All Sorts of Emotions

Friday was the last day in drydock. Everything was normal until lunch... The air conditioning went down during the thickest part of the meal. Normally the scullery gets to about 88 degrees... Without the air, the steam from the 180 degree water made it 98 in that little room. It was about 15-20 minutes before the relief began to blow down on me. The sweat was dripping off my face, but I knew I just had to soldier through it.

As I nearly finished, I was aware of someone with a khaki belt behind me. Assumed it was either a duty officer come to read the temps, or a Chief come to rinse out a coffee mug. Turned out to be the commanding officer... who stopped by in order to compliment me on my writing of this Navy blog. He said he recently happened upon it, and that he enjoyed it, and that I should continue it. Was that ever nice to hear! Absolutely made me smile the rest of the day. :)

Saturday was rather singular, even though it was a typical breakfast to begin. I worked the scullery on the barge alone for the last time. Lots of things were carried over to the ship while I finished up the dishes. Quarters was brief, and right afterwards I made sure to get my bicycle aboard before we sailed away. By 0830, I figured out that we didn't have to haul *everything* over to the ship that morning, so I made my way to the ship with a book in my pocket so I wouldn't get bored out of my mind with all those hours of waiting.

I went straight to the port helo hanger to wait with the other sonar techs assigned line-handling near there. I fell asleep sitting in a chair from the gear locker. When I woke about an hour later, I had a perfect imprint of my belt buckle on my right forearm. A self-inflicted, extremely temporary, very red tattoo of the ship and crest (with every detail showing).

Right as I woke at 1000, the drydock began to intentionally sink into the river. We watched for the first hour as the water slowly crept up under us, finally lowering us to water level a few hours later. It was neat to see the steep steps up the side of the dock disappear into the murky depth every few minutes.

A few minutes after the hour, we went in for lunch. Tuna sandwiches on paper plates... And then I hung out in sonar one for the first time in a long time. Watched a bit of the air show going on in Jacksonville Beach, then it was time to man the sea & anchor stations. I am a line-handler on line four (on the fantail). My line leader assigned me to help get the three aft lines out of the hold. The other guy assigned wasn't very pleased about having to do it, but I didn't mind. What you haven't done, you can't truly dread. :) It wasn't too bad... A little warm... And I had always been curious about how to get the line out.

Then we waited a real long time. Got underway (clear of the drydock) on schedule, and we were towed to Naval Station Mayport by various tugs. Saw lots of dolphins around the the ship, especially as we arrived. Saw lots of pelicans, gulls, bright-orange butterflies, a few floating jellies, and the ferry all loaded up with people (who looked like they were taking pics as we passed in front of them). But the most thrilling thing was watching the Blue Angels perform as we transited. The #5 jet circled our ship! I was suddenly struck with how cool it was that we were in the same service. Fat Albert, the Angels's C-130 transport plane was the first to fly over us... and it looked like it was right over my head!

Dinner was pizza and pasta... By that time we had tied up to the pier and been let go from our detail. So I stayed on the mess decks after eating and helped out with the trash and the like. We had a bunch of breakouts of food for the next day. I had to carry big hunks of frozen meat up the three ladderwells on the barge in order to cross the brow onto the ship, then down two ladders to the galley... Over sixty steps, one-way. After finally being let off, I went fishing off the barge (to escape the long wait for the shower) and caught a salt-water catfish within seconds. Then I decided I'd start moving my stuff over to the ship to avoid having to do it while the whole ship was busy. I ended up taking nearly everything over, and that wore me out.

Today drove me nuts. We in supply put in a whole workday's worth of effort by the time the sun came up. We made countless trips over those sixty steps, bringing *all* the mess gear (what a loose term!) back to the Truxtun. With that completed, it was time to clean. I was shown what had to be done in the Chief's mess, as they picked me to be their "crank" or food service attendant because they felt they could trust me not to talk about what I hear in there. I'm very flattered, and I hope I keep the coffee to their expectations. :)

We even served lunch in there today after CSC said I didn't need to get it ready for a few days. I made sure all their things were moved over with everything else. I even made a special trip for carrying their little brass bell. Oh, that's right... I need to find some polish for tomorrow.

Dinner was disasterous though. My knees and feet hurt pretty bad from all those steps... Combs and I even took out ten bags of trash ourselves before it started. Then I had the great idea of getting the dishes out for dinner to help people feel back to normal. Didn't bother to check and see if the food grinder (garbage disposal) was working or not. Turns out it wasn't. So there is a huge mess there still, and I hope it can get straightened out tomorrow. It was the last thing I needed right then, after a really long and tiring weekend. I wanted to tell the cooks to leave me alone and other worse things... and I nearly burst into frustrated tears. Thankfully, nothing like any of that happened, and they finally let us off at 1900. I'm now resting (with my feet up) and I feel tons better.