January 14

Okay well its stormy now as one can see in the pics. Ships not rocking because the waves aren't really spread out but it LOOKS epic.

Oh and I got approved for striking for operational specialist. So there's that. 3 months to study (yay!)

Quotes of the day

Fantail lookout (me): "It's a hundred and six miles to Korea. We have a reactor reading green, half a belly full of kimchi. Its dark. And I'm wearing tinted ski goggles."
Aft lookout: "Hit it"

Forward lookout: "Bridge, air contact, bearing 0-2-5, 20 miles out."
Bridge: "we don't see it. Could you describe it?"
Forward: It's a cloud
Bridge: why in happy hell are you calling in a cloud as a contact?
Forward: Its an especially ominous looking cloud. It looks like its up to something.

Forward lookout: This....is....the....song that never eeeennds.
Everyone else on the circuit: NOOOO!

Whoever was on forward was hilarious yesterday.

"I don't need food or sleep! I run on Honor, Courage, and Commitment!"

The flight deck plays music during FOD walkdown. They played "superfreak"
Flight deck announcing system: To that guy on the plane. STOP. DANCING.
ON. THE WING.

January 13

Okay well 4 duty sections and 3 days in Korea. One section got the lucky straw and had none. One had the almost lucky straw and only missed a half day.

Okay we got lost on the mountain..yes I will retell this story often. Already told it five times. So lets start from the beginning.

Woke up for duty muster in the morning to tell us we're done and turn it over to the next section at 0630.

All the friends are asleep. Stevens is in the duty section decides to go back to sleep. I went to bed early so I got 8 hours....i'm a little mad. Watched tv shows on laptop till Perschbacher woke up. Rodriguez (another SWSCC drop, he was in PT back home before I left for boot camp actually) was up. Stevens won't wake up. Finally, we decide to ditch him since he's in a bad mood. Got off the ship, went to the bus got into Busan. Browse around the knock-off shops there. Got a pair of Ray Bans (actually Rae Bans with the e looking like a y) cost me 3 bucks though. Found the sweetest hoodie ever (mere it was a cosby sweater hoodie....with skulls all over it)

Oh the cosby sweater is still huge in japan. Most teenagers dress like hipsters from America. Most older (30+) people dress in a mix of modern meets 80s meets grandpa. America is huge. LOTS of NY Yankees, NYPD, and Chicago Bears hats around. There's people wearing hats in English but the English makes no sense like University of Nebraska, California or stuff like that.

Okay so I bought a newsboy type old school hat. With my biker jacket. And leather gloves. I seriously looked like a hitman for the Irish mafia. Plus Persch is 6'4" and Rodriguez is tall too and we absolutely TOWER over everyone. Yeah people definitely stared and seemed intimidated by us.

Okay so got on the subway. Went to the fish market. Cool but unless you're buying fish to cook well...it just smelled. Lots of vendors and a very KOREAN place to go to though. Got back on the subway and went to their big outdoor shopping district. Very modern and western but no Americans oddly. Texas street, where we got dropped off is like an Engrish version of what some Korean THOUGHT America was. This shopping district was closer to the real thing than a lot of people imagined. Saw Micky D's and just had to stop since I was jonesing for a burger and every Korean vender either just serves small bite sized snacking stuff that's only enough to tide you over OR they serve it in a way that forces you to nibble away over 45 min (like Korean bbq). Ate a Big Mac in about 10 seconds and the people in the resturaunt looked at me like I unhinged my jaw like the monster from Alien and inhaled the burger. Even and McDonald's people slowly pick away at their food.

