One week in

I have survived my first week as Executive Officer, very different to being Ops but it is good to get back to the RFA after spending the last two years in a shore post. It is really hard being away from the family, a lot harder than before. 

As the ship was in port Debbie brought the kiddies down for a picnic which was nice, so good to see them all and we had a nice time walking around time. It was hard to say good bye to them at the end of the day and so horrible as the little ones were in tears again.

Work wise though I have been on a very steep learning curve with some very long days but I am enjoying the challenge and the new post. It has been a long time coming but I am pleased I finally made it to choff. 

This coming week is going to be tough as we prepare for our work up, I really hope that I don't mess things up.

Back at Sea

Having left my shore post two weeks ago I have now returned to sea. I have now had my first full day onboard and my brain has gone pop with all the information from the handover. It was horrible saying goodbye to the family yesterday. It gets harder each time to say goodbye and so upsetting to see the kiddies in tears, although they did like looking around the ship. Just roll on the end of July when I get to go home again.

Really wish I was home today rather than here on the ship, it would have been nice to spend the day with Debbie and tell her how wonderful a mother she is to our three little ones. I know she has got a hard five months ahead, harder than mine on here as she will have no respite from the school runs or from William winding Elizabeth up.

Now every time I come back to my blog I say I am going to regularly update it but always fail to, aim this trip though is to regularly update it, will have to see if I manage it though.

Weekend Away

We had a family weekend away this weekend, a first with all three of the little ones, staying in a chalet with a cheep Sun break. The chalet was basic and the entertainment was cheesy, but only to be expected. The main thing was that the little ones really enjoyed it. We did learn one valuable lesson though, that was to keep Matthew away from Haribo as he had some during the evening kiddies entertainment and was then running around like a looney for the rest of the night. We finally got him to his cot at 2300 which is unheard of from him as he is usually cuddled up with Winnie the Pooh by 1830. Mind you Winnie had been on the wine.

Anyway as we were near Looe (the village not the place where I release the snakes) we took the opportunity to have a day out in the village. It really is a lovely little village, will definitely go back, although next time I might gag the little ones as all we had as we walked around was 'I want'. I also need to find a way to teach them the art of just sitting and watching the world go by. I say this because we walked out to the end of the breakwater and it would have been nice just to sit for a few minutes of peace and quiet looking out to sea but it was not to be. To be fair, Matthew got it right.

Anyway, enough of my rambling, a nice time was had by all as can be seen by the following picys.

The Final Week

We are now on the final leg home having transitted the canal today. It has has been a frustrating couple of weeks in the Red Sea doing nothing but steaming around in circles and hosting VIPs. On the plus side though I have been out most mornings watching the world go by with a cup of coffee and have been out to watch a couple of Sunsets. The sunsets over the Sinai Peninsular were particularly good with the light reaching out like orange fingers as the sun slipped behind the mountains.

I creeped out one night to look at the stars, they put the upper decks out of bounds at night which is a shame. Anyway we went out and stared up at the starlit sky. Should have taken my iPad up though as I have forgotten so many of the stars that I used to be able to name. I really must start to learn them again. 

We are now in the canal and will soon be back in the Mediterranean where the forecast is not promising, it will be cold, windy and rough but not long until we get to Malta, my final stop this deployment. It will be good to get ashore though as I haven't stepped off the ship since October. I get to fly home early as once we get into the Med most of the work will be done. So looking forward to getting away from this tin can, having some space and more importantly a proper bed to sleep in and a comfy chair to sit on. So roll on Wednesday and my flight home so I can be back with my family.

Still Heading Home

It has now been a week since I last wrote, goodness knows when this will actually get uploaded though as I think it will be the best part of a month before I get WiFi again. The ship continues transit back to home waters having sailed from Muscat.

It was my first visit to Muscat and it was ok, it reminded me a little of Dubai in the 90s, still a middle eastern port though, so not a great place to visit. I have never really been a fan of the Middle East, far to hot, dusty and humid for my liking and very little green. Give me a Mediterranean port any day over the Middle East.

On the plus side I did get to see a little bit of the town and walked my feet off, getting blisters and achy legs but covering 8 miles. Other than the heat, the walk along the sea front was quite pleasant with some wonderful sculptures, and occasionally a nice sea breeze. Stunning view of mountains, but in some ways they were quite bland as they were just the colour of sandstone. The thing that did surprise me was how noticeable the temperature was on the rare occasion we found a bit of shade.

We walked all the way to the Royal Palace, very ugly and brash building in my eyes, however leading up to it were some very pleasant walkways that offered some shade.

During the visit we also went to see the Grand Mosque, a very impressive and peaceful building. Inside was stunning with huge chandeliers and the worlds second largest hand woven rug. Took a few moments just to sit in the gardens, so peaceful.

