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"