Linda's trip through the Suez Canal

All,
Recently I had the opportunity to do something I never expected to do on this deployment …we transited the Suez Canal. It was an unexpected and interesting change in plans. I was lucky enough to be stationed on the Bridge for a third of the transit and since most of the work involved the CO, Canal Pilot and the conning officer, I had very little to do. So, luckily for you all, I took tons of pictures.

This is at about 0700, sunrise over the desert.

One of the bearing shooters while we slowly made our way across the Great Bitter Lake. You can see all the ships in the distance waiting to join our convoy.

Me, very very close to land… a little too close if you ask me.

It is like driving down a narrow one way road…

Beach goers in Ismalia.

The swinging bridge

I left the bridge when we had about 30kms left, pretty sure it looked a lot like this the rest of the way.

By the way, I fly home in 2 weeks from today!!!!

Linda

Hello All,
I can add a new stop to my list of places I have been. We just left the Seychelles where we spent 5 relaxing days. It would have been one of the top most beautiful places I have been if I had not already seen Palau. Apparently I am spoiled. I am to the point where I am like “If you have seen one tropical paradise, you have seen them all.” It is sick. But, Seychelles is definitely a beautiful place and I did enjoy myself. It is a little quiet and very much aimed at honeymooners, so a ship full of sailors who have been underway for 45 days was a little overwhelming. I think we drank the island out of the local rum.

I did a dive trip the first day I had off. It was a smaller version of the group that went out in Palau. It was a little cold and rainy when we went out, so the visibility was not so great at the first spot. But each one got better. We saw a bunch of different fish and coral than in Palau, so it was very cool. I saw my first eel in nature as well as sharks, giant sting rays, an octopus, dozens of lion fish, puffers, huge Oscars, rock fish, and the most giant sea slugs I have ever seen.

We went on 2 reef dives and one wreck dive. They were very cool, but the highlight was the lunch. Our guide and boat captain drove us to a secluded beach and made us an amazing lunch. It was so nice.

We have a change of plans and a new port visit added to the schedule. I will let you know more when it happens…
I am down to less than 6 weeks left onboard! The count down has begun!

Love you all!Linda

Linda's trip home. The sweet C-130 ride, complete with cargo hold. An UNREP from the oiler to a French ship and the helecopter ride back to the ship!

Back to Work

I finally made it back to the ship after 10 days of traveling. After 5 flights that took me from Jacksonville to Atlanta to Norfolk to Detroit to Amsterdam to Bahrain, I spent 2 nights in Bahrain where the one day I had there I slept all day. I met up with 4 people reporting to the ship and an NCPACE instructor who were going to make the rest of the trip with me. I am so glad I did not do the originally Everett route. Those guys had taken 7 days to get from Everett to Bahrain on military flights. No thanks.

We went to the military airlift airport with no clue where we were going. Ends up we were taking a C-130 to Djibouti. Talk about no frills. A C-130 is a cargo plane that they stick some seats in and haul passengers around. Not fun for 5 hours. We touched down in lovely Djibouti were I think the cash crop is plastic bags. They pretty much are on every tree, bush, fence, all over the place. Dirtiest place I have ever seen. I was scared with the mention of an overnight at the camp they have there. It would have literally been in tents. Thank goodness the ship we were riding down was already in port. We spent the night there and left the next morning.

Luckily I had a room to myself (it was HUGE!) since I was up all night on east coast time. Without anything to do during the day, I am still feeling the jet lag. The helo ride this morning was cool, very short.

Hopefully I will get on a normal schedule now that I am back to work. I think I am off the hook for watch today, although I might volunteer for a mid-watch since I think I will be up anyways.
Linda

Heading back to work

After a long and sad month at home, I am headed back to the ship. I am currently sitting in the Amsterdam airport on a 4 hour layover after my 4th of 5 flights today. I leave for Bahrain in a few hours and then make a trek to my ship via oiler to wherever it is (I would tell you...but then I would have to kill you, sorry). I am literally taking the slow boat to get back to work.  After 10 days of travel I am going to need another break to recover. 