Well we are now back at sea, and as a staff are controlling three Task Groups as part of a large multinational naval exercise, the first few days have been a little busy but things should start to quieten down now. Once the exercise is over though I think things will start to get really dull for the last month before we fly home. It is going to be hard to keep myself sane, will just have to keep going down the gym to break up the monotony of pointless meetings.

Not long now

Things are finally winding down now that we are heading North, much of the work is done and days are spent twiddling thumbs trying to find work to do. 

We have had some fun though as a few days ago they called hands to bathe. The ship was stopped, stern door lowered and we were all given the opportunity to go for a swim. I have always wanted to do a hands to bathe but we don't do them on RFAs. It was a bit surreal though just jumping off the ship and going for a swim with no land in sight, and nothing to sea but the ship. The water was lovely and warm, think it was about 28 degrees, I could have stayed in it for hours but only had 45minutes as we had a brief to attend straight afterwards.

Well we are now in the Red Sea and heading home, we are calling in to Saudi but there will be no shore leave as we are holding a cocktail party for the great and the good. Plus I think they are worried about jolly jack running amuck ashore and upsetting the locals.

This is really the last big event of the deployment so things are going to be very quiet onboard for the next few weeks. At least they flying some of us home early rather than keeping us onboard. Only 17 days to go and then I will be home and taking 10 days leave before heading back into the office. Will have to see how far I can cycle down the gym before I get off the ship. The saddles on the bikes aren't the most comfortable but it beats sitting in front of a computer. Even managed a 40k ride the other day which wasted a good two hours of the day.

Anyway I am rambling now so will draw to a close, just hope that the wifi they are putting on the ship for the port visit works.

Pointing Towards Home

We are finally pointing towards home now we have past the halfway stage of the deployment. Must say I am looking forward to getting back to the UK in December and seeing the family. I think it certainly gets harder to go away especially as I miss so much of the kiddies growing up. I really can't believe my little Girl is six, my monster will be five in November and little Matthew will be one on Friday (Halloween).

At least with this shore posting, if you can call it that when I am stuck on Bulwank, should give a bit more stability and I should get to see the little ones more regularly so I can see them grow up. Well, for the next two years or so and then it will be back to being away in four month stints again. Admittedly it is easier with Skype and phone calls but I still miss everyone at home. I don't miss the kiddies fighting or not doing what they are told though. 

It is a strange life at sea though, we shut ourselves off from the world in a floating metal box and escape society and yet crave normality. We are surrounded by some wonderous sights, we see wonderful sunrises and perfect night skies. We are guided through our travels by dolphins and flying fish and yet I long for the hills of home. I know that when I hand up my sea boots for the final time I will always yearn for that open horizon. I will no doubt feel different by the time they finally let me retire though in 2040. Let's just hope I win the lottery before that, which reminds me I must buy a ticket.

It's been a while

It's been a while since I last wrote my blog (20 months), it has either been a long time with writers block or I have just been bone idle (probably the latter). A fair few things have happened it that time, as can be expected and I must make more of an effort to keep this up to date. 

The most notable change is that the little ones are growing up quickly and they now have a baby brother (he will be 1 at the end of the month). The first few months were a little stressful as he was not well but now to see the three of them smiling together makes it all worth while.

I have also taken up a shore post for three years. We'll a semi shore post as part of the time I am at sea and part of the time ashore. On the plus side I only tend to be away for 4 months and the rest of the year I am ashore so I get to go home most weekends. 

Other than that everything is a bit of a blur, I just don't know where the time goes anymore. Life is certainly flashing by, that's no bad thing when I am on board but it is a real bugger when I am home as there are always so many things I want to do or achieve. Perhaps I just need to learn to slow down, or more likely I need to learn to manage my time better.

Any I will endeavour to kick my own behind and update my blog more often but as a picture paints a thousand words here are a few from the last few months.

Dull Week

Thursday is finally here marking the end of another week of death by PowerPoint. Final exam tomorrow morning and then jump on the train home. Frustrating though as with most collingwood courses it has been a three day course squeezed into 5 days with 0830 starts, an hour and a half for lunch and finished before four. Oh and as it is a navy course we were given Wednesday afternoon for personnel development. Hey ho only a 45 minute exam to do in the morning then I can head to the station.

Other than the course it has been a bit strange this week in the news. What with the pope resigning, North Korea conducting nuclear tests and half the population waking up and finding out that they had shergar for dinner. Mind you I have been feeling a bit horse recently, just thought it was a cold and not the lasagne. I really don't see what the fuss is about though as there are all these companies selling us strange meets such as alligator and ostrich what does it matter if there is a bit of horse in the burger it all adds flavour and is better than breadcrumbs or vegetables.

It will be good to get home and it is half term next week so no morning runs to the nursery, yippee. Just need to work out how to keep a 3 and a 4 year old entertained all week without going bankrupt. Gone are the days that we could have sent them out as chimney sweeps. Hopefully it will be dry and mild so I can take them on a picnic or down the beach.