Okay so lost on the mountain. This point we were navigating by a cartoon tourist map that had the subway system on it. Saw a temple next to a stop by the end of the line so we're like lets go there. Cool. Got off. We're walking about a mile around the outskirts of the city and the streets are getting steeper as this neighborhood was on the side of a hill turning into the mountains. So we walk about a mile and a half and get out of the city into the hills and we're pointing to the map and they (Korean people) point us down this road. Ok well on the cartoon map it doesn't look all that far. So we're thinking it has to be just around the first bend in that mountain road. WRONG. Its about 3 miles uphill. Half-way up we come to a fork in the road and choose the wrong turn. This road parallels the other one so when it dead ends we're like okay lets just cut across to the other road. After trekking through what I'm pretty sure was farmers' backyards, we find out you can't get back to the other road without backtracking. So at this point we're thinking, we have WAY to much invested in this so far. End up making it and there's this 1500 year old buhdist temple. But it's kind of lame since there's no foliage (duh its winter) and no snow. Either of those would make it look pretty but now its just barren and dead. So we ran into the tour TO that temple from the ship (the tour stopped at like 3 cultural stops this being one of them. The OTHER tour went to this magestic seaside temple on the cliffs BUT there was no train or buses that stopped near there.
Sad day. So we get off the bus get on the train. Shop around some more. Find a Korean bbq place. Completely trash their grill.

See Koreans ONLY cook the meat on their grill and its easy to clean. Us dirty Americans are used to "seasoning" our skillets and grill tops by just heating it then scrapping the ash off before we cook the food. Well that happens because WE put a ton of stuff in the grill with the meat. All the vegetables got tossed on their with all the dipping sauces to cook with the pork. We took about a 1/3 of the meat, poured beer into a bowl with it and let I marinate while we made the other food then put that on the grill. Needless to say their grill was DIRTY and we kept on getting crazy looks with the whole beer marinating thing.

Made it back to the boat. Last ones on as a matter of fact from our department. (We were ON TIME).

Anyway that was the great adventure.

Good times alex

P.S. Oh I should mention I didn't BUY the cosby hoodie. See Koreans don't make my SIZE. Most sizes are below 100. I'm a 110. Its like putting on everything and it's a SMALL. It took persch about an hour to find a jacket that fit him. Found a big and tall shop there BUT it was just suits.

Also, The four of us decided that we're going to get fitted for suits at one of these ports and walk out on liberty all Reservoir Dogs style and refer to ourselves and Mr. White and Mr. Orange. IT. Will. Be. Awesome.
Cue epic slow motion walk.

January 12 Busan, Korea

Wow how it's been so far. Right now I'm on duty (see we have to have some people man the ship, terrorists and all that. So I'm just hanging around doing odd jobs. I get liberty tomorrow all day.

Yesterday (January 11) was LONG and awesome. Woke up 0430 for our mooring evolution. Tied the boat to the pier around 9-10ish. I am probably on Korean television and newspaper since I was one of the first people off the boat to secure the lines to the bollards (the posts we tie to on the dock). Since I was the only U.S. sailor actually WORKING (they were taking pictures of the admiral and the captain before) I got my picture taken by around 50 journalists. Cool.

We were the last off the boat since we're Deck. (we had to secure from the mooring stuff THEN clean all our spaces. Since while we were mooring, the rest of the ship was already doing that....deck, engineering and security tend to get hosed getting off the ship last efter we pull in)

So 1400 is when I ended up getting off the ship. Went with Stevens and Pulsipher along with Perschbacher and Thomas. They're quickly becoming my best friends here. Stevens is 25, SWCC drop and getting married after deployment. Pulsipher is 23 married, seal drop. Persch is 27 and was a teacher before joining for CTI when he dropped since he couldn't pick up the Arabic. Thomas is 22 and getting married, CTI drop as well. We kind of formed our own gang here on the boat. Good times.

Anyway we got off, saw the area on the pier where they set up a food tent and Korean vendors. Saw the LONG line for the ATM that a Korean bank set up and then decided to skip it and hopped on the first bus we saw. Didn't know where we were going or nothing and no money. Lucky most ATMs in Korean have English as a 2nd option and work international.

