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.