Taking a month off during a Fifth Fleet deployment is not normal, I guess I am benefitting from that "kinder, gentler" Navy Dad is always rolling his eyes at. I am not complaining.  I will need to hit the ground running when I get back since I only have about 2 months left on the ship before I transfer and head to Monterey.

The posts below are from the first half of my deployment starting in March. They are in order, but not dated, sorry.  Enjoy!

Rock the boat...don't rock the boat baby

I have been leading you all to believe my life at sea is all glamorous and romantic with stops at exotic ports and what not. Well, today I am going to let you in on the not to cool side of life at sea…

 

We have been having some very smooth sailing these past few weeks, gliding along the calm tropical waters of the Sulu, Celebus, South China and Java seas. Last night we went through the Sunda Strait which connects the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean. At about midnight we exited the strait and entered the Indian Ocean and man oh man, we were welcomed with open arms.

I, luckily, was asleep, but felt the gentle rocking and rolling. It shook me awake a few times, but I was able to go back to sleep, one of my many skills. I got up in the morning and took my shower. Taking a shower in rough seas is kind of an adventure in itself. You are wearing shower shoes, which quickly turn into ice skates on the shower floor. You have to get your feet pressed against both sides of the shower and hold on with one hand while you wash your hair and stuff. It is a delicate science.

 

I usually do not get sea sick, so I was not noticing how bad it was. I walked back to the flight deck for Officers Call and passed medical. There was a line of dead soldiers all curled up in the fetal position outside, moaning and pale. It was ugly. Apparently the docs had been running from berthing to berthing giving IV’s to all the people who had barfed up all their fluids.

We had two UNREPS this morning where we go alongside an oiler and receive gas and food and stuff and this usually requires a large portion of the crew. Too bad half the crew is in their racks hating life. I ended up taking two different peoples watches and kicking one guy off the bridge and taking his watch after he puked 4 times in about as many minutes. He had a trash bag to puke in, luckily, unfortunately it was clear. That, more than anything, might make me lose it. I toughed it out and was one of the few at lunch today.

 

All part of the glory of being a SWO.

 

Later,
Linda

Wild Woman of Borneo

Hello from Brunei!

   So, Brunei, not quite the adventure that Palau was, but interesting in its own right. Brunei is famous for the immense wealth of its Sultan, but I knew little about it before we came. Quick lesson…Brunei is a tiny, independent country on the island of Borneo. Borneo is shared with Indonesia andMalaysia.  It is a former British colony and is the longest continuous monarchy in the world.  It is a Muslim country, so it is dry and very conservative (moderate by Middle Eastern terms, but conservative compared to the US). I have never been somewhere that has absolutely no bars or night clubs. Eerie.  So, we had to find our own fun, which proved kind of difficult.  There is not much to do in the capital city where we were. After we saw the mosque and took a tour of the floating city (the Venice of the Pacific…not so much) we were pretty much stuck wandering around “The Mall”. We did find great food from street vendors for next to nothing and we smoked some hookah at a Middle Eastern restaurant and ventured into the rainforest.

 

    The first night my boss Mark, his roommate Dan and I went out to grab some food. We did not pull in until about 4, so we did not get off the ship until after 6. We found a night market that sold literally piles of food. We found a seat and proceeded to eat our faces off. The colored drinks in the containers below are called ABC. They are delicious fruity, creamy drinks that have all sorts of fun stuff floating in them…jello bits, fruit, corn. Yes, corn. The three of us ate until we were about to pop all for about $20.  

  Dan is about 6 foot 6, so watching him tower over the people of Brunei was pretty hilarious. They all thought it was funny too, there was a lot of pointing and laughing at his expense. He better get used to that.

    The dinner was great and after we ate, we went to the hotel and crashed early.

We were not able to get rooms at the famous 6 star Empire Hotel because a Korean tour group had the whole thing booked. We did have to drop OPS off the next morning so he could make his tee time, so Dan and I took that opportunity to wander around and have breakfast there. It is amazing! I am so sad I was not able to stay at this place. Talk about over-compensating for something. This hotel was all marble, gold, pillars, plate glass windows, over done in every way! It was awesome. Here I am in front of the man-made lagoon. The white umbrellas behind me are where we ate breakfast from a great Asian buffet. Steamed rice, miso soup, rice porridge, corned beef, bacon and kim chi. Yummy!