So we pulled of Texas street (yes that's the actual name of the street) really really really lame. It's like Americantown with a bunch of clubs and bars. So we ditched that and started walking to the downtown area in the opposite direction. BEST. DECISION. EVER. We just wandered around on blind luck and a big language barrier. No one knew any English where we ended up. First, we got some street food: dumplings in fish soup. Very good. Then some potsticker like things fresh from the fryer. We shopped a little. I bought a leather motorcycle style jacket. Took in the sights. Korea is VERY modern. It's a lot like Japan but without some of the batty insane aspects of Japanese culture that are completely baffling.

Weird things though: there's squat toilets. Theres not a single trash can ANYWHERE but even so the streets and places are pretty clean. And there's this Korean Michael Jackson like pop star that's everywhere. Oh and every store sells a coffee maker. The GOLF STORE (yes an entire store for golfing. Its huge in korea) was selling coffee makers. Same with the fishing store (also huge in Busan) and the Korean Best Buy.

Anyway we stumbled into the most homey looking resturaunt we could find.
Shoes, off. No chairs just a pad on the floor. Heated floor though. Real mom and pop type place. Fore exmaple, the bathroom had a medicine cabinet with the owner's things in it.

So no English. Pulsipher just took the initiative there and just started pointing to the menu. They gave up and they just started bringing us food. It was BBQ so it was cooked on coals in a grill in the middle of our table. Second course they brought out some soup and rice and you poured the soup into the rice. All these courses had a million different add ons sitting around you threw into everything. The owners thought it very funny we kept breaking traditional rules. For example, they brought out apple slices to cleanse the pallet between meals and we ended up throwing them on the grill and carmelizing them with this sweet bean curd stuff slathered all over them. They found that funny. Whole thing cost us around 50 bucks, we found out tipping is a no because we clearly left the $50 and the $15 in tips in two separate piles and they brought the money back thinking we didn't understand how much.

After that we hung out some more. Hung out in parks, took in the sights and came back to the boat to find half our department wasted. So good decision on that end.

We're trying to hit up a budhist temple tomorrow. I'll fill everyone in when I can.

Alex

Quotes:
"I'll take out 5 won and see how far it gets me"
"Thomas, the max withdrawal is 100,000 won. Figuring most atms have a $100-200 dollar limit you're taking out less than a penny"
"how bout we go to that convenience store...see how much a coke costs....then figure that's how much a dollar is"

"Ok after trying for 5 minutes to talk to the guy I can safely say we're not going to find a trash can"

(lady puts our bbq into a lettuce leaf and wraps it up"
"AH HA! The burrito! A concept I understand!"

First Phone Call

We got our first phone call from Alex at 7:30 this morning.

He received many of the phone cards that everyone sent him. He also got the cold weather clothes we sent him.

Call was a little garbled but I think he said he has $200 worth of phone cards.

He's doing OK. He couldn't say when he was going to be in port but I noticed tonight that I missed a facebook posting that stated the strike group is going to the Republic of Korea starting January 11.

I'll get a complete list of all the stuff he received when he usually emails us at 2:00 in the morning.

From Libertyville

Alex George

January 7

Oh Quotes of the day

"See we've formed our own click here."
"Yeah we've got our own table in the cafeteria. Experience from high school
told me that was important to rule the social ladder"

BM3 Blunt is black. He fistbumps Perschbacher and then goes to fistbump me.
I overexaggerate it.
Perschbacher "Al that was THE whitest fist bump I have ever seen"
Me: "I just got excited! A black guy INITIATED a fist bump with me. This is
like the coolest I've ever been!"

CVN 70 going to Korea

Carl Vinson Strike Group to Visit Republic of Korea
By Carl Vinson Strike Group Public Affairs

PACIFIC OCEAN - The Carl Vinson Strike Group will visit the Republic of Korea beginning Jan. 11. USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) and USS Bunker Hill (CG 52) will visit Busan, while USS Gridley (DDG 101) and USS Stockdale (DDG 106) will visit Chinhae.

The Strike Group is conducting a deployment to the Western Pacific. While in port, the crews will participate in community service projects, as well as sporting events with the ROK Navy.

