa- I miss you all and ENJOY your time there--- there are so many days when I haven’t slept in like 2 days and I say to myself “I wouldn’t think twice about staying up most of the night writing papers and studying right now!” just to be back! My feet are constantly killing me from standing 12 hours a day and I can’t wait to get a pedicure when I come home- every night or morning when I take off my boots I just look at my swollen and calloused feet and cannot wait to be back! Ok sorry that’s gross- I’ll stop writing about my feet right now.

So for the last exciting part of my story, since all of that was just a bunch of random babbling…

Last week when we were in GTMO, the Wardroom got a tour of JTF (joint task force) detainee camp. Our CO is apparently friends with the Admiral in charge of the camp and so he arranged for us to get a tour of the detention facility, including 5 of the 6 camps in Guantanamo. It was hands down, one of the coolest things I’ve ever done and something I could have only done in the Navy. It was almost creepy, driving up to the camps that were surrounded by like 30 foot tall heavily barbed wire fences, and not just one fence, but like ten of them, surrounding every layer of the facility. We saw the maximum security camps for detainees of high intelligence value, camps5 & 6 which were like modern, state of the art facilities; everything was computerized and all the doors and alarms and security systems were controlled by computers in the rotunda area of the building. Then we saw camps 1 & 2, one being for the detainees who were the most poorly behaved, the ones who try to break the guards wrists when they are shackling them through the little holes in their doors… those two camps were like long walk through “trailers” with cells on either side… while their were no detainees in those camps, you could tell their had been, you could smell the sweat and urine still lingering in the air. We were given a tour of the cells and they had laying out all of the things issued to detainees: a small toothbrush, small bar of soap, bottled water, shoes, pants and shirts, a copy of the Koran, playing cards, etc. inside every cell had a little painted arrow which pointed to Mecca, as most of the detainees would pray five times a day. The cells we saw were the vacant ones used for tours- the guy who was leading us said pretty much any media or important person who comes to the camps gets this same tour: he said pretty much any president, senator or congressman, you name it, they’ve taken a tour of the camps at GTMO. We learned about the hierarchy inside the camps: the political leaders, the military leaders, the religious leaders, the soldiers, etc. what was most interesting was talking to the guards: they do 1 year tours in GTMO where they work 15 hour days, 5 days a week: they are on their feet the whole time, and there’s a “3 minute rule” which says that a detainee has to be looked at every 3rd minute, so the guards just have to walk, and stare at them all the time. The guards also have to walk them to their mandatory 2 hours of recreation a day… we saw the Geneva Convention rules and the Islamic calendar that would hang in the rec areas, they also had little treadmills and checkers and soccer balls and stuff. We learned about the cells where the detainees were on hunger strikes for like 2 years and had to be fed via tubes through their noses. We learned that Osama’s bodyguard were there, as was the “20th hijacker” from 9/11.

Then we saw Camp 3, which was for the most cooperative of the detainees- they lived in little pods, 10 per pod, 4 pods per bay, where they were allowed out in a big courtyard all but 4 hours a day- they were given Tide to do their own laundry and they take classes in Arabic and have movies and TVs. What was interesting was just to see them walking around. They couldn’t be in the courtyard when we were there, but the courtyard is surrounded by plain fences (not barbed) and you could see them there, walking around on the other side of the fence, just looking at us. Our tour took us through the camps during “prayer call,” one of the 5 times a day, and many of the men were singing, chanting and praying loudly--- still now I can close my eyes and hear the singing of the detainees… it was almost eerie. Definitely that sound will be one that I will never forget; that and their faces, how they looked.

All in all, it was an incredibly moving experience, a little haunting, but DEFINITELY really interesting and I was so glad that I was able to do that.

I guess that’s all I have for now! I am going to go watch an episode of The Office that I borrowed from my friend and make a paper link chain for how many days we have left of deployment for the electric shop and get a good nights sleep! For all who have emailed me- THANK YOU and I am doing my best to respond personally to them all!

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!!!

