Tuesday, June 18:
Well, here I am again! For yesterday's Sea and Anchor, I was back topside for line-handling. I was sent midships to take on and cast off the line for the tugboat. The
schedule this week is jammed-packed with events going on; for Sonar today, we
had some demonstration with "torpedo banding" that I had never heard
of before. Basically, it's showing that we can load a torpedo into the over-the-side
launchers, and handle it safely; and it
took most of the day.
After dinner, I went
straight to bed, as I knew we had the Sonar exercise starting at 2300, and
watch afterwords until... about now... that really helped me be awake, as I got
five whole hours of sleep! Other people were up practically the whole time.
The Sonar exercise went
pretty well. Started late, but we got done around 3ish. I was able to track a
fake sub and make reports over the Sonar net, so that was exciting, and kept me engaged the whole time.
Wednesday, June 19:
Boy, yesterday was long! My
watch was during the night exercise, so that was a stroke of grace! During the
day I managed to get a lot more naps in... our leadership is understanding that
we're on a reverse schedule, so it's been going okay.
I was selected for random
urinalysis, and after that, worked on ordering parts for a long
while. After dinner I went to take a nap, but I was woken with the task of
returning the Hazmat we had checked out for that torpedo check the day before.
I asked the person who woke me if they could, since they were in uniform, but
they opted out. That made me mad, and so I returned it, still in my Navy
sweatpants and sweatshirt... it was quick, but my LPO found out after I got
back and made me feel bad about it, since I knew that to do work like that, you
have to be in uniform of the day.
After that, I couldn't get
back to sleep for the 2 hours until watch and the scenario, so when they
announced ESWS training in the classroom, I decided to get up and go to it. Got
some signatures that I needed, so it was good I did.
The scenario was kind of
rocky, but we made it through. Went to bed at 3, had to get up for Quarters and
sweepers at 7. But then they let us go back to sleep, and I just got up and had
lunch. The turkey burger was delicious!
Thursday, June 20:
We've made it past the
half-way point! Five out of my nine watches this underway are done!
I did get to sleep the whole
morning, like I said, but I spent the entire afternoon working on ESWS
signatures... I got Deck done, and Combat Systems, and finished up most of
Engineering and all of Hazmat... all from the first half of the qualification.
But yesterday's evening
watch was a bear. Besides going to the Ops brief in the wardroom, I worked
practically the whole time on running our prediction software to generate
ranges for our Sonar.
While I was asking questions
about the slides I was making, my sonar supervisor told me I didn't belong and
I should have been a nuke rate (Navy for Geeky). And another time he yelled so
loud that I cried afterwords (which I hid as much as possible). Somebody then
told a joke about what you call a fish with no eyes? ... a FSH. Lol... and I
told them about the Blind Cave Fish that really don't have eyes... and they
said I suck the fun out of everything. Lol... I know they're just being callous
and coarse, and they don't intend to be mean... but when I'm tired, it's hard
to let it all slide.
And THEN, I even stayed over
an hour past watch to finish up the last slides... and the next watch section
was loath to let me leave with two more remaining. As it was, I got 2 hours
sleep before the scenario... which lasted until Reveille... making it five
hours long when it was supposed only take an hour and a half. I was dying for
bed at the end.
So right after 0600, when we
were done, I had breakfast... which tasted pretty good... then I went straight
to bed for the rest of the morning. Got woken up around sweepers time because
today of all days they decided to blare music through the loudspeakers... and
it was some awful country song about some girl looking so swell that the
singers rolled their car windows down to look at her. "Can't you see
through the glass? Or are you country-gangsters with tinted windows?"
Anyway, that made me mad
because once I woke up I was freezing cold and terribly tired. But I did get
back to sleep and was reasonably rested when I woke up for early lunch and the
afternoon watch, which I spent the whole time working on the slides for the Ops
brief tonight, which I finished just fine.
Friday, June 21:
With all our scenarios done,
we are certainly on the down-turn here; just the weekend to get through
now… and not much on our schedule. Friday started off awkwardly…
our last scenario finished at about 4:30ish or 5 in the morning, so I just
slept for an hour or so in a chair in Sonar Control (where we stand our watch).