“Regular visits to ports in this region are an important part of our presence and engagement here. We are not only allies but we’ve been fortunate to forge real friendships with the Korean people,” said Rear Adm. Samuel Perez, Vinson Strike Group Commander. “Through the events we have planned in Busan and Chinhae, our Sailors are looking forward to learning more about this wonderful culture and strengthening an already healthy relationship.”

In addition to the surface ships attached to the Strike Group, Vinson is home to Destroyer Squadron 1 and Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 17, which includes the “Red Lions” of Helicopter Anti-submarine Squadron 15, the “Fighting Redcocks” of Strike Fighter Squadron 22, the “Fist of the Fleet” of Strike Fighter Squadron 25, the “Sunliners” of Strike Fighter Squadron 81, the “Rawhides” of Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 40, the “Garudas” of Electronic Attack Squadron 134, the “Stingers” of Strike Fighter Squadron 113 and the “Tigertails” of Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 125.

“For many of our Sailors, this will be their first visit to a foreign land,” said Perez. “We feel very fortunate that they’ll be able to experience that here and build relationships they’ll remember for years to come.”

The U.S. Navy maintains a robust forward presence in the Asia-Pacific region, utilizing both forward deployed naval forces in Japan and Guam, as well as rotationally deployed forces from the continental United States and Hawaii.

Carrier Strike Group 1 was formally established October 1, 2009, and led Vinson and Bunker Hill when the ships supported disaster response and humanitarian operations in Haiti this year. This is the first deployment of the Arleigh Burke class destroyer, Stockdale. This is Bunker Hill’s first deployment since it underwent cruiser modernization, the first Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser to complete its mid-life modernization. This is Vinson’s first deployment to 7th Fleet since 2005.

January 6

I hope everything at home is well. Anything happen in the world?
Its not that we're news deprived just that most people don't care and ESPN
and the ships movie station are on a LOT more that CNN.

Oh what else? I honestly can't think of anything to write. Oh try to find a
picture of a Nimitz class carrier from the stern. See ALL THAT stuff on the
back. Me and two other guys sanded ALL THAT down and painted the entire
thing. By ourselves. In about a week and a half. Now we obviously didn't do
the stuff over the side but anything from the fantail (deck ON that stern)
up we did.

Finally starting to get at least a little chilly. It was actually almost too
warm when we were off Hawaii. Hows the weather at home? Any other updates.

From the Pacific
Alex

January 5

Good morning everyone

I think it's morning for you? Its around 1920 for me here. It’s weird seeing Sunday afternoon football on Tuesday morning when you wake up. We finally finished the UNREPS we did the past 2 days. No supplies taken aboard just refueling two of our destroyers. I didn’t do anything to help mind you. I just watched while painting lol. I haven’t been able to jump in on the unreps, and with some port calls looming in the future, we have a lot of work to get done on the more visible areas of the ship.

So for us that means lots of chipping and sanding and painting and non-skid deck laying. Oh non-skid how I love thee. See on all deck areas we lay this thick goop with gravel in it that forms this super rough texture called non-skid which as its name suggests, completely prevents and form of slippage. It is literally impossible on this stuff, no matter how much grease, jet engine lube or fuel is all over the deck. Its also so rough you it kind of hurts to simply sit down on it. Anyway, it's next to impossible to lay down neatly so that’s what I’ve been doing.

Otherwise everything falls into a pretty good routine here. I’m almost qualed for watch. My Over Instructor (Crabtree actually if you remember that facebook picture you asked me about mom/dad) actually looked up what a helmsman would make on say a cruise ship or a merchant marine ship. HOLY COW. Now I realize that salary is because they have something like a 2 year journeyman’s program for your average able seaman in the merchant marine. But it's kind of ironic how in less than a month I’m about to be qualified to drive a carrier. WHILE PLANES LAND!! Another 2 months or so I could get my master helmsman qual which would allow me to drive while we do unreps (it's insane how close we have to keep to the other ship btw) or during mooring etc. So there’s that. Oh and I think I mentioned this but I’m already driving during flight ops which is to put it bluntly, unnerving as heck. Its just a lot of pressure sometimes.

