I saw 2 shooting stars on watch last night. That made the watch. We keep having 1A Operations with the LCUs like 5 times a day and launching at 0300, etc. It is getting ridiculous being in three section doing all this stuff. 3-4 more days before pulling back into Dakar and the end of Green Osprey and WATC 2005. Then it is all down hill from there. We are going to be back earlier than planned. Of course everyone is excited onboard. We have all started counting days. Personally I started counting at the 1 month mark. Before then it was by week because there were too many days to count. That got frustrating... the weekly method works.. everyone should try it. Anyway, I talked to the CO in his stateroom today for about a half hour. I took him a message and then sat on his couch. Everyone knows when he does that he wants to talk for a bit. We had a good bonding session. ... a little QT "QualityTime" as they call it. He basically asked if things were like I thought they would be and asked how I was doing. He also said that he wishes he were going to be here to give me my OOD (Officer of the Deck Underway) Letter..but he is leaving and change of command is in Jan. We discussed my quals and reasonable goals since we are going to probably be in the yards from April-Jun/July and won't be going anywhere guaranteed then. We said probably next fall after the yard period go to SWOS because the new CO would have to get a feel for me... It was nice to talk to him and for him to encourage me and say I was doing a good job after the way things were in the Ops Dep on my ship when I got here. I still don't have a Chief because he had to go home on emergency leave. He will be back for the transit home only. I have struggled in a second tour Divo job with no Chief and a first class... a Dep head that is really a 2nd tour Divo but was previously enlisted.. so he has some experience in the Admin world... not Operations.. we are in the middle of this huge exercise with the Dutch and Britain and Senegal.. lots going on in Combat that I am in charge of but really have no idea what is going on...The new 1st LT for Deck Department is the acting Ops Officer while ours is on the Rotterdam, the Dutch ship, as a Liaison Officer for the next few days. The new guy is really helpful and is a prior 1st tour divo job as CICO. He has made things a lot better in the week and a half he has been onboard. I can't wait for the new Ops Officer who will be a real Dep Head.. the new 1st LT knows him and the XO used to work with him. Should be a good time. I have started to make a list of food I want to eat when I get home atvarious restaurants... etc. Let me know if you are interested in hitting up some new movies and getting some US Food. !!