Boy, it’s been a long time since writing in here! Not that I’ve heard many (read: any) complaints about me not posting, but I feel the need to update people on how I’m doing. 24 days until we get back from deployment, and the entire ship is counting down. Many conversations consist of the following topics (in order of prevalence):
1) What is the first thing you’re going to eat when you get back?
2) What type of alcoholic beverage will you have when you go back?
3) What is the second thing you’re going to eat when you get back?
4) What is the first thing you’re going to do when you get off the ship?
5) What’s the third thing you’re going to eat when you get back?
As you can tell, people are excited about food. That, and American beer. Sadly, South America does not have my two favorites: Sam Adams and Guinness. I’ll be getting a case of both of those beers when I get back—and drinking them in short order.
We haven’t been doing much since my last post, hence why I haven’t written much. The highlights have been a trip to Panama for a port visit (4 days off the ship is pretty awesome) and an exercise called PANAMAX with Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Panama. It’s a simulated exercise in defense of the Panama canal.
Right when we were starting the exercise, we were called away to conduct a real life SAR (Search and Rescue) Operation. A Panamanian plane went down off the coast of Panama with six souls onboard, and we’ve spent the better part of the last few days looking for it, as well as any survivors. Unfortunately, we found the fuselage of the plane, but no survivors. A fishing ship about 20 miles away found a body. It’s sad, but we continue looking until they call off the search. Most of our time consists of navigating search patterns promulgated to us by higher authority. At night, it’s especially hard because we must search with spotlights and night vision to try and find bodies. Sad work, but it seems better than a simulated exercise with other countries. At least I feel like we’re doing some good.
We’ve had a few cool experiences, like assisting in some counter-drug operations, or pulling into Ecuador so their Navy could tour our ship (they are thinking of purchasing the ship when it decommissions) but most of our time has been spent drifting around in circles waiting for this PANAMAX exercise to start… And now we’re not even doing it!
All the same, we only have 24 days left, so people aren’t quite thinking about doing work—minds are centered around our return to San Diego. It seems so far away, and (ironically) foreign to me. Being at sea for 6 months makes you forget what life was like when you had some control over it. We’re constantly told when to eat and when to work, and even on liberty we have curfews and rules to abide by. Going back to a life with time for myself will be a sublime experience, and one that I’m richly looking forward to. We should leave from this SAR in the next couple of days and head back to Panama for a closing conference to talk about the exercise that we’ve essentially skipped. It doesn’t make much sense, but I won’t complain about time off! After that, we begin the journey back home, with nothing left but time standing between us and the United States.