What else on the day to day life of me? I have a bunch to write about what we will soon be doing but again you boys and girls can’t be privy to that for national security reasons. Once again I’m free for any question you may desire about stuff.

Oh there’s something to talk about. We basically have 3 types of people: airdales, ships company and engineering (which is part of ships company but is like their own separate thing).

Airdales are the skittles. The guys in the rainbow colored shirts that fix, fuel and arm the planes. They are annoying as hell and tend to think the ships soul purpose is for them (which I hate to admit it is). Aviation Ordinance is probably close to the most annoying. They like their little “If you aint ordinance you ain’t s#$t” and “we put warheads on foreheads” cheerleader chants. For one, the former slogan is just bad grammar and #2 no you don’t put warheads on the aforementioned foreheads. You put the warheads on the planes and then the pilots fly and drop the bombs and the guy radioing in the airstrike puts it on the foreheads. Not to mention we have a trained and qualified Explosive Ordinance Disposal team onboard (you know the guys who work with the SEALs?). So what’s that tell you? The United States Navy distrusts the professional skills of our ordinance department so much that they felt the need to bring a bomb disposal squad onboard to hedge their bets.

Ships company is just that. The people who work and keep the ship afloat, navigation, personnel and admin, deck and all the other departments that operate the ship day to day. Basically the “sailor” rates and jobs.

Engineering deals with making the ship GO. They also fix the ships equipment like the water purifiers and firefighting equipment and all that stuff. They exist in the bowels of the ship and rarely see sunshine. Generally regarded as just being strange in their own special way. Engineers are just weird.

Well so there you go. I hope you guys have a wonderful week
Alex

January 4

Well HellOOoooo!

Yet another long day today and promising to be another long one tomorrow(remember what happened last time I had a "long day"? remember how they come in pairs lol).

Well lets see what I CAN tell you. I'm trying to grow an underway mustache(really). Not going so well. 3 days and its BARELY stubble. I'll try to keep it up maybe come back in July with one Tom Selleck would envy.

I might get a tattoo at my next port. Suggestions requested, otherwise I'm getting that eagle soaring in front of an American flag dropping bombs out of its talons onto a vaguely offensive caricature cartoon of a terrorist. Seriously, I saw this on someone's back lol.

I might put together a cruise jacket. Basically get either a Green flight jacket or try to wrangle a similar looking blue one (the green one I can't really wear in uniform but I can buy at the NEX. The blue one I CAN wear but I think I need a hookup from supply. Basically you get the patches of your ship and your commands and put them over a jacket with other patches (for example the guys who were on the ship then can get patches commemorating Haiti etc). Some throw in funny "moto" patches. For example I found a company that makes patches that say "American jedi" or "zombie hunter" or noble order of the blue falcon patches. Some people get small flags of all the countries they've been too. Usually there's a bigger "US NAVY" type patch or something on the back. I guess its something to do.

What else what else. We're supposed to get mail UNREPed in soon. Probably a
rumor though.

Oh you can send me videos or whatever IF you attach them directly to the email. The email server is ON this ship so when you send it, it loads to there. I think. Some guy next to me is watching his infant daughter take her first steps and I saw him click on the attachment in his email to watch it so....

Mom, I'm joking about the tattoo. Probably.

From the south pacific, I'm Al George. And now back to you Tom!

January 3

Foreign Object Damage ("FOD") Walk

Hello

Day and night it's 80/70ish. We're all pretty used to the ship's movement so no one's really seasick. Once you are onboard about a week everyone's used to it so the additional movement (with the recent big seas) doesn't phase us much. I don't even notice the rocking. I feel it, but it doesn't register and I stopped moving in a zigzag while walking now. All I got when I originally came here was a headache for a day.

