i like how things decide not to work when you need them most.
for instance: my cell phone charger. something we all take for granted, but when it goes on strike, all hell and wrath breaks lose....or is that just with me....
at any rate im pissed cause now i have to go out and buy a new one...with money i do not wish to spend...dammit.
i also like how im bored as salt and have no car to go around and stir some fun.
i need to find a friend...
.RocK.
Monday, August 29
Saturday, August 27
HA HAAA!
i have triumphantly returned to America!
in other words, i am back from Summer Surge 2005!
boy is there a lot to say, so here goes...
the first week or so was "bumpy"...back and forth, up and down, side to side...interesting. then we finally get to our first port: Roda, Spain. we get there two days early, so we sit around in a gater box. boring yes.
anyway, Roda was all right. me and a fellow shipmate got a personal tour of the city. it was indeed a small city. but it was pretty cool. some interesting historical stuff.....actually the only real history there was that Christopher Columbus stayed in the city in a castle and went to church in a nearby cathedral. thats about it. but otherwise the place is pretty cool. my kind of town too; happy hour starts late, and the town is pretty much dead in the daylight and alive at nighttime, when everything (like the bars...) are open. fun fun.
so then we were suppossed to go to Naples, Italy. yeah that never happened. instead we went back to Roda. i wasnt too happy about that. on top of that, i was doing physical Navy work: chipping and painting. in 90d weather. it sucked. while on our transit back to Roda, we were accompanied by a Moroccan Navy ship, an Italian Navy ship, a Tunisian Navy ship, and an Austrian Navy ship. we did all kinds of tactical maneuvers, formations, and such. we also did boat operations, helo operations, and tactical signal opertations. twas quite interesting.
after Roda was Cartajena, Spain. me and a fellow shipmate went into town and walked around looking at all there was. very neato port, rich history, magnificent culture, and of course plenty of bars and girls.
something funny: i was intricately looking at our nav chart one day, and theres a cove nearby Cartajena called Punta Jagershmidt. haha i laughed at that one...
Our next stop was Acat, Turkey. we anchored out and brought onboard some Turkish marines, then we were back out to sea again.
when we were out, we came across a small fishing boat with no navigation lights on. we called them up on the radio and no response. so we had our boarding team board the boat to find out what the deal was. sure enough there was no one onboard. they did find three suspicious looking boxes wrapped in blue cloth. later it was identified as nothing dangerous. so the team confiscated some navigation charts and came back to the ship. it was tense the whole time, but was cool. so the rest of the time we did gater box operations and finally pulled into Souda Bay, Crete (an island of Greece), moored, and did a stores onload and filled up on gas. the catch was there was no liberty, so everyone was stuck onboard. we never got all our food by the time we had to pull out; the milk truck and egg truck never showed up, so the CS's were forced to put rations on milk and eggs. mind you this is for the entire time we are in the Black Sea. so that sucked.
after Bulgaria was Constanta, Romania. i didnt go out in this port, i slept the three days we were there. but from other people that went out, i heard it wasnt that great anyway.
then came Poti, Georgia. this was by far the poorest port we went to. Georgia had recenlty gained their independence from Russia, so they were still developing their country. not to say there wasnt absolulty nothing to do. they had plenty of bars. thats about it though. but it was still cool, me and two other shipmates walked around...crazy place, the cows and pigs and chickens roam free, their streets have potholes the size of a foxs den, and speed limits mean nothing. but it was a unique experience.
so next and last was Valletta, Malta. wow. by far the best port. bars and clubs everywhere, girls galore, and freakin assome architecture. i got my drink on in this port...man oh man was that fun. i also did a comrail event in which me and a couple other people and the ships chaplain helped fill the cracks in a brick wall for a housing complex. it was fun, and i got to see the city more.
after that it was homeward bound. it felt like forever, although the seas werent as rough this time. we stopped in Morrhead City, NC to pick up our tigers (family members of the crew who come along for a day anboard the ship the day before we pull in), and since my duty section had duty the next day, we were allowed to leave then and spend the day back in Norfolk. that was very nice, being home before the rest of everyone else.
so all in all i enjoyed my first real deployment. now we have a leave period, and soon i will be going home to friends and family. finally. until then, its sitting around and typing on my blog....
