Essex Warm-up

Day 1- Monday August 4

Today was the “fly-on” to USS ESSEX. And thus begins the next phase of the journey. A few people flew the birds down to Sasebo, but most of us scored the honor of riding the bus. It was about a 5 hour drive including around an hour of breaks for lunch and pit-stops. Sasebo is actually a much larger town than I expected, and come to find out later, a pretty fun time. The Navy base is located in a rather ship-filled harbor, though many of the ships are either civilian, MSC, or Japanese Navy. One US ship that ports here, however, brings back some personal memories for me. USS DENVER (LPD9) was the first ship I was on for any extended period, and other than the near grounding off the coast of Point Loma, California, served me well for a solid 4 weeks back in the summer of 2003. Anyway, I digress. . .

There wasn’t much to do once we arrived besides carry our heavy bags up the rather steep and narrow ladder wells and passageways (P-ways) of the ship to our room. I share a stateroom with the two other junior pilots, and considering the circumstances, our quarters are adequate for sure. Plenty of storage space as long as we stay reasonably organized, and a 3-high stack of beds (I’m on the top). After we moved our personal gear in and I took a couple of rounds to learn my paths to and from work, we headed out for our first night in Sasebo. Steak Salon was our destination, and the legendary dinner spot lived up to every bit of the hype. A delicious butter nut squash soup (we think?) followed by perhaps the most variety-filled salad I’ve ever tasted. With shredded cabbage as a base, it was topped with about 10 different samples of fruit. Apples, pineapple, banana, among others, and a grape that tasted like Welch’s grape juice in solid form. The best was yet to come, though. The steak was about an 8 oz cut (in 4 pieces) of Kobe beef cooked to a perfect medium rare with 3 selections of sauces. One piece had a fresh mustard sauce, one was more of a sweet cream sauce, and the other two slices were plain flavored and just doused with the teriyaki and juices from the pan (apologies to the vegetarians in the crowd). The favorite among our group was definitely the plain style. We finished the steak and veggies, and actually managed to polish off most of the steamed rice in the process. Our desert included yet another varied dish, this time of a fruit sorbet, vanilla ice cream, and a mango (or something yellow) pudding below it all. It perfectly ended an incredible meal. Given the price, I wouldn’t expect anything below amazing, but I think we still all considered it a value. We continued the night with a couple pints of Guinness at a local sailor bar in town, and rolled back to the ship to get some rest before our first full day on the ship.

USS DENVER - ah the memories.
Our room's mascot. Any ideas for a name?

Day 2 – Tuesday August 5

Still a day in port, we started the day by getting off the ship while they conducted a change of command in the hangar decks. Most of us ran for the free wireless internet and for a little shopping for essential ship equipment. I had to pick up a sleeping bag and pillow. Trust me, you’d want one too if you saw the wool itchfest of a blanket and the 20 year-old hard as a rock pillow they provide. The real project of the day, however, was loading all of the detachment’s gear from the pier to the work spaces at the aft end of the ship. All in all, we carried on about 13 pallets worth of metal boxes, cases, cabinets, and shelves. A full day for sure, but with everyone working, we finished before too long. We took a turn in the wrong direction as far as dinners go, and we ate in the wardroom. I am, however glad to report that the food is above what I’d expect out of a warship. We headed out again with Todd as our tour guide. He’s spent more time in Sasebo than any of us, so he knew the places to go, and more importantly, which to avoid. Almost every bar in Japan is a karaoke bar, to some extent, and with few exceptions, we made the most of that. “The Westerner” (old Japanese ladies in full-out wild west getup) was the only bar where we didn’t sing. I went with my typical mix of Bobby Darin, country songs, and a few classic rock standards as the night wore on. Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” capped off the evening after our round of “habu-sake” (a drink that involves a snake and/or its venom.) took its toll. Oh yeah, and I finally broke out my rendition of “Ret it Be.”

Day 3 – Wednesday August 6

We pulled out of port on Wednesday, and made a short trek into the bay to drop anchor and ready the ship for the Tiger Cruise. Essentially that means that a bunch of the families of the ship’s company get to come onboard for a while to get an idea of what their sailor does on the ship. They had some demonstrations going, but unfortunately we were all occupied with briefs and our preparations for the next day’s events. I did manage to sneak into the gym before bedtime, and I hope to continue the trend of working out regularly on the ship. It seems to be the best method of stress relief.

Day 4 – Thursday August 7

This was the longest and most taxing day yet, but in my opinion, it was my first “real” day at sea. I had something on my plate all day long, and often more than one thing waiting for me. Two flight windows highlighted the day, but the time seemed to fly by like lightning though I had been up for 14 hours when I landed for the final time that evening.

The first flight was my first “air show” flight. The families on board crowded the aft part of the flight deck to watch our demonstration of a SAR (search and rescue.) Though not exactly the method we use, it demonstrated just about every aspect of an over-water SAR mission. Our aircraft passed by the ship and moved into position for a “10 and 10” which means we were 10 feet over the water, and moving at 10 knots. I gave the call of “jump jump jump” and the crew chief sent the 2 rescue swimmers out the door into the water. We took position toward the stern quarter of the ship and the second helicopter moved in to pick them up. Our swimmers were the simulated “survivors” of the demo and the other aircraft dropped their swimmer and climbed up to get the hoist ready to bring them up. I’ll try to get some of the official Navy pictures to post later, but I didn’t manage to get any with my camera. (I was a little busy).

The night portion of the flight was my initial qualification of NVD ship landings. Usually, we like to fly on goggles (night vision goggles) because we can see important things like the horizon and the ship. The problem is you can only see about a 40 degree field of view so you really have to keep your “head on a swivel” so to speak. During the pre-flight and FOD Walkdown (everyone lines up to check for debris on the flight deck), we knew it was going to be a fun night. The relative winds over the deck were around 45 knots (54 mph) and we had to fly at night? OK, sure. They died down a bit as the ship trekked on, but the ship had to turn which made most of the wind into a crosswind. After waiting a while for the winds to shift within limits (the ship had to slow down to reduce them) we launched the aircraft and were able to knock out enough landings to qualify me and re-qualify all of the pilots on our detachment. The winds never seemed unbearable, but they were definitely strong all night. The worst weather was a storm we could see right before our last landing, and about 2 minutes after we landed for the final time, the rain hit. I really do feel bad for the guys out on the deck when it hit, but watching it from the dry helicopter provided me with a pretty amazing view of some awesome weather. Thankfully the buckets of rain stopped by the time we shut everything down and exited the cockpit, but the wind didn’t appear to have an end in sight. An early morning awaited me, so after landing and getting a quick snack, it was bedtime for a rather exhausted pilot.

The group enjoying a windy day on the flight deck.

Pretty intimidating, eh?

Mike (one on the left) doesn't look impressed at our awesomeness

Sunset from the tower

Ski Utah

Fly Navy