Pictures From My Home Away From Home Away From Home

Greetings family, friends and other readers.  Here are some long overdue photos from the first time I went to sea as well as a couple from my current underway.  I'll try to explain them as we go.

This is the flight deck of USS Shiloh.  You can sort of see some missile tubs in the back right.  The flight deck on the cruiser is two levels up from the water, where as on a frigate or destroyer it would be the deck closest to the water.  It doesn't change too much about the approach.  It's just something different to look at.

These should illustrate the "sense of community" I enjoyed for my first underway.  My bunk was the bottom right.  This and the following are mostly to show the space that six people shared.  There were also six people set up the same way directly behind where I'm standing in this photo.

I had my own locker...

But this is where most of my stuff went.

Underneath my mattress.

This made me feel good about my situation.  I'd be the first one out of there.

Computer is on my lap.  This was my little bubble.  It wasn't much, but it was a sanctuary when I needed one.

It could use a little more head room though.

This is the Wardroom on the ship.  They have a big TV there, but they added a wall behind it cutting off access to the outlets and cable.  The ship will play movies throughout the day and different shops might have a TV hooked up to the ships network and can watch them.  This tv is only for movies when you plug in the player and video games now.  All in all, its very comfortable, and since pilots generally have less to do that the ship people when we're not flying, we tend to relax here more than anyone else.

Directly behind where I'm standing is the previous picture.  This one shows the Officers Mess.  The long table has reserved seats for the Captain and his Executive Officer (XO).  The rest of the seats are fair game.  The class society is still very much alive in the Military.  When you walk in, you address the most senior officer in the mess and request permission to join the mess.  When you are done eating, you again request permission to be excused or to leave the mess.  It was an odd feeling the time or two when I was the most senior officer and the other officers are asking my permission to come in and eat.  The other convenience, albeit a peculiarity as well, is we circle what we want on a menu card and give it to the enlisted man who's job it is to bring us our meals when they are prepared.  They also take our dirty plates from us when we are finished.  They are usually people who are new to the ship and do this job for a short while before rotating to their shop so they can work and advance in their rate.  It was definitely an adjustment though.  

This is the Gun Deck.  It's the lowest deck on the back of the ship.  Those out front are the missile tubes from the first picture.  This view is from the Air Department's Operations Office.  We tie our hatch (door) open then open the external hatch (door) and viola! We have ocean front property!  The little space between us and the stairs there is a nice spot where we bring our lawn chairs out to read or study.

This is the bow with its big 5in gun and missile launchers.  

This is the same shot except I was using my panoramic photo app

This is again using the panoramic app.  It's hard to explain where this was shot.  This is 4 decks above the main deck looking forward.  The mast is right out fron and behind me are the ships radars and flight deck.

Here's a different angle with the sun beginning to set.

Here's the bow from the bridge wings.

Here's our helicopter, spread and ready to fly.

Ships Wake

The guys are in the process of extending the tail.  The tail cracks and folds forward for storage.  The blades also fold back like they are right now.  Right now I'm in the back of the hangar.

This shows the after missile deck.  Now you've seen the decks leading up to the flight deck.    We were really moving during this shot.  I don't know that the photo does it justice.

This ship is preparing for an UNREP (Underway Replenishment).  Sometimes you can take on supplies but this time we only took on fuel. 

This wasn't from at sea but thought I would include it.  The green area in the back is the airfield, the rest is Japan.  You see the striking difference as you go down the shot from green grass to no empty space whatsoever.

This is the last shot of the post.  No the ship did not get wrapped around a pole.  This was taken with the panoramic app again.  To the left is the sun setting off the stern while to the right is the bow.

Well there you have it.   While not everything there is to show about ship life, I hope you got some sense of it.  In an effort to save the reader time I decided to reduce the captions down from the allotted 1000 words per picture.  

This next time out I'll get a shot of the state room I currently live in.  It take about the same amount of space as my half of the berthing, yet only two people live in it.  I'll also get some shots of where we work and play.

In the words of the sage swine, Porky the Pig:

Th-Th-Th-That's All Folks!