Dan and I then went and took a taxi tour of the capital of Brunei. There is a mosque built by the Sultan in the center of the city that is amazing. We were not able to enter it, but we could take pictures of the outside. 

     We then hopped on a water taxi and took a tour of the water village. It is an entire city inhabited by over 300,000 people all built on stilts. Anyone who has been to southeast Asia would be under the same assumption that I was that they are all shacks on stilts. Not so much. They may not look so nice on the outside, but inside they have flat screen tv’s, 300 cable channels, running water, electricity, 15 boats, 3 cars parked on the shore, houses on land they call their “Weekend house” and all the luxuries you and I have. They see themselves as the more sophisticated of the people of Brunei and most work for the government. It was pretty enlightening. The guy who gave us the tour showed us inside his house where 25 members of his extended family live in complete comfort. Here I am on his porch.

The rest of the day was spent trying to find something else to do. The city has an American style mall that we entertained ourselves with. We got massages, ate good food, checked our email, drank bubble tea and bought some souvenirs.

 

             The next day was duty, so it was no fun.

 

Yesterday we went on a tour into the rainforest of Borneo. We took a fast boat up the river about 50 miles and got on long boats into a National Forest. The great thing about Brunei’s rainforest is that they are so wealthy from the oil they sell, that they have never needed to de-forest their rainforest. It is one of the best preserved forests in the world. I felt a little like I was going up the Congo in Heart of Darkness as the river got narrower and narrower and the greenery got more and more dense. That is until we pulled into a random town right on the river to stop and take a break. We had seen so civilization for an hour and here we are surrounded by apartments with satellite dishes, cellphones with coverage, nice cars, it was crazy.
              

We got on long boats and went further up the river to a canopy tower. We climbed over 2000 stairs straight up the mountain until we got to a metal tower with a million more stairs. At the top of the tower there were bridges that linked to other towers that were high above the rainforest canopy. I am not afraid of heights, but holy moly, it was high and the knuckleheads we were with thought it was HILARIOUS to sway the towers. Not so funny.  Please note the massive amounts of sweat…it was a little hot and humid in the rainforest.

After the climb up we had to climb down, which was a good time, I only fell once. Then we went to a waterfall. As most of you know, I have a slight obsession with waterfalls, so this was my favorite part of the trip.

Then we went back down the river and hopped in rafts. The were no real rapids, so we quickly got bored with rowing after about 10 minutes and jumped in a floated the rest of the way down.

Next stop…The Gulf. Who knows then next time I will actually be on land. I will be going to the carrier, USS Lincoln, at some point for about a month. That should be fun. For those of you who know Navy stuff, I am now sitting TAO U/I and should have a board in July, which will give me about a month in the chair before I leave. Going to DESRON staff should help me learn my surface stuff, since that is my weakness.  I miss AAWC though, TAO doesn’t get to do anything really... (sorry, half of you have NO IDEA what I just said).

 

 

Hope all is well with everyone! 

Love you all!
            Linda

Birthday in Palau

All,

Seriously, sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live the normal, stable life of a 9 to 5 at a desk somewhere. Then we have a port visit like this one and I remember why I do not and why I am totally ok with that. I just spent two of the most beautiful days of my life on the islands of Palau. I took 450 pictures in 2 days and still feel like I did not capture the beauty of this place.

I had duty on the first day, but the second day, my birthday, we went on the dive trip I put together. The first dive was a drift dive called Baxter’s Wall. I saw my first shark there (first of many many more) and about 5 sea turtles. This is my friend Parina in the yellow suit.

Then we went to the most famous dive spot, featured in many dive magazines, Blue Corner. It is a 45 ft ledge at the edge of a steep drop off. They give you hooks on a string that you secure to a rock or dead coral and you inflate you BC so you flat there like a balloon. The up current coming up the face of the wall keeps you stationary. You sit there and feel like you are on the inside of the shark tank at sea world. Black tip and white tip sharks cruise in front of you at about 20-30 feet. And then we went to a wreck dive of a Japanese WWII depth charge dropping ship (it has no name…they call it Helmet Dive or Depth Charge Dive). That was surreal. You could see fire hoses, the wheel house, Kirin Bottles, sake bottles, boots, and a hold full of air plane engines.

