Adventures in Paradise

Belated Christmas Present

This year my brother had no idea what to get me for Christmas...a problem all of us had for each other for some reason. I told him to make me something. As some of you may recall, he decided to start knitting last fall so that he could send hats to my ship for Christmas. I requested that his first hat be set aside for me, and it was...you can see it here. He decided that since I got his first hat, I should get his first scarf, too.

And here it is, delivered shortly after he finished it during our weekend in Oregon. What I love is that you can see his progression...he's only made hats before and his tension is lovely, but flat knitting has it's own challenges. The scarf has lovely character and you can see his improvement over five feet or so of knitting. It's the perfect length to wear doubled or draped and it works with most of my winter coats. It's warm in San Diego lately, but I'l be back in DC for next winter, so I'll get lots of wear out of it then!

What A Year!

I think it's possible that this year will never be topped for me...but I sort of knew that as the year started given that this is my full year in Command. The highlights are mostly ship-related, but the family figures in as well.

January

I started the 2011 having been in command for 16 days, many of them eventful, thanks to our deployed state and our missions up close to the Iraqi oil terminals and Iran. This photo came at the end of the first Underway Replenishment where I was able to show my guys exactly how I planned to handle the ship...flank speed and full rudder, whenever possible.  

February

We got to spend some time ashore in February. The three or four days in port Bahrain where lovely and showed me what a pretty place it could be. I even took a crummy iPhone picture of the Pearl in the Pearl Roundabout, about a month before the place went down the tubes and the Pearl was torn down. We also opened some lovely Valentines from a group of students in CA, my favorite featuring a Valentine's Hippo.

 March

We departed the Persian Gulf in March, after five months in theater. Our first port visit was to Chennai, India where I recieved an amazing greeting. It was new to me given my most only visits to India had been in the north, the most recent when I was seven years old. I am looking forward to another visit - check out the pics on the sidebar for more on our visits to Chennai and Phuket, whch was also in March.

April

April marked our return to San Diego, complete with a lei for the ship, tugs spraying water in greeting, and family and friends on the pier.

May

At the very beginning of the month, my mom and I made a short notice trip up to the family ranch in Oregon, where my grandfather had been dealing with two bouts of pneumonia. He recovered and I rediscovered the beauty of the place I spent so many of my summers as a child and teen. Going feral in this neighborhood was better than any summer camp (and I went to summer camps, too.)

June

The ship spent the month of June participating in Joint Exercise Northern Edge, but before that we got a three day visit to Homer, Alaska. I fell in love with the place and the people. And the animals, but I'm not entirely sure all of them liked us...the little bear that charged us on the beach. This is another place I can't wait to visit again!

July

We returned to San Diego at the end of June and in July I hosted my sister and her kids for a few days. We had a great time exploring the Zoo, Legoland, and ship and generally hanging out together. I introduced them to burgers at my favorite burger and beer place, and we had several meals there.

August

For the Navy in San Diego, August means Surface Line Week. Because we'd entered the shipyard at the beginning of the month, we didn't have the time to participate as much as I'd have liked to, but we still performed admirably. These three won the Professional Seamanship category - taking first place in line throwing and piping and second place in knot tying.

September

In September I found myself back up on the ranch for Rodeo Weekend. My cousin's youngest daughter was the Rodeo Queen and the kids had never seen a rodeo, demolition derby or the Rodeo parade, so the whole family went north. There's four generations in that photo: my grandfather, my mom, my brother and his two kids.

October

My India-visit earned fame got me a story in the local newspaper, which got me a few speaking engagement requests. I avoided a handful thanks to my schedule, and accepted a few, but speaking to the reunion of USS PICKING crewmembers was a highlight - they ranged from WWII to Vietnam era veterans and all seemed very supportive and happy to have me. I thought they were a neat bunch of people.

November

In November I turned 40. I'm not sure how that happened or if I'm supposed to feel any differently, but I don't. I'm having a great time and I have a hard time seeing how any year could top my 40th. I spent the day of my birthday with my family, and the weekend at the drag races. Then I got the best birthday present EVER: got out of the shipyard (finally) and got to test fire my brand new guns.