Al

January 2

Oh and my birthday dinner, so to speak, was lobster (REAL LOBSTER) and steak with fresh baked macadamia and white chocolate cookies!

Actually a lot of people are like "surf and turf and good desert NOOOOOOOO!!" Good food is traditionally the harbinger of bad news and "surf and turf" (steak+ either lobster or crab legs) is the BEST food they can give us. For example they usually break it out before they get told the deployment isextended or we're missing the next port or something that makes you not enjoy life. So when you get food that's BETTER tasting than our Christmas dinner...yeah everyone was worried today.

Turns out it was just a holiday dinner. So, no bad news thankfully.

We're supposed to get even heavier seas tonight than yesterday. We still were pitching up and down a couple degrees today.

Al

USS Carl Vinson Arrives in 7th Fleet

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Byron C. Linder, Commander, Seventh Fleet Public Affairs

PACIFIC OCEAN (NNS) -- The Carl Vinson Strike Group arrived in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility Dec. 31 as part of a scheduled deployment.

While in the 7th Fleet, the Strike Group will conduct exercises with allies and partners and visit ports around the region. Carrier Strike Group 1 (CSG 1) is commanded by Rear Adm. Samuel Perez.

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) is deployed with USS Bunker Hill (CG 52), USS Stockdale (DDG 106) and USS Gridley (DDG 101). Destroyer Squadron 1 is embarked aboard Vinson along with Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 17. CVW-17 is comprised of the "Red Lions" of Helicopter Anti-submarine Squadron 15, the "Fighting Redcocks" of Strike Fighter Squadron 22, the "Fist of the Fleet" of Strike Fighter Squadron 25, the "Sunliners" of Strike Fighter Squadron 81, the "Rawhides" of Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 40, the "Garudas" of Electronic Attack Squadron 134, the "Stingers" of Strike Fighter Squadron 113 and the "Tigertails" of Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 125.

"We are looking forward to every opportunity to build friendships and enhance partnerships in the region," said Perez.

The U.S. Navy maintains a robust forward presence in the Asia-Pacific region, utilizing both forward deployed naval forces in Japan and Guam, as well as rotationally deployed forces from the continental United States and Hawaii.

This deployment by the Vinson Strike Group includes several firsts. It is the first major deployment for USS Carl Vinson after a three-year nuclear refueling, and it is the first major deployment by Carrier Strike Group 1 (CSG-1) since its establishment October 1, 2009. CSG 1 led USS Carl Vinson and USS Bunker Hill earlier this year in support of disaster response and humanitarian operations in Haiti. This is also the first deployment of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Stockdale, and USS Bunker Hill's first deployment since it underwent cruiser modernization, the first Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser to complete its mid-life modernization.

This is USS Carl Vinson's first visit to 7th Fleet since 2005.

January 1

Well greetings from the middle of NOWHERE!

After looking at the charts I can honestly say we are almost as far from land as any ship can be right now as we sail through the vast abyss that is the northern Pacific. Sea weather is a fickle lady and it’s not too often you can see rays of sunshine while its overcast over the ship, off in the west is a huge fogbank and forward is the hazy shroud that is a small rain squall. Today however, was nothing but sunshine and almost no clouds. DESPITE that we still took on bigger seas than when we went through a low pressure system the other week. Big 20-30 foot rollers spaced about 300 yards apart in perfect position to affect the ship.

You see MOST times when it’s even pretty choppy it doesn't affect us. There will be three waves spaced along the ship’s hull, one at the bow, one amidships and one aft. So the net effect is zero and with our size we just plow through them. But spaced out like they were today, we rolled a lot. When we were taking them abeam (sailorspeak for on the side) we hit a 7 degree roll which is pretty damn large. That means a 20 foot difference in height between port and starboard. How do I know it was 30 foot waves at its peak? They were coming through the haws pipe (the pipe that the anchor chain runs out) which on OUR ship is 3 decks (aka 30 feet about) above the waterline. Taking the waves on the bow looking forward you saw almost nothing but water and had to bend down to see the horizon out the windows of the bridge while I was at lee helm. Aft was nothing but sky.