That night we had my Wetting down which was a great time on the beach at a great bar at our hotel. Tiki torches and the whole deal. Good food, fruity drinks with lots of fruits and umbrellas. Perfect!

The next day we went on a snorkel trip. They take a fast boat through the Rock Islands, a group of about 200 limestone islands that are covered in trees, and stop at various spots for snorkeling. One stop has a famous white mud that is very good for the skin and Japanese people pay tons of money to get it exported to Japan. Then we went to a nice coral spot, we stopped for lunch at a beautiful white sand beach and got to swim with more sharks in about 5 feet of water. We went to Clam City, an old clam farm where they still have dozens of giant clams. Jelly Fish lake, a lake that is fed by the sea through the limestone holes and is full of 7.5 million stingless jelly fish. Then we got stuck in a rain storm and pulled into a cave to get out of the rain and had an impromptu snorkel, that one felt like real pirate stuff, I would have hidden my ship there, totally Goonies stuff. Then we went to Cemetary Reef or Fishbowl and I know why it was called fishbowl. Every kind of tropical fish was in there, amazing!! The island there is called Two Coconut Island and it was used in a Super Bowl add with Dan Marino a few years back, a Yahoo commercial.

It was so great!! We leave tomorrow and head to Brunei. I think I will dive again there and maybe do some white water rafting, who knows.

Thank you all so much for all the nice birthday emails!! I feel so loved! It was pretty much the coolest birthday ever.

Love you all!!

Linda

PS In the original email I had the pictures in the email. Not so easy on this site, so I made a slideshow!!

All,

This picture was taken by the CO of another DDG, the USS Russell, right before we went along side an oiler to get some gas. I must have been in my rack for this one, because I don’t remember seeing this rainbow. I usually squeal and get all excited when there are rainbows…dolphins, whales, flying fish, trash I think might be a sea turtle.

OK, I am a sailor, but I am still a girl.

Linda

Seriously, now we are going

All,

 

     We are OFFICIALLY heading away from the US. We have finished a 4 day submarine hunting exercise in the Hawaiian operational area and are now heading towards the international date line at high speed (ok, maybe not HIGH speed). At least we are no longer being tortured with seeing the Hawaiian islands on our radar every day, knowing we were not pulling in.

 

    For this exercise I was taken out of my comfy seat in Combat and put back on the bridge as Officer of the Deck (the one in charge of driving the ship, aka OOD). Since I have not stood that watch in about 18 months, it was fun to be thrown back up there in the middle of a pretty intense week of ship driving. The guys I had on my watch were great and we had a blast racing around trying to kill some subs. I am glad to know that I still got it up on deck. All the other OOD's complain about how much they get yelled at by the captain, I am not sure what they are complaining about, I never got yelled at...

 

    Today was a super SWO day (SWO, surface warfare officer, what I am and what dad is). I also got to have the deck again this morning for an underway replenishment. We had two oilers and 4 ships all getting gas in very close proximity. At the end of it, we also had to land our helicopter. There were helicopters buzzing, ships everywhere, the sun was shining, CO was in a great mood. I know Dad and Harry are grinning right now, they know those kind of days. The kind of day when you look around, listen to the sounds, smell the salt air and thank God you do not work in a cubicle.

 

    Now, I am back down to my cold, dark, blue hole, living life like a mushroom in Combat, although that watch is really where I have a blast. Soon I will start working on my Tactical Action Officer watch qualification (you run the ships tactics, shoot the missiles, run the sub hunt and so on). It is the only qualification I do not have yet on the ship and I have 4 months of nothing else to do, so, why not?

