One thing that helps remember what I did during the week is pictures. I think I've covered all the equipment I'm responsible for up here. No more gun posts!
Monday of this week I got a chance to spend the night on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Cardigan Bay. This is the ship that houses our boats and the boat crews. It's very similar to a U.S. Navy dock landing ship. Designed for marines, it has a big flight deck for landing helicopters, and decent sized well deck for amphibious craft and small boats, and lots of open bay barracks, galleys, and medical facilities. For the mission up here, however, it feels like a ghost ship. Acting as the Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB) for our boats and some Iraqi boats, its basically a floating hotel, classroom, and training facility all rolled into one.
Ironically, my roommate from KAAOT, the Command Senior Chief (E-8) rode out on the boat with me. He was due to fly out on the Desert Hawk the next day from Cardigan Bay, back to Bahrain and then San Diego and his next ship. With heavy seas predicted for the morning, the staff decided to pre-emptively send the Desert Hawk passengers out the night before. Unfortunately things are a lot more segregated on a Navy ship, and I didn't get to share a beer with my roommate of the last two months on KAAOT.
Which brings me to my next subject ... BEER! The Royal Navy has a fine tradition of serving spirits on their vessels in recognition of the hard work at sea. They have strict rules about when the bar is open, and of course you still have to be ready for your next watch. But I was able to enjoy a couple big cans of Fosters, my first since San Diego back in early December.
It was nice to have my very own stateroom, a luxury I don't think I've ever experienced in my Navy career to date. Rank does have its privileges. Though, as I said, the Cardigan Bay is like a half empty hotel at the moment, so maybe it wasn't the rank. As for the room, mattress was a little thin, but overall it was a very pleasant.
The dining was MUCH more formal than KAAOT. Sit down dinner and breakfast with table service. Again, that whole rank thing. I actually prefer the cafeteria style the enlisted have on the messdecks, and like we have here on KAAOT and back in Kuwait.
The weatherman was right, we had some good seas the next day. The bridge of the Cardigan Bay is about as high as the super-tankers at ABOT. But you could still tell it was rough seas with the white-caps and the swells, and the 30 knot sustained winds. You could also feel the bow thrusters working to keep the ship on station. They actually put the ship in 'hover' mode and let the navigation computers do all the work. Apparently its much easier and safer than anchoring.
While I originally scheduled this trip to participate in some boat training the next morning, a couple days beforehand we found out about a distinguished visitor trip to the North Arabian Gulf: VADM Debbink, the relatively new Chief of Naval Reserve. That's the top Navy Reservist, a "3-star" admiral. I worked with various entities to put together a schedule which would have him flying into Cardigan Bay on Desert Hawk, conduct an 'all hands' call with the Boat Det, then a small boat ride to ABOT for lunch, tour, and meet-and-greets with the remaining Reservists, then return to Kuwait the same way. Unfortunately word got back to the beach about the rough seas and the whole trip was cancelled. The Desert Hawk flew anyways, but our day in the sun was replaced with a boat serial to drop me off at my usual home on KAAOT.
Weather rescheduled some of Tuesday's events into Wednesday, making it a busy day for me. I was able to join SECDET is some tactical level shooting. I got to participate in two course of fire. In the first we just raised our weapon from the 'alert' position and fired at the target. In the second we built on that. Standing perpendicular to the target, we first looked at the target on the 'threat' command, then pivoted, raised our rifles, and engaged the target on the 'target' command. Very fun! And great training for the guys who are here providing point defense of the platform. This is level 3 training, something they don't get to do that often.
Later in the day I went over to ABOT to check up on a radio we had previously installed. A couple guys from our Communication Department had come up from Kuwait on the INCHCAPE service tug to get the radio operational. I grabbed the enlisted guy and got him out on the boats for an exercise. Our boats play 'opfor' (opposition force) for the exercises, and it can be a lot of fun. The coxswains get the drive the boats like they mean it. Our guest refused to take a seat in the cabin, and was beaming from ear-to-ear the whole time. Those are the kinds of memories I'll take from the NAG!
Friday I saw yet another crane operation. We are slowly but surely moving all the key equipment over to ABOT for the planned transition. The only thing that will remain behind is the actual berthing CLUs. This week the mighty barge Instant Mariner and tugs Captain Bo and Al Faisel were alongside to remove some conex boxes near the TOC. I believe this is to make room for required facilities construction here on KAAOT. The Iraqi Navy has some infrastructure they need to get in place in support of the OPLAT defense.
Friday was the second boat live fire we've planned. The guys put together another target made of leftover wood pallets, cardboard 'tri-wall' container, plastic sheet (to get the cardboard from getting water logged), and anchor. After loaded onto the boat they went out and placed it down the pre-determined gun line.
This one went off without a hitch. Nearly everyone got to fire both the M240 and .50-cal from the mighty boat 422. The live fire even went into the evening and after dark, providing an interesting back-drop for the weekly steel beach picnic. The boat crews were able to come up and grab and an American burger right off the grill thanks to the SECDET grill masters. Again, I haven't seen these guys so happy in a while. With these boat crews getting ready to rotate back to the beach, it was very rewarding to get this gun shoot under their belts.
Yesterday we held the Shamrock 8K on KAAOT. I guess its a race back in Virginia. So we held ours in conjunction, even starting at the same exact time. The 1400 start time put us out in the heat of the day, and running on a steel deck. Doc had his heat index thermometer laying on top of a railing and was reading close to 100 F. Before you get too alarmed, keep in mind the air temp was only in the 70's and its still only March. But now I understand where people were getting the "150 F temperatures" from last summer. That was the combined heat index. Anyways, our prizes for participating included a nice medal and a long sleeve tee-shirt. Small reminder that its still winter back in the States.
I've got into a routine on Saturdays. I finish the schedule for the upcoming week and send that back to the beach in Excel spreadsheet and Powerpoint slide format. I also assess the past week's operations and exercises and send those back in same two formats.
So here it is, the end of another week. Sunday's are laundry and blogging days. I will also review my study materials, going over the notes I've taken to date. I got word my relief has been identified and is expected out in less than a couple weeks. I will probably be back in Kuwait by mid-April. With any luck I'll finagle (sp?) a trip to Bahrain on the back end of this mini-deployment.
I will leave you with another sunset photo, this one taken during the boat gunnery exercise. This walkway is called the "yellow brick road" for its yellow railings. This is one of our SECDET rovers on his rounds.
Oh yeah, last Wednesday was 'hump day', half-way point of the deployment to the Middle East :)
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