Mind you we're in zero danger from this (old chiefs said it’s nothing until you take water over the flight deck.) But it is impressive to see 1000 tons moving like that.

In other news, I drove the ship yesterday for the first time during flight ops. I didn't mess up too much even considering the waves were just starting to build to where they were today. But during flight ops its best to have a BIT of a crosswind; the landing zone is not along the keel, its angled so a bit of a crosswind puts the wind directly following the landing zone of the flight deck. But the waves tend to FOLLOW the same direction as the crosswind meaning I'm taking them at an angle and they like to roll the ship off course. And the effect is amplified when you’re going over 20 knots that we usually do during flight ops (today we were going 30 knots). During flight ops you have to keep the course within +/- 0.5 degree and considering the ships roll would bring it 0.2 up and down in a periodic fashion and at any time the ships momentum can catch the roll and run away from the course it got pretty harry. It's a bit like trying to drive a big truck in a 40 mile and hour crosswind. Oh by the way did I mention since we're so by jiminy cricket big, the WIND will push the hull and superstructure enough to affect steering? So all considering, it wasn't too bad (one of our master helmsman: "you should see what it’s like during UNREP when a ship is 200 yards away and you have to keep it +/- 0.2 degrees and they give you bearings like 240.4"). Otherwise, not a bad day.

We did deceptive lighting (meaning put we up lights and not our normal navigational lights so we look smaller than a massive aircraft carrier). So the floodlights that are normally on the flight deck for the guys who do maintenance at night were off. Jeepers I had no idea there could be so many stars. For one you can CLEARLY pick out which are planets. I pointed our powerful stand up binoculars and managed to see Saturn's rings. It’s also probably the first time I actually SAW the Milky Way arch across the sky and shooting stars abound every minute or so.

Last week, our wake stirred up some algae, krill, and plankton which actives their bioluminescence. Long story short, we had this cool glowing trail in our wake stretching half a mile. Every so often the screws hit a big clump and the glow swirls in the eddies blinking and mixing until it fades out over the distance. Really cool to see.

In hindsight I have to ask if I can bring my camera on watch. They said no electronics BUT....well it’s not like I can play video games on the thing.

Al

Quotes of the Day

"There is nothing that can't be solved by the proper precision application of high explosives"
"How about the creation of LIFE?"
"The big bang"
"Dammit"

(While watching Behind Enemy Lines a marine platoon comes up to the flight deck of a carrier using the aircraft elevators standing at attention in a dramatic fasion)"why don't they just WALK up like the rest of us do? Just take the 03 level out and walk up the stairs like normal people? These are Marines! That would make too much sense for their tiny little brains"

December 31

Well the 2nd port visit you HAVE to cross the equator to get to I think.
Can't say when that is but I will say when we cross the equator I think.
Just crossed the international dateline so now I'm a day ahead. (It's Dec
31st now and I get to celebrate the new year 22 full hours before the rest
of you.) Date line there's nothing except saying you did it (if the captain
chose to hit the dateline AND the equator at the same spot you're a "golden
shellback" and a blue shellback is anything below or above the arctic circle
with various designations depending on how many of these combinations you
can come up with. The shellbacking is quote "a pretty Disney initiation type
stuff" Its one of those things where everyone you ask (probably going back
to when grandpa was in the Navy) says that its not like it was when THEY did
it, that its kind of lame now (but then they endlessly reminisce about the
thing and still take pride in the whole shellback thing). Its like that I
guess.

Well our watch is now 5 hours same time every day for a week then you shift
to the following time after a that week. I'm from 12-17 now. So anytime
AFTER work ends until 06 the next day (aside from if you have watch) is YOUR
time. Technically lights out is at 22 but if you WANT to not sleep you can
do whatever. Right now work is ending around 1700-1900ish at night (which is not
bad but if you have the 0200-0700 or the 1700-2200 your basically working a really
LONG day.