...and now im hungry so im done.
.RocK.
i have triumphantly returned to America!
in other words, i am back from Summer Surge 2005!
boy is there a lot to say, so here goes...
the first week or so was "bumpy"...back and forth, up and down, side to side...interesting. then we finally get to our first port: Roda, Spain. we get there two days early, so we sit around in a gater box. boring yes.
anyway, Roda was all right. me and a fellow shipmate got a personal tour of the city. it was indeed a small city. but it was pretty cool. some interesting historical stuff.....actually the only real history there was that Christopher Columbus stayed in the city in a castle and went to church in a nearby cathedral. thats about it. but otherwise the place is pretty cool. my kind of town too; happy hour starts late, and the town is pretty much dead in the daylight and alive at nighttime, when everything (like the bars...) are open. fun fun.
so then we were suppossed to go to Naples, Italy. yeah that never happened. instead we went back to Roda. i wasnt too happy about that. on top of that, i was doing physical Navy work: chipping and painting. in 90d weather. it sucked. while on our transit back to Roda, we were accompanied by a Moroccan Navy ship, an Italian Navy ship, a Tunisian Navy ship, and an Austrian Navy ship. we did all kinds of tactical maneuvers, formations, and such. we also did boat operations, helo operations, and tactical signal opertations. twas quite interesting.
after Roda was Cartajena, Spain. me and a fellow shipmate went into town and walked around looking at all there was. very neato port, rich history, magnificent culture, and of course plenty of bars and girls.
something funny: i was intricately looking at our nav chart one day, and theres a cove nearby Cartajena called Punta Jagershmidt. haha i laughed at that one...
Our next stop was Acat, Turkey. we anchored out and brought onboard some Turkish marines, then we were back out to sea again.
when we were out, we came across a small fishing boat with no navigation lights on. we called them up on the radio and no response. so we had our boarding team board the boat to find out what the deal was. sure enough there was no one onboard. they did find three suspicious looking boxes wrapped in blue cloth. later it was identified as nothing dangerous. so the team confiscated some navigation charts and came back to the ship. it was tense the whole time, but was cool. so the rest of the time we did gater box operations and finally pulled into Souda Bay, Crete (an island of Greece), moored, and did a stores onload and filled up on gas. the catch was there was no liberty, so everyone was stuck onboard. we never got all our food by the time we had to pull out; the milk truck and egg truck never showed up, so the CS's were forced to put rations on milk and eggs. mind you this is for the entire time we are in the Black Sea. so that sucked.
after Bulgaria was Constanta, Romania. i didnt go out in this port, i slept the three days we were there. but from other people that went out, i heard it wasnt that great anyway.
then came Poti, Georgia. this was by far the poorest port we went to. Georgia had recenlty gained their independence from Russia, so they were still developing their country. not to say there wasnt absolulty nothing to do. they had plenty of bars. thats about it though. but it was still cool, me and two other shipmates walked around...crazy place, the cows and pigs and chickens roam free, their streets have potholes the size of a foxs den, and speed limits mean nothing. but it was a unique experience.
so next and last was Valletta, Malta. wow. by far the best port. bars and clubs everywhere, girls galore, and freakin assome architecture. i got my drink on in this port...man oh man was that fun. i also did a comrail event in which me and a couple other people and the ships chaplain helped fill the cracks in a brick wall for a housing complex. it was fun, and i got to see the city more.
after that it was homeward bound. it felt like forever, although the seas werent as rough this time. we stopped in Morrhead City, NC to pick up our tigers (family members of the crew who come along for a day anboard the ship the day before we pull in), and since my duty section had duty the next day, we were allowed to leave then and spend the day back in Norfolk. that was very nice, being home before the rest of everyone else.
so all in all i enjoyed my first real deployment. now we have a leave period, and soon i will be going home to friends and family. finally. until then, its sitting around and typing on my blog....
...and now im hungry so im done.
.RocK.
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