Molly "kills" Oscar

This morning, we had a man overboard drill. However, unlike the last one where we just mustered the non-SWO JOs to practice doing a MOB maneuver and we used a grapple to fling out and pick up Oscar (the big floating man that we use for drills… we obviously would NOT use a grapple on a real person…) this drill involved the whole ship. It allowed the whole ship to muster to try and find who went overboard (the training team picks one person and says “don’t go to your muster point), it allowed the SAR (search & rescue) swimmers to get practice retrieving a person, and it allowed the medical team to practice treating the wounds (before they threw Oscar in, they tied plastic “casualties” all over him… wounds to the leg, intestines spilling out, etc). And, unlike last time where they let the real conning officer just tell every JO what to say to maneuver the ship; this time it was just me as the conning officer, with all of the non-SWO qualed JOs, the CO and the XO all on the bridge watching me. I had some coaching by the OOD, as normal, but it was definitely the most stressful thing I’ve done since being onboard. The first swing around I did to get him, I backed off the engines and rudder too fast and didn’t get him. It’s SO hard because you have a maneuver a HUGE ship between the wind and the man to allow the wind to help guide your ship closer to the man (remember, we don’t have the ability to thrust the ship left and right like cruise or merchant ships, only the rudder to guide us). Then, we had to back up the engines (which obviously takes awhile to go from all ahead flank to all back engines), and use the rudder to do like a “3 point turn” to get the man (which in fact, is a lot easier in a car). The second maneuvering try I was too unconfident in what I was doing and we missed him again. Then, by the third try, I finally got the standard commands to drive the ship, the way in which the rudder moves when the engines are forward and back, and how to use the wind to your advantage, not disadvantage. On the 3rd try, I got the ship to stop right at Oscar to let the SAR swimmer go in. Unfortunately, he has been in the water for about 22 minutes (a perfect time is like 10) and given the “injuries” he sustained, he definitely bled to death. (It was later figured out that the “MOB” was this guy BM2 Biggs, so later in the day I found him to apologize for “killing” him)

Overall, it was a great learning experience; I learned more in 25 minutes conning a man overboard drill than I had the past 5 days on the bridge (considering that every 6 hours we made about one course and speed change in about 10degree rudder increments). It obviously wasn’t perfect shiphandling, but no one is expected to be able to maneuver a 400 ft ship their first try. The CO said I need to be more confident in my commands (like I would say “I think… I think I want to do left full rudder” where as I should have just ORDERED left full rudder. I know if I had to do it again I could easily take 5 minutes off my time. I’ve learned that shiphandling is something that can ONLY be learned with hands on practice to see how the ship responses to commands and how long it takes to slow and speed up the ship while making tight maneuvers.

Happy Birthday... to who?

I was coming into the wardroom to eat dinner and SUPPO was like “did you get the word for the meeting at 1800? Can you be here?” and I was like “uhh I didn’t get the word but I’m just going to sit down and eat so I’ll be there” and she was like “ok good!” and then I was sitting down eating my roll and waiting for my food when the XO was like “ms harris, can I see you over here about something?” and I was like “uhhh… yes sir…” wondering what exactly I had done that was SO bad that the XO had to take me out of my seat in the middle of dinner into the hallway. He proceeds to question me for a few minutes about the personal electrical safety checks and how it went and all; obviously a conversation I figured we’d eventually have, but not in the middle of dinner. So then he was like “ok that’s good thanks” which I thought was totally weird.

Then, like 1 minute after sitting down, they brought out a cake and the whole wardroom sang happy birthday to me. Except, I had no idea it was for me (b/c my birthday was 2 days ago, and I’d since forgot I really even had one) so I just start singing along to the happy birthday song, figuring that eventually I’d figure out whose birthday it was. And then, everyone is like staring and laughing at me, and they lower the cake and I see “ENS Harris” on it and I was like “ohh! That’s me!!” and got super excited. Now everyone won’t stop making fun of me and was like “only ENS Harris would sing happy birthday to herself b/c she had no idea what was going on…” and we all got a good laugh out of it. It was SO SO nice of them, and literally made my day. And, the funnier part was that it was carrot cake (the background behind this being that a) SBR either has a contract with sarah lee to provide us with nothing but carrot cake or b) instead of cocaine we found ships with bales of carrot cake floating around, as we have carrot cake literally like 5 out of the 7 days a week for dessert; I mean, it’s actually really good carrot cake, but we have it ALL the time) and they covered it with icing and wrote on it in pink frosting, which of course, made my day. It was awesome.

Time in Curacao...

Folks,

Hi! So sorry it has taken so long to get something posted, as I’m sure you can imagine, I have been SUPER busy. I’m not sure when the last time I updated everyone, but for right now, we left Curacao this morning for another long stretch of CNT (counter narcotic terrorism) Ops before we pull into Trinidad. Since my day to day existence is pretty bland, I will instead talk about Curacao for awhile.

