Adventures in Paradise

Rubbernecking

A couple of fresh-faced young Sailors, both onboard for less than a month. They're chipping and sanding away the rust to reveal bare metal in a never-ending quest to slow corrosion. Then, one of them notices something going on behind him...

He thinks it's interesting and it catches her attention...

Yup, it's really neat...if fact, they can't quite see well enough to suit them...

To be fair, it was fascinating to me, too.

I only wished I had been in the boat instead of watching it!

Rescue Swimmers

 

We've had a run of wonderful, unseasonably calm weather recently, and I've taken advantage of it by running a lot of man overboard and swimmer training.  I've got three certified rescue swimmers, and caught them here after an afternoon of training.

Flying Personalities

I wasn't the only one on my New Year's Eve jaunt to another ship - I brought along my Ops Boss and Command Master Chief. These portraits truly capture both of their personalities.

As my mom has noted, CMC has a smile on his face in every picture she has seen.  That's because this guy is always on when he's out and about.  He's high energy and enthusiastic and I really enjoy working with him.  On this day, I was in the rear facing seat I showed you in the post from the other day, mainly because I was the smallest person on the plane and the other seats didn't have that pipe cage around it. It meant flying backwards, but it also meant I got a good shot of the CMC when he looked back at me.

Ops on the other hand, didn't enjoy herself so much.  She's not a fan of heights, although she valiantly works through her fears.  She even came out on the ropes course with me in Singapore and did a great job, and I was proud that she chose the easier route in a couple of cases when she could have easily let herself be overcome by pride when the rest of us took the more challenging routes.  Here, she is holding on for dear life, rather than waving at me, which she'd considered briefly - or so she told me later.

The Young Guns

A couple of my young guys - both from the Weapons Department...

 

Strike, displaying his love of both Naval History and the digital blueberry "camo" that the Navy Uniform Board has inflicted on us.  As the Strike Officer, he's in charge of the team that launches Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles.  (Yes, we put 22 year old in charge of this.)  It can be complicated and challenging and he's amazing.  He's the youngest of 9 children, and is a smart, driven young man.  He's pushed his team to be one of the best in 5th Fleet.  (And I even caught him schooling the guys off-ship yesterday for doing something dumb.)

 

The Force Protection Officer, in charge of the planning and execution of the stuff that keeps the ship safe at sea or in port.  He owns the small arms teams and is responsible for keeping my guys qualified on a vast range of weapons, from the handgun to the 25mm chain gun.  He's another of my quiet ones who comes out of the blue with the right answer.  He's insanely tall and is a lot of fun.

A Valiant Attempt

They had a plan.  They had left over pallets, spent powder casings for flotation, welders to put together a great radar reflector and lots of shot line (that's the small red rope) to hold everything together.  I'm told there were screws and other things also holding it together, but all I saw was shot line.  Lots and lots of shot line.

I told them I thought it looked like a kindergarden art project, and meant it in the nicest way possible.  The Navigator told them it was going to capsize.  Their bosses placed bets on how long, if it all, it was going to stay afloat.  They insisted to all that this was going to be the BEST. GUN TARGET. EVER.

 
Sadly, they were wrong.  It sunk quickly.  But still, here before the crush of reality set it, they were very proud of their work.  They get an A for effort, but I didn't have anything to shoot at.

Characters

The Chiefs aren't the only characters I've got.  The three guys below, especially the two on the left, keep me on my toes.  The one on the left was three years into a medical degree when he decided it wasn't what he wanted to do with his life.  So he ran away and went to sea.  The one in the middle is one of the few onboard who have been around longer than I have.  We connected immediately and I'm glad to have him running the combat system onvoard.  He works for the guy on the far right, who is calm, quiet and super-smart.  Everyone onboard knows that if the phrase "You wanna bet..." comes out of his mouth, you back away slowly with your hand on your wallet.  Because if he's willing to bet, he's always right.

MPA

You know how sometimes you walk into a new place and there are a few people who you click with instantly, even though you've never seen them before?  It applies here.  This is our Main Propulsion Assistant, the guy who is the primary assistant to the ship's Chief Engineer.  He's a former Senior Chief Petty Officer who was commissioned a few years ago and provides some guidance and maturity to my wardroom full of 20-something officers.

He loves to grill and can be seen manning the ship's grills during any Steel Beach picnic - in this case we were both taking a break to cool off during the event the Wardroom hosted a while back. He can be counted upon to provide some seriously old-school music to the crew during meal times or during cleaning stations, though that's not universally appreciated, he's got enough of a mix that everyone ends up happy.  He dances Folklorico and is a strong enough lead that even I can follow him on the dance floor. 

Thanksgiving at Sea

This Thanksgiving I got my own Chef's Uniform, complete with Ship's Crest.  It turns out that even the "Small" size is a bit too large for me.  this one needs some tailoring to be presentable, which didn't stop me from working the serving line for most of the meal this evening.

This is my leading Cook, or Culinary Specialist.  He's a huge personality in his own right.  He supervises the preparation and serving of more than 900 meals daily, and some amazing special meals like today's feast.  The food is always good, and when you're stuck at sea for a month at a time with only the stuff you brought, (even if there is a lot of pre-prepared drek) good food is important. 

Sometimes we do get to make stuff from scratch though - I cut about half the bag of potatoes that filled this pot on Wednesday evening.  Suppo was a little concerned when she saw me with a knife in my hand, noting that usually they only let me have fruit or other soft items to use as a projectile.  (I didn't hurt anyone though, not even myself.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Other Two, or Personalities, Part 3

Before I forget, here are the other two Weapons Chiefs…The Gunner and The Artist.

The pictures are actually taken a month or so apart, despite the fact that they're both UNREP pictures.  The Artist nearly always has his camera nearby, if not around his neck and takes some amazing pictures.  He's also a musician, but I've never heard him play his guitar, so I can't speak to that.  Hopefully by the end of deployment.  He's also a person who can talk intelligently about topics ranging from food to anti-matter, which makes him one of my favorites for evening conversations on the bridge wing.

 

The Gunner is helping provide some adult supervision to the guys down on the next deck below.  The ones in the life jackets were all tangled up in their lines, which is never safe.  I asked one of my senior guys to go down and provide guidance, but two is always better than one.  GMC is a great guy, grew up in a small town in Montana and has an adorable two year old daughter.  He's going to be in deep trouble when she gets older!

 

Personalities, Part II

 

 



This is one of my three interchangeable Weapons Chiefs.  He’s the Young and Ambitious one.  All three of them stand a watch on the bridge that doesn’t keep them very busy unless something bad is happening (which is thankfully not very often.)  Not only that, but this is their third deployment in three years and they haven’t branched out at all, which I find horrifying.  So I challenged them all to qualify as Officer of the Deck Underway, a job that requires knowledge of navigation, engineering and ship handling as well as some tactics.  The tactics part they’ve got down.  The rest of it can be a challenge, and this Chief has taken up my gauntlet and run with it.