December

Celebrating the holidays is a little different when you're not deployed...holiday lights go up on all the ships that aren't getting underway or in the shipyard and the competition is fierce. I was one of the underway ships (hooray!) so we didn't compete, but we did get some colorful up and overs on the ship and a tree on the quarterdeck.

2012 won't top 2011 since I will be neither deployed nor in command every year, so I'm actually looking forward with a little dread. Still, this past year will sustain me for a long time.

Dazed

I really think the person who first used the term "FML" was a ship CO trying to figure out how to cram a huge shipyard package into 11 weeks, complete a full training cycle and prepare for a visit from the Board of Inspection and Survey. (If you're not familiar with the term and have kids near you, don't Google it until they're not with you. Or if you're sensitive about language.)

We returned to San Diego a few days early to deal with a generator that didn't want to work, which allowed us to get some other maintenance-type things taken care of a few days ahead of schedule. It was particularly nice because it meant Friday was low stress and allowed me to enjoy the big event of the day happily.

  

Twice a year, the Immunization and Naturalization Service holds a mass ceremony for military members who are becoming American citizens. This year I had one young Sailor whose mother had married an American and brought him with her to the US. Now they're all official citizens and it was clear that his parents are very proud, as they should be.

I spent the bulk of the long weekend at mom's place in northern CA, to attend a funeral service for my Sister-in-Law's grandmother, and to just spend time with the family. Sunday we went to the local amusement park, where we rode a few rides, indulged in a recently (to me, anyway) opened water park inside the larger park, and had some treats.

Some of us had a harder time than others deciding what treat we wanted most and decided to two fist his treats. Four year old logic is hard to beat, you know?

I drove home on the 4th itself since I had to work the next day. The seven hour trip was much more enjoyable than the 9.5 hours it took me to make it north on Friday (oh, LA traffic...how I hate you). I took a quick nap at home, then headed to the best place in the world to celebrate America's Birthday - the bridgewing of my ship.

Maybe it wasn't the best view, but it was the best place. We grilled on the flight deck and had the duty section invite their families to spend the day with them. I think it was a success.

Now if I could just get my head wrapped around my schedule for the next 10 months...

Don't Get Lost

Some of the Valentines the kids sent were specifically addressed to "The Captian" (yes, spelled that way) and one young lady really wanted to get the card to me, it was addressed "Dear Lynne's daughter (Captain), Sailor" which my guys found absolutely hilarious. Sadly, it's in light pencil on dark red paper, so I couldn't get a single photo that worked well.

At least one of my Officers noticed that this was the best advice they'd gotten from a second-grader...

My Funny Valentine

I know it's a couple of weeks past, but hey, when you're deployed, you celebrate when the packages come, no matter what the date. Heck, some of us are still celebrating Christmas. But this package was kind of special. A second grade class at the same elementary school that packed up all the gift bags for DECATUR also made Valentines. They arrived just in time for our monthy birthday celebration, so I was able to give them out to a large section of the crew at once. (And while we were already in a celebratory, cake-and-ice-cream sort of mood!)

There were individual cards, my favorite featuring that most traditional of Valentine's mascot, the hippo! More amusingly, as you can sort of see in the background, there was one that had "X O" on the front...I know what it was supposed to mean, but I decided that I'd give that one to my XO anyway....it seemed like fate.

My guys loved the cards and spent a good portion of the evening picking them up and reading them, sharing them with each other and just giggling over second-grader's thought processes.  The most common theme was "I hope you don't end up in the Emergency Room" with many creative spellings of "Emergency" and "Sailor."

They also sent four posters that all the kids had drawn and written on - this is another one of my photographic experiments - it looks sort of like an old picture. Not sure I'll do it again, but I liked the look for this one.

Hats!

Thanks everyone!  We gave out the gift bags yesterday morning. While I was off the ship at a meeting on the Iraqi oil terminal when they were distributed, I’m told that everything was very well received. Well enough received that I’ve seen people wearing hats all over the ship since my return, and I’ve been asked if they can be worn daily instead of just of days when we have holiday routines, which is usually also crazy hat day. I said yes, of course.

Because you guys made so many hats, mom sent an additional box full of hats for me to decide which ship to give them. What I’ve done so far is to bring a large bag of them over to the oil terminal, which is manned by US and UK Sailors as well as Iraqi Marines. I brought enough over to cover the US and UK contingent, and they were thrilled because it’s getting COLD out here at night and the watch standers are excited to have wool hats. I hope you all don’t mind that they’re going to some of the Brits as well as our guys.

