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REGINA Travel Log: Week Three
PO2 Steven Pring, HMCS Regina
Feb. 17, 2003 – Day 16
The Mids – The hours between 2330 and 0330 – is perhaps the strangest watch in the one in four rotation. The flats are dark, three quarters of the ship’s company is asleep and an eerie quiet settles throughout, with only the low reverberation of machinery doing what machinery does, and faint creaking protests from the hull as it imposes its will upon the calm seas.
Mids Coffee – a special treat found at no other time of the day. Bitter mud thinly disguised in a coffee cup guaranteed to put hair on your chest, keep your eyes open and your stomach demanding a refund or, at the very least, an antacid.
This is the time of the day, yes, I said day – 24 & 7 ARRRRRRR! - No discussion is off limits, no story too far fetched: step up to the plate, chose a topic and stir the pot. You can never be sure what you’ll find stuck to the bottom.
Feb. 19 – Day 18
Sailors first, tradesmen second. Today the entire ship’s company turned to on the uppers (how’s that for navy-speak for ya?) to prepare the ship for painting – translation: we showed up for work.
Regardless of the role you play as a member of the crew, ship’s husbandry must always come foremost in importance. Tonnes of steel comprise Regina, encasing us on our journeys, keeping us safe, enabling us to meet any challenge; it’s only fitting that we in turn protect her from perhaps her greatest enemy, the sea.
Everything about the sea is designed to destroy this proud lady: the wind, the waves, and the salt. Daily, a war wages between ship and sea, the oceans throwing whatever it has in its arsenal at her as though resentful of the ease with which she travels upon its surface. Battles against dreaded rust are fought and won, fought and lost on a daily basis.
Today was such a battle.
The din of chipping hammers and the hum of grinders filled the air, intermingled with the strains of Aerosmith screaming from a CD player nearby as we removed the rust in preparation for painting tomorrow.
Security leak!
On the horizon you could see the enemy approaching. Neptune’s soldiers, disguised as squalls, marching into war: the weapon of choice this day - rain. The metal is bear, completely void of paint, vulnerable.
The deluge arrives.
Neptune watches for us to stop, to turn away from our tasks and seek shelter. But, it’s only water; we’re sailors and resistant to rust.
He’s toying with us now. The rain abates, the sun returns only to be swept away by yet another attack moments later.
Still, undaunted, we continue.
Neptune calls off the attack. The horizon holds clear.
Lunch anyone?
Feb 20 – Day 19
“Tanning stations, Tanning stations man your tanning stations”
Pirate rig is authorized and you can tan all you like, so long as it’s with paintbrush in hand. What is pirate rig you ask? Well, essentially pirate rig is any old pair of shorts, sandals and your favourite shirt. You know the one, it’s the shirt your wife absolutely refuses to be seen in public with you wearing: the same shirt that you tirelessly rescue for the rag bin or the goodwill bag when you think she’s not looking.
No Skylarking is permitted. Translation: no tanning without a paintbrush in hand. Roger, out.
Fast Forward…
The workday for those not standing watches is over. We’ve all gravitated toward the flight deck where the barbeques are doing double duty searing hamburgers and hotdogs.
Most of us have already been below to shower in an attempt to cool our sun-ravaged flesh, and walking out of the hanger you see that you weren’t the only one to miss a spot or two with the sunscreen - everywhere you look glowing red welts. The last thing any of us needs is more exposure, but the sun is weaker now as it starts its nightly descent toward the horizon and a cooling breeze has begun to blow.
Cheerful music from our collective pasts plays from four speakers placed in each corner of the flight deck and friends gather in light-heart conversation. The friends, the music, the Pacific breeze and the setting sun, since we have no choice but to be far from home, at this very moment, I can’t think of no better place than here.
Feb. 21 – Day 20
I’ve seen it before. It’s happened on every long deployment, every ship I’ve been on; the ship begins to take the shape of a small town – security, comfort in the same faces seen day in and day out. Routines and social groups form, sponsored by like interests: language training and music lessons here, weight and fitness training there.
There has been a great deal of quiet time during this transit providing each of us the opportunity to reveal another side of ourselves. We already knew each other in so far as our positions, but not so well the “actual people” filling those positions. Standard Operating Procedures and protocols leave little room for individuality, far less for personalities falling outside the accepted boundaries of the “cookie-cutter sailor”.
Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir. There will be time enough for that.
Tomorrow we arrive in Guam. What had originally been forecast as an eight-hour stopover for fuel has been extended to two days: time to get ashore, buy a souvie or two, perhaps partake in a sociable before continuing on our way.
Feb. 22– Day 21
Welcome to Guam.
It’s hot. A strong breeze is blowing in off the sea belaying the strength of the sun. I find myself along walking a deserted stretch of road that runs through a seldom-used portion of the U.S. Navy station.
To my right a twisted wall of scrub, obscuring the swamp, studded with battered palms and adorned every dozen or so feet with what at first glance appear to be mesh minnow traps. Closer inspection reveals a more sinister purpose – snake traps. I quickly decide to leave the suddenly hostile territory of the grass for the security of the pavement.
To my left are the assorted seemingly deserted buildings of the U.S. Naval station – storm damage from last December’s typhoon readily apparent. Barbed wire fencing extends as far as the eye can see, and as though doubling the threat against all those who would attempt entry, more snake traps. Nothing moves, the only sound that of the wind moaning in my ears and the irregular chime of some distant bell.
This is a lonely, haunted, desolate place. How many men died over this now deserted road? In the wind you can almost hear their voices and beyond that the artillery, and all of it set to the irregular cadence of that distant bell. The bell, not a bell at all, but a 30 mph road sign that has come adrift from its lower mooring and is now clanging against its pole at the mercy of the wind.
Paradise once, but no more. Everywhere there are signs of a storm-embattled community in the process of rebuilding. Huge tumblers break against the shoreline, as though mocking the human efforts and the frailty of their constructs.
And still, the wind…
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