I am finally settling in down south in Corpus Christi, TX. It has averaged about 83 degrees since I moved down here. Thankfully, a cold front has come through so that the Thanksgiving high was about 55 or so. Palm trees don't loose leaves here so it was a nice taste of fall.

I've found an apartment and will be posting pics as soon as I get a new computer that is compatible with my camera. This old thing from college has definitely seen better days. It is really nice and has everything that I was looking for in an apartment. The website for the community is http://www.camdenliving.com/internet/html/aparsear.html click on Camden Breakers at the bottom to view the property. Luckily it ends up that I know 2 other people here that work over across the bay in Ingleside, TX at the base where I do so we can start a car pool here shortly. The commute is 45min! There is a logical reason for choosing to live in Corpus as opposed to a town of 7,000 in Ingleside where you have to drive far to get to everything. Here, EVERYTHING is 5 min away maybe if it isn't within walking distance. Those of us that live here really enjoy it.

I've been lucky to meet some new friends from the course of schooling I went through at the Mine Warefare Training Center and some others randomly. So, although life is different than Virginia Beach it isn't as bad as many people thought it would be here. There are times when we try to find something to do. Not as many places to go as in the Hampton Roads metropolis.

Work is going well. My first trip overseas is in December right before Christmas to Yokosuka, Japan, right outside Tokyo. I have a conference to attend for a future exercise. A little background of my office: I work at MCMRON ONE. Commander Mine Countermeasure Forces Squadron One. We have 2 ships in Japan we command and the rest of the time we are busy planning exercises with countries in the Pacific. I particularly work with Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Singapore in my branch.

Well, hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I'll be in Rochester and Va Beach for Christmas. See everyone soon!

HOME IN VA BCH until Saturday the 6th. The trip was so long it was ridiculous. First, we had to wait in the airport in Bahrain for 19 hrs after a van dropped us off from the ship while they got back underway to the Gulf. We stopped over in Sigonella, Sicily, Rota Spain, and Shannon, Ireland. They didn´t tell us in Bahrain we were stopping in Ireland so that was a nice surprise and I bought some fun Irish things. A 100% wool lamb sweater and a red plaid scarf... some other surprises for people. I honestly feel paralyzed from not moving so long. We sat down a lot since the entire trip was 46 hrs long. Taking a muscle relaxer and heading to bed in preparation for a whirlwind 3 days of last minute packing and road trip prep...

To all, stop sending emails to my ship's address your time at like midnight Sunday. I should be able to call on Monday before our flight leaves.


9/28

So we passed our EOOW board this morning. I studied what they said to with the LOQM and Electrical Safety. Then the CO was like, OK. Let’s talk about the boiler and evap. I was like.. NOO! Jess and I looked at each other. So, that was pretty rough since we hadn’t really studied that too much. He asked about a few SSDG (Ship Service Diesel Generator) casualties that could happen and we stumbled through those too.

9/27

I am 7 hrs ahead of you. Flight leaves at 0245 on 2 Oct, Tuesday and gets into Norfolk at 2145 2Oct, Tuesday. We will hang around the barracks and base on 1 oct until we have to be at the airport at 2245. There is a shuttle from the base barracks to the airport. We will check off the ship the morning of the 1st. We have off base liberty now for tonight and the remainder of the time here unless people screw up. Then, we have none. I'm not going out today. Our look-up board with the CO is at 0900 tomorrow morning. I'm going over the writeup for the look-ups and then going to look over some basic stuff. Prob take about an hour and a half. Oh I need to read the ship's electrical safety manual too. Hopefully that isn't too long. The other girl isn't studying at all for the am. It is pretty much that they will give it to us, but I don't want to [seem to] know nothing. Our hail and farewell was yesterday at the Bahrain officer's club. I'll try and call tonight and talk. They have cell phones you can check out from radio and use a calling card.

I received my welcome aboard package from MCMRON 1 (Mine Counter-Measures Squadron 1) in Ingleside (TX) a few days ago. I’m rather excited because I get a government credit card, International Driver’s License, Diplomatic passport, and my sponsor said every time they fly overseas it is commercial air so we rack up the frequent flyer miles. He said they aren’t going overseas any time soon that the “deployment schedule” is usually 2 weeks a month from Jan- Jul. I’m looking forward to a month in Australia at some point.


9/25

Still waiting on confirmation. As of yesterday it was the 2nd flying out, so get home on the 3rd prob. Trying to call but the AT&T phones that are on base and on the ship are out of order. I got my hair cut yesterday and will get my nails done today. My hail and farewell and Jess’s is tomorrow at the Officers club. Still waiting to hear when our Engineering Look up board is. As of last night CHENG said Thursday but the CO said he was busy. I asked for Friday so we can study this week during the day all day since our liberty deoesn’t go down until 1600.