Unfortunately, I only got 1 day off in Curacao, but since it was on my birthday, I can’t really complain too much. We started our morning with a snorkeling trip; it was pretty awesome- we drove to the west side of the island (the whole island is 38 miles by 7 miles) for some snorkeling in this beautiful beach/bay area. Along the way, we had a tour guide who filled us in on some info about Curacao. A Dutch island, it is part of the Netherland’s Antilles in the West Caribbean. We learned that while the major language there is Dutch, Curacao is really a melting pot for all kinds of people and the language they speak is called Papiamento and is a mix of Dutch, English, Spanish, and African. The weather there was wonderful, and not humid. It is also where the blue Curacao liqueur is made, and while the distillery was closed on Sunday, I was still able to buy a bottle to bring back to the States.

After that, we went to go shop, only to find out that all stores are closed on Sundays, which is a bummer because I was looking forward to getting my hands on some cigars (which they obviously didn’t sell in GTMO) and some of the blue Delft (I think that’s the spelling; it’s like pottery) that is made there, but alas, I was unable.

It was still nice to walk around the town; in true Caribbean style, all of the buildings were different bright colors, yet with a Dutch/European ambience, which was pretty cool. Then, at night, we went to this place called “Mambo Beach” which was basically a huge beach that boasted restaurants, bars, hotels, and shops behind the beach. It is a great place to go during the day, and at night it turns into a big fiesta of music, dancing, and drinks. A bunch of JOs walked far down Mambo Beach to where some of the quieter hotels were and had dinner along the marina area while watching one of the most beautiful sunsets I’d ever seen. Then, we moved back to the main area for what was essentially one huge beach party. They had these like big oversized Adirondack style chairs with HUGE pillows (I really wanted to swipe one for my stateroom at the time, but I didn’t that would fly when I tried to carry it up the quarterdeck) and these four-poster “beds” which were wooden frames with plastic “mattresses” and they were big enough for 10 of us to sit on cross legged and enjoy some “Amstel Bright,” which is a Caribbean version of Amstel, and similar to a Corona as they serve it with a lime.

While drinks were a bit expensive, it was my birthday so I didn’t really care. We also met up with a bunch of the pilots from the airdet and hung out with them. Overall, Curacao was a huge success and I am only bummed that I didn’t get to spend more time there. A neighbor and “sister” island to Aruba, I have heard from people who went to both that Curacao is a much better, less touristy and more cultured island, so if you are looking into a Caribbean vacay, I suggest Curacao. Also, the diving there is superb and while I didn’t get to experience it, some of my friends who did said it was excellent.

Now I’m back on the ship where I have finally made it to standing watch on the bridge, where I am the conning officer driving the ship (basically that means that I give the commands to guide the ship, when in actuality, it is the officer of the deck that tells me what course to come to, I rephrase it in a standard command to the helmsmen, who actually turns the rudder, so I guess I don’t actually drive the ship per say…) My schedule is normally a 6 hour watch, a meal, 6 hours of work in my division, 6 hours of watch on the bridge, a few hours of studying/quals/gym workout if I’m lucky (and not seasick!) and then 4 hours or so of sleeping. Unfortunately every few days one finds themselves on the midnight to 6am watch after a full day of drills and work (we rotate in 3 sections) and then you end up putting in a full 8 hour work day til about 5pm, just to get back on watch from 6pm til midnight. The times when you get off at midnight after being awake and working for 42 hours straight is amazing and I spend most of that night time watch thinking about how excited I am to go to bed. Today I had the best watch ever from noon-6pm watch which means I get 12 hours off, the good thing about that is by the time you are off watch and eat, it is like 7pm, there are no meetings, no training, nobody around to really bother you, so you get a solid 4 hours to work on your quals, study, work on stuff in the division before getting in a solid 6 hours of sleep. I am going to spend most of the evening studying for my damage control test and planning for the electrical safety training that my division will be conducting next week.

As always, I miss everyone very much and thank you all so much for all of the wonderful birthday wishes, I really appreciate them! Please email me if you want, but I don’t get much time to myself for computing so I apologize if my replies are delayed. Til then, we’ll be busy trying to catch some drug runners and cocaine and just waiting for a good bust to improve morale and make us feel like we’re actually doing something! Stay tuned!

Molly is alive... and busy!

From a recent e-mail I received from Molly....

"Please tell my readers I am super busy and love their emails and will try and respond to all of them + update the blog in due time, but unfortunately time is of the essence here. "

She's doing well and continues to work hard. Hopefully, she'll be able to add a more extensive blog post at her next port call. Just wanted to let everyone know that she hasn't fallen off the face of the earth... or the side of the ship.