On Tuesday, we went through the Panama Canal. It was a very cool experience. You drive into this really narrow area (see picture) and a little row boat rows out to you and tosses up a line. You hook one up on either side and these locomotives on tracks pull you along into the lock, which fills up with water once the doors close behind you. You can see the guys in the row boat and the trains in the picture on the right. It's nerve-wracking, because you have no control over the process once you're in the canal. It's about 45 miles long, and they make warships do it at night, so we had special stations manned up from about 5 p.m. until about 4 a.m., making it a trying day for the crew. As a reward, they allowed people to sleep in an extra hour, until 7 a.m. Great.
Now that we're in the Atlantic, the temperature has cooled considerably-- at least 20 degrees difference. The reason is that the seawater temperature is much cooler, so it makes it much easier when out at sea. We're currently transiting to our next port of Martinique, where we should get a night of liberty to go out in town and see it. Martinique is still a french colony, so when filling out the diplomatic clearances (a job that falls on me) to pull into the ports, we were corresponding with France-- a very odd thing, considering we will be in the carribean.
It's been a long week for me. Earlier this week, I was forced to send one of my sailors to Captain's mast-- the second sailor in 2 weeks. At sea, Captains of warships are given broad powers, and one of those powers includes punishing sailors for a given offense. He can dock pay, demote them, put them on restriction (meaning they cannot leave the ship) and even put them on bread and water for ten days (though I've never seen that happen). The term "Captain's Mast" dates back to the old British navy (as many of our traditions do) where the Captain of a ship would hold court in front of the mast and pass judgement in front of the whole crew as a type of deterrent. The term is still used today, though it rarely happens that way. I wrote this sailor up for a pattern of misconduct and disobeying a lawful order. While I knew that he wouldn't end up getting an official punishment and that it would be pushed back down to my level, I did it to scare him straight. It's a very formal process, and one that every sailor dreads. Officers can't be sent to Captain's Mast-- if their offense is bad enough, they'll be sent to Admiral's Mast... not something that you ever want to happen, as it will essentially be a career-ender. Sailors can recover, though it stays on their record for a few years.
As we transit closer and closer to South America, our job will pick up a lot more. In a little more than two weeks, we will begin our main mission-- exercises with foreign navies and working with them to gain greater interoperability. Also, port calls will begin, and the fun part of deployment will start. For now, we're just in a daily groove and a routine every day, which is nice in some respects, but the accelerated life of military exercises and port calls will be a welcome change.
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