9/23


Inport Bahrain 3 days early. I was the OOD (Officer of the Deck). Cheng said it was my "going away present". The other girl leaving was OOD for the UNREP (Underway Replenishment)yesterday. We pulled in early because the port shaft seal is leaking and they need to fix it. They are saying if it is fixed in less than 3 days that we will get back underway and then pull in on the 28th for the Change of Command for the admiral on 30th. The COC is being hosted on our ship so we have to get everything painted etc. We had painted stbd side in prep for it back at little creek but we got port side to here so I guess that means that Deck has to paint port side. I'll try to call later tonight. We only have on base liberty at this point. Prob going to go down at 1600 or so. My plans for this afternoon are to look over EOOW (Engineering Officer of the Watch) stuff, then go get some dinner and maybe watch a movie on base. They have a new exchange, gym facility, and pool that we'll prob hit up.

9/20

Latest word is that I’m leaving the 30th of sep to go home. Hail and farewell is scheduled for the 27th and a rug flop is on the 26th.

Did not talk to CO yet about programs and have our meeting yet. Still looking over the LOQM (Lube Oil Quality Management) and Electrical Safety. Will have all lookups complete by tomorrow at lunch combined effort with Jess. We will just submit one sheet. I went over a bunch with EMC Vasquez on watch this morning about electrical safety in the NSTM (Naval Ships Technical Manual) 300. The first 3 watches have been fine. I pretty much did everything for the midwatch 2 days ago. A lot of stuff on the mid. All the logs, had to change MRG (Main Reduction Gear) purifiers, soot blow boiler, SICLOS (Shift Inspect and Change Lube Oil Strainers) the LOP (Lube Oil Purifier) strainers, and do the daily routine maintenance… samples of the lube oil and fuel. No major casualties on my watch yet. The other 2 watches were pretty quiet.

The board was ok. It was 2 hrs and 45 min. We had the board it was not postponed, he just made the xo go to the bridge and hunt for dhows and supervise. We have about 2 pages of lookups. He gave us our interim qual and he wants us to actually stand the watch. SO, I’m about to go to the mid watch. I was told there would be an EOOW down there with us, we’ll see. He wants to meet with us again to talk about lube oil quality management and electrical safety stuff before Bahrain.

9/16 PM

Just finished memorizing the low lube oil for mrg and engine parameter for when the standby pump starts, the alarm sounds, and it shuts off. Also the uses for ASW, LPAC, HPAC, and the boiler water/feedwater testing indicator requirements daily. Still need to read over the Lube oil and fuel testing stuff. As soon as I write down all the other stuff one more time I’m going to lay down in bed and then look over the lube oil and fuel oil stuff. Prob asleep by 12. That was initially the goal.. that way I get 6 good hours of sleep. Get up at 6 and eat first thing. Start studying. Go to khaki call at 715 and then standby and study until 9 after getting snacks. Like I said, I wonder if it will get rescheduled b/c of the boardings of the dhows. We’ll see. Oh.. our board is in the POD on the ship for tomorrow.

9/16

My Board is tomorrow at 0900. Monday at 0900 our time which is I think 7 hrs different than you. Who knows if it will happen since we are looking for dhows and the co is on the bridge the entire time b/c of the proximity to the oil platforms. I even switched watches so I have watch on the midwatch tomorrow rather than the 7-12am.

I don’t have a date for flying out of Bahrain yet. I will let you know hopefully tomorrow. I’m waiting to hear from the PSCS who is booking the flights when it actually flies out of Bahrain.

We have the board in the morning. I know a lot, but I don’t know a lot too. I’m about to read over the Fuel Oil and Lube Oil Quality Management… sampling requirements and tests that are done, low lube oil engine alarm, cut-outs, etc at the 3 major speed integrals, Boil water/ feed water daily comparisons parameters (<0.02%), use of Low pressure Air, High pressure air…. I still have to memorize this stuff. I’m going to bed by 11 and getting up at 6. Will go to ships store with jess and buy stuff for the people.

It will be the CO, MPA, CHENG, ENCS, EMC, DCA on the board….

9/13

Engineering Board is supposed to be next Tuesday with the CO. Just got off watch and had some yogurt and peanut butter crackers in the wardroom and watched part of American pie. Going to study a few minutes here in bed and then get a full night sleep. I should be able to study for most of the day tomorrow… so that will be good. We are patrolling boxes here looking for dhows.

9/9 PM

Going to bed now, have the rev watch. Will be anchoring for another day of offload. We have been getting underway at night. I have a JOOD that is really an OOD U/I.. .so he will pretty much be doing everything except for looking through some night vision goggles.. maybe I’ll just stand out on the bridge wing and do that.. don’t want to hit anything!!

9/9

We are doing the offload now in Kuwait. This is the second day. I m trying to study. I studied the electrical stuff yesterday for my Engineering board.