There are also three Coast Guard Cutters doing the same oil platform protection mission that I’m doing and we’ve sent bags of hats along with some of your lovely notes over to two of the three Cutters. We’ll get the third one in the next day or so. The young Coasties are also thrilled by the hats - in fact, we underestimated the number of hats required for one of the ships by about a dozen and they came back over the radio to request more.

So you’ve managed to cheer up not just my crew, but that of the Oil Terminal and two (soon to be three) Coast Guard Cutters. Most of the rest of the US ships are actually conducting port visits during the holiday, so I thought the people out here on point with me were the best to get the extra hats - I hope you’re okay that they’re not exactly what you expected when you made the hats. I promise they will be well loved! I am slowly building a photo album (on the right sidebar of the blog) and posting pictures as quickly as I can.  Some of the guys stand watch in places where I can't take pictures, so I'm getting what I can as quickly as I can, and I asked the Coasties and Oil Terminal guys to take pictures as well.

Again - THANK YOU ALL!

Morning Report

This morning when I woke up I was provided the following After Action Report (AAR) regarding the evening previous (edited to make it somewhat understandable to non-Navy types):
 
Captain, we picked up unidentified contact bearing 310, 35NM, speed Outrageous and heading inbound. The Tactical Information Coordinator immediately issued queries and requested permission to warn the
contact. Air Warfare Coordinator, in a state of shock, commenced making his reports to the Air Warfare Commander. Based on the contacts speed and maneuverability, the Air Warfare Commander directed us to cease queries and denied warnings, he evaluated the contact to be St. Nick. We held track until about 5 miles and suddenly, out of nowhere, we heard “DECATUR this is St. Nick, request Green Deck.” No flight quarters were required. As we all looked at the flight deck camera, he safely landed on deck.  The Officer of the Deck, amazed like an 8 year old boy with a new train, immediately raced to the announcing system and passed 12 Bells and “St. Nick, arriving” topside only, of course. Within seconds Santa was in Combat with a huge smile on his face. We offered milk and cookies (what was left, because Weps was the TAO) and also provided him with his favorite ice cream (we’ll apologize to Suppo later, it was for a good cause.) We told him how great the Commanding Officer and her crew had been and all the hard work we have done. As he stood there with his hand on his nose and rubbing his belly, he handed the Watch Supervisor a note. The note said “To CDR Sethi and her crew, You have done a fabulous job and I am glad to have made this stop. You all have been extremely nice and dedicated. I wish you Happy Holidays, a safe return home, and thanks for serving your country; especially during this time of year. Signed, St. Nick.” Unfortunately, the note smelled like gingerbread and peppermint so it was eaten by one of the watchstanders. The Engineering Officer of the Watch and watches in Central Control provided the reindeer with a hot pump of snacks, bug juice and milk (we ate all the pizza and wings last night.) Within a matter of minutes he was on his sleigh and airborne again. His final words as he gave us a sparkling fly-by were “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!”

The Best Christmas Tree Ever

I walked into the ship's General Workshop a few days ago to conduct a spot check of some maintenance procedures, when I saw an amazing Christmas tree sitting on the table.  It's decorated now, and sitting in front of the door as part of the division's holiday door decorations.

It's not your average artificial tree.

My welders made it from a couple of sheets of metal, some spray paint and decorated it with valve handwheels.  So, of course I wanted one.  And they obliged...in spades!

My Tree

 

A Little Halloween Fun

I have to say, DECATUR
is the most celebratory ship I’ve ever served in. We celebrate
EVERYTHING, and Halloween was no different. Not only did we have costumes, but
hallway and door decorations (I was the judge) and even an apple bobbing
contest. I tell you, childhood apple bobbing contests have nothing on our
Sunday night – we pitted two guys against each other in a bracket-style competition
down to the winner, which ended up a best 2 out of 3 because it was so fun. I
should mention that the big cooler we used was filled with ice and water in
addition to apples. In the final contest we took all but two of the apples
out, just to make it a real challenge. Given that we were about to enter the Persian
Gulf and start working for real shortly thereafter, we took the time to do it
up right!