Al

Crossing the Line

The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia about crossing the equator.

The ceremony of Crossing the Line is an initiation rite in the Royal Navy, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, and other navies that commemorates a sailor's first crossing of the Equator. Originally, the tradition was created as a test for seasoned sailors to ensure their new shipmates were capable of handling long rough times at sea. Sailors who have already crossed the Equator are nicknamed (Trusty) Shellbacks, often referred to as Sons of Neptune; those who have not are nicknamed (Slimy) Pollywogs.

Equator-crossing ceremonies, typically featuring King Neptune, are also sometimes carried out for passengers' entertainment on civilian ocean liners and cruise ships. They are also performed in the merchant navy and aboard sail training ships.

December 29 - Questions

1. What does a typical day entail? (Wake-up, breakfast, work, shift rotation such as 12-5, etc., watch, leisure time, sleep).

Reveille is at 0600, muster at 0700 and I work until 1800-1900 depending on the day. There's roughly about 8 hours of watch a day broken up into 4 hour segments so usually at least one of the segments is during working hours. Leisure time is when I can make it.

2. Describe all the stations that you have on watch in more detail. How often do you drive, how many and who are on the bridge? What do you look for on watch? How do you stay awake?

I can't do this TOO much due to OPSEC. There are few lookouts, messenger of the watch (aka coffee boy), helm, lee helm (throttle) and aft steering (sit in engineering as backup in case they lose steering at the bridge (you’re basically the backup of the backup of the backup). I drive maybe once every other day. There's a few on the bridge, helm and lee helm, the Quartermasters (QM), the Conning officer and Officer of the Deck (Con and OOD, respectively). There's an operations specialist (OS) looking at the Nav radar and with whom the lookouts check into. And behind is a room where there is a bunch of OS’s looking at our many sensor systems. Captain is always up there during flight ops and the ship’s navigator usually is.

3. Have you met the Captain or CMC from being on-watch?

The Captain is up there a lot, CMC never.

4. Food: When are meals served? How do you eat when you have watch at night? Is the food any good?

The meals are at the normal times plus mid-rations (midrats) s at midnight to 0200. Food stinks some times, is better during others.

5. Can you hear the planes taking off and landing below decks? Do you hear them in your quarters?

Yes, you can hear them launching in our berthing 7 decks down (we're at the bow). You can hear them landing back aft.

6. Do you get any time to workout?

When I make time, yes. The watch rotation makes it so there is about every other day I can squeeze in an hour.

7. What are the best things to send to you? What can't you buy at Ship's store (if you had money)? What can we NOT send you? Can we send zip drives back and forth with pictures, music or e-books?

Food is good. There are a lot of uniform items, like coveralls, that I need but you wouldn't be able to get them. You can send zip drives. I cannot use them on the government computers but on mine it’s ok. I can then unload them then load them back up with pictures.

8. Who are you hanging with? Where are they from?

There's a group of guys who all dropped from special programs. It's a long list, I'll describe everyone a little later.

9. How did you celebrate Xmas? What did you eat? Didn't they give out stockings?

I slept. They had a nice turkey meal that was better than normal. We all got stockings filled with random stuff that the USO put together.

December 27

The general consensus is that we will get a port call every month or so. We already know the first two and the middle ones are pretty definite by virtue of us being in the area. The back end is still up in the air as there's several ports we can go into in the vicinity on the way back. There's one most of the boat is crossing their finger for.

Will Ferell was just a rumor :-(. Now the rumor is was Michael Bay who was
shooting scenes for Bad Boys 3 or Transformers 3 depending on who you ask. (I'm pretty sure that was BS since we most definitely weren't doing flight
ops and it would be far easier to do scenes on the interior on a carrier
that's IN port.)

Oh weird fact, our ship was the carrier in Behind Enemy Lines.

Alex