Finally Leaving Chile

Boy, it’s been too long since I’ve written in here! So much has happened, and we’ve been so busy, that I haven’t had time to write back e-mails, much less update the blog.
We are currently transiting north toward Peru for our next port visit later this week. We finally are out of Chile, where we made 6 port calls. It seems like our second home port, but it’s nice to be moving north toward warmer weather. We already can go outside without a jacket on, which is a huge plus! Last week marked the end of our UNITAS Pacific phase of deployment where we were working with other navies. Now, we have a month of independent steaming to get to Panama for the start of PANAMAX, our final exercise, in mid-August. This means that steaming will be easy and pretty dull for the next couple of weeks, which is actually nice compared to the stress of multi-ship exercises.
A couple of weeks ago, I got my Officer of the Deck qualification. That means that now, when I stand watch, I am in charge of the safety for the entire ship, as well as making sure that the entire plan of the day is executed. It’s probably the biggest qualification in an officer’s career, so it’s nice to have that over with. I also moved into a stateroom last week, a three-man room with a computer, TV, lots of storage, and bigger begs, which has improved my quality of life tenfold. Thankfully, I’m moving up in the world after putting in my time for the last 13 months.
I had the opportunity last week to be on a Chilean ship for 3 days, which was a nice change of pace and interesting to see how the Chilean Navy does things. The best variation from the U.S. Navy? Tea time. Every day, 3 p.m. You sit around and drink tea and eat fresh-baked bread. It was great.
Last week, one of the most dynamic officers on our ship departed to go to his next duty as a ROTC instructor at Virginia Military Institute. The guy reminded me a lot of Dean Moriarty (real life Neal Cassady) in On The Road… a larger than life character that really enjoyed life, drank a lot of beer, and did everything big, bigger, better. Without him on board, life has become a lot more two-dimensional, and I’m sure liberty ports will be even more impacted. Seriously, the guy doubled my tolerance over the past four months. He’ll be missed.
Just over two months left of deployment, so we can finally start counting down until we head back to San Diego. The bulk of our port calls, unfortunately, are over, with about 2 weeks in between each port from here on out, but that will be good to keep the beer weight off and the money in my wallet, especially since casinos in Chile are, I’m convinced, rigged against me more so than American casinos.