February in the South Pacific

Here comes another month of deployment that I'll try and fit into a few short(ish) paragraphs. Pictures will have to wait until I have a better internet connection, but I'll post what I've got so far.

Our lovely helicopter on one of the more scenic days out to sea.

January ended on a bit of a let-down when our "liberty" in Okinawa ended up being 2 days in White Beach with nowhere else to go. It's about the most boring base I've ever been on, and other than a very satisfying jog around the base and a meal in the BBQ joint up the hill, I might as well just have stayed on the boat. What a way to start the float, right? Don't worry, it got better.

Once we got back out to sea, our first item of business was getting Hector back to land so he could catch his flight to Guam. We gave him a ride off the boat for the last time, and he flew from Okinawa back home, leaving us to fend for ourselves. Now that he's gone, I'm the longest-standing member of the detachment, with over 7 months under my belt, and another one to go.

After a few "groundhog day" routines, we got to take a half-day break for the Superbowl. The time difference makes it a Tuesday morning affair, but we still had nachos, chicken wings, and soda for everyone. Sadly, I think they were left over from the previous Friday's movie night. I'll just say that the chips didn't have much crunch left. Good game though, and I even managed to get the phone for a while to call home during halftime.

Photo ID mission - ended up being from APL

We steamed pretty quickly down towards Thailand to start our Cobra Gold exercises with the Thai military and the USMC. As for what actually goes on with the mission there, you'd have to ask the Marines, because most of what we did the whole time was fly in circles for SAR alert and take passengers to and from Utapao airport.

View from the bird at U-Tapao Airport

H-60 from Thailand landing in front of us on the boat.

The schedule was the typical 10 hour flight window, but we rarely had both aircraft flying at once, so the pace was a little more manageable than last fall's patrol.

We landed on the USS Stetham (DDG-63) but their deck was full of cardboard and stuff flying around. A piece of it got into our rotors on landing, so we had to shut down and make sure everything was OK before we kept flying. Don't worry, it was.

I had to stay in the helicopter - what the hey?

View from the landing pattern. H-46 on final.

Cool picture of a couple of Battle-Phrogs on the deck.

On the 8th, Caleb and I flew to the beach for another pax (passenger) run, and this time, we were sent in to pick up a 3-star Army General who was out there to check out the operations on the ships and accomplish some always valuable interservice PR work. His comment after we came in for landing was along the lines of “you guys fly a little different than the Army does” referring to the less-than-soft landing that we consider standard onboard ships. So of course we all took that as a compliment. There have been several high-ranking types on the ship at various times throughout the operation, including quite a few from Thailand. The one I got to talk to quite a bit was a ship's captain who graduated from USNA with the class of '98. He was wearing his ring around, and in the evening when we were off work, he'd even put on his class t-shirt. He was having a great time talking to all of us, and we certainly enjoyed the new company. We even got him to play some Guitar Hero with us on the nights off.

This float brought on some dull days, including a new mission of "RAS Recon." Replenishment at Sea is the way the boat gets fuel, supplies, food, and mail, and when the ships are connected on the lines, they can't maneuver too well. Enter SARDET. We fly 10-15 miles ahead of the ship formation to make sure the path is clear of small fishing boats, commercial ships, or anything else that might get in the way. The time I had to fly for a RAS, we tried killing time by looking (and sometimes finding) dolphins or any other sea life that seemed more interesting than Thai fishermen.

During the UNREP with the USNS Rappahannock. That's some of the glassiest ocean water I've ever seen.

The other "adventure" some of us had this month was a one night trip to the USS Tortuga. Another ship wasn't exactly what Mark Z and I had in mind when we talked about wanting to leave the boat, but I guess we should have been more specific! We have to fly certain types of flights periodically to keep proficient, but the Essex hadn't done too much night-time flying, so a lot of our qualifications were running out of time. We used the Tortuga to help us out with that, but we had to stay the night since the Essex was shutting down before sunset. Getting to the Tortuga wasn’t too difficult, as they were about 20 miles away, but talking to them after the 10 minute flight proved quite a chore. That’s definitely a downside of going to a ship that doesn’t deal with aircraft every day. They usually don’t know what the hell they’re doing! They’re very helpful once they figure it out, but apparently the training wasn’t too in depth. After the first landing, I got out to help them figure out what we were doing. There was some planning before we got there, but come to find out the guy we had planned with didn’t really tell people the whole story, so there was some last minute scrambling to do before we could start. Josh flew the whole night as the HAC, and Mark and I rotated in to requalify ourselves in practice VERTREP, night landings, and NVD landings. It took longer than expected, mostly because of… you guessed it… slow transition on the part of the ship. “how are the lights now?” - “still too bright, turn them down” – “how ‘bout now?” – “it’s the knob that says ‘deck lights.’ Turn it down.” And so forth. Finally we completed everything we needed, and shut the bird down for the night. We got to our rooms around 2230, and after a much needed shower (and a snack) we climbed into bed. They had set out clean sheets for us, but that still didn’t really cover the smell of the ship that apparently is a bit older than the Essex. Either that or they just need to get new mattresses! Alarms started buzzing around 0615, and we even beat most of the SWO’s to breakfast before briefing for our return flight.

The gang that braved the Tortuga for a night.

gorgeous islands off the coast of Thailand. I think I was just anxious for liberty!
I rode in the back on the last leg of the trip. The aircrewmen gave me a chance to make the calls over the deck. We landed safely, but I'll leave that job to them. They're much better at it.

The last full day before we pull into port started with an early morning, a 1 ½ hour flight, watch, and another Mock HAC board for Mark W and me. They are getting a little easier to navigate through, but I still have a LOT of book-work to get done if I want to be ready by the time I get back to Guam. I started packing for the first 2 liberty days after my workout, and after our det meeting on liberty conduct etc, I finished packing and hit the rack. Pretty excited to get back on land again. It hasn’t been a terribly long float so far, but the weeks have dragged on much more this time around.

We saw some of the most beautiful and clear sunrises...

... and some of the haziest sunsets. The humidity got pretty bad.

Recovering the LCAC's in the ship's well-deck
I even had some time for artwork up in the tower. I've drawn 3 helicopters so far. Yeah, be impressed, it's ok. ;)