Now the weather is getting milder I may try and venture out for a longer ride on the new bike. I have been on plenty of 8 mile rides but am itching to get out further and crack 30 or 40 miles to see if I can still do it. The new bike is much faster than my old one so as long as the hills are reasonable I should be fine.

Well another ramble over and roll on tomorrow when I go home to Debbie and the little ones.

A New Year

After the anticlimax of the Mayan prediction I thought I would leave my blog for a bit. However after a dreary day of lectures I thought maybe I should rekindle my efforts and as with every year make my vow to write more blogs. It seems, however that the Mayans may have been right, just a couple of months out. As you sit there reading this there is an asteroid hurtling towards us with a designation ending in 2012. The geeks in NASA reckon it will miss (fingers crossed) as it passes on the 15 Feb but it will pass close enough to take out a satellite or two. Lets just hope that they have their maths right. More importantly though if it is going to hit is there really any point in me sticking to my diet? It would be a real bummer if it hit as I would be spending my last few days at collinggrad rather than home where I belong.

Anyway enough rambling on about the apocalypse and back to reality. I must say this current course is really dragging and it must be the most boring course I have been on, at least they have coffee on tap which almost keeps me awake. Just wish I could find a face painter to paint eyeballs on my eyelids and then I could have a proper snooze.

Back in Home Waters

After two months we have finally come to the end of our deployment and will limp into the English Channel tonight. Things have been busy but that has not been a bad thing as time has gone quickly. As always with these types of exercise it was about as well organised as a piss up in a brewery but at least it is now over.

 

We only had three short port visits, not that I am complaining as with each port the pilotage got tighter and tighter, until we finally reached Valletta, which was really tight to get into with an interesting S bend going through the breakwater. Certainly not something I would want to do on a regular basis as it just doesn’t feel right steaming right towards a cliff. On the plus side though I got to have lunch with the earl and Countess of Wessex when they visited the ship.

 

Our passage back has been a bit lumpy over the past few days, thankfully the Bay hasn’t been as bad as predicted and therefore we have managed to keep our Friday arrival. Debbie and the little ones are coming down for the night which will be nice as I haven’t seen them since I joined in September. We sail Saturday but at least we will get Friday night together.

 

800 Miles

Once again I find myself sat down trying to think of what to write. It is hard to write about what I have been upto, nothing exciting but I am just cautious as to what goes out in an open forum. I must say this trip has been extremely busy but at least I am now half way through. I am really hoping that things quieten down a little bit over the coming weeks so that I can actually start to tie down our future programme as it looks somewhat of a tramsmash at present. I suppose at least by keeping busy the time goes quickly.

 

Well our last port visit was enjoyable, if stressful at times. Over the Saturday night we had 70mph winds blowing us off the berth, thankfully as we have thrusters we managed to keep ourselves pushed on overnight. We did however lift the gangway which caused a few issues for our remaining troops who came back in the early ours. Thankfully one of our consorts were kind enough to take them in for the night, I only wonder what they made of the chap that turned up in a hospital gown wearing an eye patch.

 

During the visit managed to get ashore for a skype call, unfortunately I ended up drinking far to much espresso, nice coffee but leaves an awful headache after the fifth one. On sailing the fleet had a call from the Naval Attaché as a picture of Johnny Wilkinson had gone walkabout from the local Rugby Club. Obviously they were disheartened and asked for it’s return. After a search onboard one of our troops handed it in with the story that he had bumped into a couple of drunk Belgians that had borrowed the picture and were now bored of it. Johnny made his first appearance at our 1930 meeting at which point myself and the AOO carried him up to the bridge. At this point I would just like to say that the picture was infact a life size plywood cut-out of Johnny which looked quite freaky under red torchlight on a dark bridge.

 

Well one more exercise to do and then we have our final port visit to a historic port before we head home to colder climbs. I must say having looked at the pilot book I am looking forward to the visit as it is somewhere I haven’t been before.

 

I know I moan about the long hours, but it is not all bad. As I say the time really is flying by so I really don’t have to much time to myself. I do however manage to steal 30mins every other day or so to go for a bike ride and read my book. I am still slowly chipping away at this years challenge and broke the 800mile mark yesterday. Only 200 more to go and then I have reached this years target of cycling 1000miles

Non Stop

This is certainly turning out to be a busy trip and I really can’t believe the first month has passed so quickly. I suppose it helps that for most of the time I have had little time to do anything but work, and get sleep when I can.  I must admit I wasn’t too happy when I joined to find out that I would be watchkeeping and Nav Ops in the work up to a major deployment but in a masochistic sort of way it was fun as I was going back to my routes. I always prefer the sole ops posts but I must admit it is really good to get back to driving the ship in and out of port again and having control of both the operations and the navigation functions. Whether it’s abuse or not I don’t know but I even programmed in DP trials into the shortcast so that I could play with all the buttons and joysticks on the bridge. This class of ship is always worked hard but it is good to be on a reasonably new ship.