9/8:

18 Days until I leave this ship. Looking forward to a change of pace. These next few weeks will be spent studying hard for my Engineering Qualification which I am required to receive before I leave the ship for my next job. I have 2 big binders full of notes and pubs to read through. My qualification has 40 pages of signatures to get. I just finished this so now it is time to buckle down and study. Lucky for me I have another LTJG who is leaving the ship when I am and she is going up for her board too. So we will be in it together and can study together if we have time.

Watch last night on the bridge from 17-22 was very crazy. All of a sudden we had about at least 6 alarms going off from the steering console where the helmsman was steering. It ended up that we lost a generator and because of that we ended up loosing our power conversion from 60hz to 400hz. We lost all communications with other ships around us besides bridge to bridge, all but 1 radar, all power on the ship, and steering. We still had 2 engines that stayed online out of like 4 total that were online. We had to man aft steering so that someone could drive the ship locally where the propeller was by listening to sound powered phones with the helm on the bridge. It ended up that we drove from aft steering for about 40 minutes!! It ended up getting really hot too since all the ventilation cut out. It was about 100 degrees outside. This time of night it was already pitch black too. Basically every major casualty that could happen besides a fire or flooding to the engineering spaces happened when I was on watch. Luckily the only other contacts that we had out here with us were two other navy ships. We were far enough from the field of oil platforms and a few small boats in that direction. We were however about 2 miles from Farsi territorial waters which would have been bad to enter. It is a good thing we got steering back.

This entire string of events ate up about 2.5 hrs of my watch so that was good. If this all wasn’t enough though toward the end of my watch right we were giving a contact report to the CAPT about a merchant ship that we were going to be coming close to and a wooden fishing dhow was right in our way. What ended up happening was that the merchant that we thought we were looking at about 5nm away was really a smaller contact that was closer. I guess lesson learned, the visibility isn’t that great here and is only about 5nm. So, if that was the merchant ship it should have been much duller in color. So as one of my Junior Officer of the Deck was on the phone with the CAPT, these two small boats turned on all their lights…. I was like,, uh.. uh.. “right full rudder” and we sounded 5 short blasts on our ships whistle to indicate the danger signal. We must have missed hitting them by about 150yds or so. So, that was another fun event.

Other exciting news.. I saw glowing algae in the water last night that the XO pointed out to a few of us after these incidents.

Well, back to studying for my Engineering board…

So I haven’t been able to access the Blogspot home webpage to update my website myself. I have had a trusty agent do so.. so that will explain perhaps why it doesn’t necessarily sound like me in the phrasing.

The Suez Canal was pretty intense when we passed through. Our entire ESG went through together and had lots of topside watchstanders that were armed. There were Egyptian armed military members on both sides of the canal for miles on end. We had police escorts and there were many people watching as we went through. The whole transit took about 12 hrs and we had two different watchteams that rotated through so we were only on watch for about 5 hrs at a time. I was able to get a lot more pictures this time since I was on the bridge during the daytime rotations. There actually ended up being a bunch of scuba divers about 200 yards from the ship which was kind of a big deal for force protection issues.

We had another underway replenishment a few days ago. Purely by coincidence, but again, I was the Officer of the Deck for the evolution. I think that makes probably around 7 strait unreps I’ve had to deal with while on watch. It isn’t so bad since we have additional watchstanders for special evolutions that cuts the amount of work down for the rest of us. Our next one is scheduled for about a week away. Seems like we have to do it everytime we turn around since we have the Marines onboard a little while longer. When they are onboard they double the size of our ship’s company. So, we have approximately 700 onboard altogether.

Yes, we have had to go through the series of anthrax shots. I have had 3 now and they all hurt immensely when you get them. My entire arm was sore. To make matters worse they gave one shot in one arm and then the 2nd shot in the other 2 weeks later. They said that it is required to do it this way. Some people have huge red welts the size of a tennis ball. So, all in all I was lucky eventhough I was in bed for a day after getting this last one a few days ago. I may be here long enough to get one more before I leave.

We had a steel beach picnic yesterday on the flight deck. It was sure good to have some real grilled food. They had steaks, brats, pork chops, and salmon. You could only have two and they were down to steaks and brats when I went through so that is what we had. It was at night so we saw the sun set from the flight deck. I took some pictures since I’m getting down to my last few days here.

Just received word today that my big Engineering Qualification that I am trying to get before I leave will occur on the 19th of this month. I have a practice oral board on the 12th. So, just a little over a week to buckle down and commit some of this to memory. The engineering department head went through a list of stuff with me this morning that will be asked.. 90% of it actually. I just have to find the information and understand it by then. There is one other LTJG that is leaving in Bahrain too who will be taking the oral board with me as well. Hopefully we’ll do outstanding and not have to worry about anything the week following the board between when we have the board and when we are scheduled to go to Bahrain.

After an enjoyable swim call in the middle of the eastern Mediterranean, we are heading south in the "big ditch" Suez Canal. Long trip!!