My Sonar Sup woke me up right as watch began… and was sort of grumpy
and wouldn’t
let me go grab any breakfast. I did manage to ask someone to get a muffin for
me, and he did… actually two, plus an apple… so it worked out okay.
I just didn’t talk to my Sup for the rest of the watch unless he asked me
a question. It was really hard to stay awake the first couple hours (since
everyone else hit their racks). About
half-way through I decided to get up and clean up the space to stay awake, and
that did the trick.
After watch was lunch, then
some brief ESWS training, then seconding a safety tag for another Sonar tech. Then I
took a marvelous shower (as marvelous as showering in something that resembles
a well-used phone booth in an earthquake can be), and went to bed for a good
four-plus hours. I woke up half-way through to see if I was hungry enough to
get up for dinner, but I wasn’t and fell back asleep promptly.
Got up for more ESWS
training in the classroom, but didn’t get the signatures because our
teacher was the Junior Officer in charge of the program under discussion…
and he was long-winded. But the info he put out was useful, and a good
refresher. After that, I found myself to be ravenously hungry, so I tried to
go on the mess decks to heat up some instant mac’n cheese, but that was
thwarted because the first session of the Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention
training was still going on. To wait for it to end, I hung out in the
crew’s lounge back aft with a bunch of other people, also waiting, and
Men of Honor was playing, and that’s one of those movies that I’ll
always sit back and watch, no matter where it is. I watched from when the main
character graduated Navy diving school to where he lost his leg… then I
decided to try again… and Mid Rats was open! Don’t ask me what
“Rats” means… I just know that’s the term they use for
late chow. And they were serving some delicious chicken pot pie (except it was
in a big pan), so I ended up eating dinner after all!
On the way to bed, I felt
the Lord wanted me to go up and pray, even though it would mean losing an hour
or so of sleep. So I went up and gave the first prayer of this underway…
and the first in a very long time. Shared some famous passages of Psalm 103,
and then afterwords, spent a good bit of time on the bridge-wing, praying and
looking at the full moon blazing on a very calm sea on a very clear night. The
stars were faint with the brightness! What a sight!
I managed to sleep for an
hour or two before getting on the late watch. Goodness, it’s freezing in
berthing! It’s fine if you’re just there for a minute or two, but
after laying still for a while, the shivers creep up on you. I even put my wool
blanket over my fleece, and my other fleece over my head as well as shoulders.
Since the scenarios are over, we had normal quarters and sweepers, and of course, the afternoon was taken up with a SAPR training. This one was much better than all the others I've had, mostly because the CO, XO and Master Chief gave it, and they never really beat any dead horses, as is a hallmark of these trainings. And we had pizza and ice cream as on every Saturday underway. The Junior Officers were serving, and I was dished up with a little of vanilla, strawberry and chocolate! So delicious! Then I had the mid watch, and I was off to bed, ready to sleep in for Sunday's holiday routine.
Sunday, June 23:
Started off with helping another female out with urinalysis. Only E-5 and above can officially observe, so we're always doing it for each other. Then I went to our little casual church service in the classroom, and during our chit-chat found out that we're getting a Muslim Chaplain to accompany us on our deployment.
Had a lovely lunch (it actually was alright), then that afternoon we had a general quarters drill for a few hours. Then I went straight to early dinner, and my final watch of the underway! And my Sup let me go for most of it so I could get a bunch of ESWS training with the ship's Oil King. This required me to get a pair of fire-retardant coveralls from the DC'men, and hang out in engineering while we went through the sign-offs.
Monday, June 24:
Started pretty early. I set my alarm for 0530, only to be awoken by the 1MC's call of "Reveille, reveille. All hands heave out. Reveille." and "Breakfast for the crew." just before it was set to go off. My station for Sea and Anchor (pulling into port) was logkeeper in Sonar Control. I checked into my station, then was sent topside to participate in FWWD (fresh water wash-down). That took a long time, but I enjoyed the view of Virginia Beach, the smell of the salt water and felt the force of the wind in my face. Returned to Sonar for the rest of the evolution, and soon we were pierside.
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