 

The down side of course is always the hours, whilst watchkeeping I did three weeks of generally 15 hour days, needless to say that by the time we came to deploy I was still behind the curve on work and rest. We got our replacement officer just as we started the deployment which did help but the hours then increased due to operational tempo and I was pulling 18 hour days. I must admit by the time we left home waters earlier in the week I was about ready to drop. Thankfully though we have now been on a nice steady passage for a few days so I have managed to just about catch up before the next phase where we will do it all over again.

 

I do miss home, Debbie and the little ones, it is strange really going from being at home 24/7 with Debbie and the little ones to being away and not being able to see them. At least we can have phone calls. Whenever I ring the first thing I tend to hear is the little man saying ‘My turn, My turn’ as he makes a grab for the phone. The little girl on the other hand is far more patient and usually wants to watch Charlie and Lola instead. I do think as they get older it is going to get much harder but I suppose I have to earn a living somehow.

 

Anyway into port tomorrow for a very short stand-down, I plan to take a stroll into town after we arrive for a change of scene and a break from work to recharge batteries before hitting the grindstone again on Sunday, getting up to speed, drawing up routes and areas and reading through the 4 inches of signals that I get daily before sailing back into the wild blue yonder on Monday.

A Step Back In Time

Usually at this stage of the trip I am heavily into my joining blues. However this trip my sixteen hour days have put pay to my joining blues. I do miss Debbie and the little ones and I wish I was home but have had little time to reflect.

I joined two weeks ago and went straight into watches whilst trying to handover and prepare for the forth coming deployment. Hence I have little time to think. This trip however is a step back in time as it is six or severn years and my captain is my old cadet training officer from my first couple of trips in 1991 & 1992. I do miss home but in some ways I am enjoying the trip as I have a comfy cabin, a good programme, good crowd and as Nav Ops I get to do the bits I enjoy which is control the programme and drive the ship in and out of port. I even programmed in a slot of DP trails the other day so I could play with the ship and press all the flashy buttons and drive the ship around in circles.

I must admit though I don't enjoy the hours at the moment. When we are at sea I am basically doing 0745 - 2359 and in port I am going through until 2045. Things should get better next weekend when we get our replacement deck officer. It will have been a hard three weeks though.

As much as I moan I am looking forward to the next few months as it will be interesting but I do miss my little ones and Debbie.

So Much For Summer

As I progressed through last trip I was really looking forward to my first full summer leave. Over the past few years I have tended to be off in the winter months so the thought of balmy summer days, picnics, long bike rides and BBQs was really appealing.

I had also intended to do lot's of work out in the garden to get it all straight and finally get on top of the weeds. Well I have been home for the whole of June, July and August and with only a week left before I head back to work I am wondering what happened to the time, my plans, summer and the sun. 

Since I have been home, most days, we have had the Langtree rain cloud sitting overhead. This has definitely sapped the spirits and motivation, it has also put a dampener on plans in the garden. Saying that this has been one of the best leaves for a long time and as I prepare to go back I will be taking some very happy memories of time spent with Debbie and the little ones over the past few months.

Although I moan about the weather we did manage to go camping once which was great and it was so relaxing sitting in a field with the BBQ going a couple of tins of apple juice to hand and kiddies running around after each other.

We also had the joy of our first family holiday with the little ones. We got a special offer at Butlins which was an experience. Maybe I am a bit of a snob but half the people there I am sure were on benefits and considering we went during school time there were a lot of kids that should have been at school. Saying that the little ones really enjoyed themselves. There was also a nursery on site so Debbie and I had a few hours off from the kids during which we had a peaceful lunch.

I can't really complain as when the weather has held we have had some great days out down the Tarka Trail, at the beach and up in Kidiminster, admittedly we usually ended up in the play grounds but just seeing the smiles on the little ones faces makes it all worthwhile.

 Of course the rain has had some benefits as on those wet Saturday afternoons when I couldn't go out we headed off to the Green Dragon for some medicinal apple juice and a go on the flashy light machine whilst the little ones watched the fishes and William tried to get his tractor in the pub.

I should have done more arty things with the little ones as when we got the paints out they really enjoyed it. I also caught William reading the times when we visited my mummy, perhaps I should get him a daily paper at home.

All in all it has been a really good leave, I now just have to prepare myself for going back to work and getting into the shipboard routine. It is going to be really hard to go away and not see the little ones and Debbie for a while. The little ones are changing so much I really can't believe that Beth will be four this weekend and little William 3 in November. They are growing up so quickly and they don't fail to make me smile everyday.