 

    Next stop, Palau. I have been named the Cultural Affairs Officer. I have FINALLY been able to put my history degree to use in the Navy.  I have been researching Palau and sending short emails out to the crew teaching about the island. I include lots of cool pictures and I keep them short and sweet and they are getting rave reviews (I can forward some to you if you want). Tomorrow I am writing about Palau's role in WWII. Did you know the battle of Peleliu was fought there? Me either, we named a ship after it, must have been an important battle (the deadliest based on percentage of US soldiers that died). I am also planning the scuba trip for the Wardroom that 12 people are going on and now the dinner out that was going to be for my birthday has turned into my wetting down.

    Quick lesson on officer tradition to my non-Navy friends here... when you get promoted, it is custom to take half of the amount of your raise (about $300 bucks) and throw a party. These are usually the rowdy parties because it is thrown by the promotees, not the people of the Wardroom, it is less formal. The concept of "Wetting Down" comes from the idea that your new rank you are wearing is not salty enough and must be soaked in salt water (or beer, whiskey, pool water) to match the rest of your uniform. So, mass amounts of alcohol must be present. Luckily there are 4 others who need to be wetted down, so it should be a good time. We are planning on doing it at a restaurant on the beach at the resort where we are all staying, so it should be nice.

This is long, I have to go grab some chow, work out and then go on watch.

 

Love you all and miss you tons!!
LT Linda

 

P.S. I hope I did better translations this time.

P.P.S. I used my paragraphs, Chris.

Week one

All,

So, we have finished week one. I can already feel the tropical breezes of Hawaii. No more freezing rain or rough seas, I am a happy girl. Not like I really noticed, because I went outside today for the first time since we pulled into San Diego on Tuesday. I have to force myself to go topside, I spend way too much time in the dark, cold, blue lights of Combat.

We finished with a ship training inspection which made the first few days pretty busy and now we are able to focus on deployment (ULTRA-S for those who know acronyms). We have some trainers on board right now teaching us how to be an alternate warfare commander for Air Warfare. For anyone who does not know, the watch I stand underway is Anti-Air Warfare Coordinator. I love it, it is so down my alley. I finally found a place where my loud, fast talking is actually an advantage. My OPS calls me Motor Mouth Charlie because I run on turbo speed when we do our scenarios. He had the bright idea of giving me a red bull last night and I thought my head was going to explode. I could not stop, could not slow down. It was not a good idea. No one could catch up to me. I was giving orders left and right and no one could process them as fast as I was giving them. I need to learn to think in sssllllloooooowwwww motion, so the rest of the world can be on the same page as me. Think the little squirrel from Over the Hedge, just like that.

We hit the Hawaiian Operation Area and do some sub hunting (for the record, so NOT my speed, I fall asleep just thinking about ASW) and then we continue west. I am looking forward to some liberty on my birthday and a few dive trips in my near future. I will send pics.

Keep the emails coming! I love the mail! And, if I talk in too much Navy lingo, let me know, I can translate.
Linda

Off I go

All,

I am leaving on deployment today. I will be heading to San Diego for a short stop (sorry, Vicki, not getting off the ship…boo) and then we head west on Tuesday. We will not stop in Hawaii this time, which stinks. I love a free trip to see the Thomasons and Menchs. I will be in the Pacific for a few weeks with stops in Palau (on my birthday!!) and Brunei and then in the Gulf early May. Luckily I will not be gone for the entire 7 months that the ship is scheduled to be deployed, since I will be leaving in early August to go to Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey. I can do 4 and a half months standing on my head!! (So can you, Sara, I will be there before you know it!!)

I will send some periodic updates and pictures to this email distro list and feel free to email me (a lot) since I will be away from phones and what not for a long long time and that gets boring! Let me know if I need to add or subtract anyone on the list.

I love you all! See you in the fall! Gotta go to man the rails in the cold rain. I will NOT miss Seattle weather, here I come tropical breezes!
Linda

Check out my Slide Show!

Hello

I have been sending email blogs to my friends and family off and on since I joined the Navy over 4 years ago. Word is that those emails sent to a small distro list get pushed out to people that I do not even know and the people who passed it on get verbally abused when I do not post often enough. In an attempt to save my friends from verbal abuse, I will now post my emails here so everyone can see when new posts are made. 

I am going to repost the most recent few emails that I sent in March and April and then make new posts here from now on. I hope my sister has saved some old ones that I have sent because I do not save them...