Yippeeeeeeeee

 

The end is nigh as I have a relief and a relief date. My relief joins this Friday and so I will be home Saturday after a long and at times eventful trip.  Having first joined the ship in early July the trip was expanded as I had three weeks at home recovering from my gall bladder operation.  It was all a bit surreal having spent a week in hospital and then going home.  Its sodding typical though as I missed the best port visit of the whole trip as the ship had 10 days in Leith during my period off sick.  Saying that though as much as I would have liked to have gone to Leith at least I had a few weeks at home with Debbie and the little ones which is far better than any port visit.

 

I do feel I have achieved a few things this trip, even though much of the time has been spent alongside.  We finally got little William Christened and a great day was had by all. I still can’t believe he slept through the whole service though, he didn’t even stir when the vicar poured water over his head. Mind you he did wake up when the wine started flowing. 

 

I managed to cycle 50 miles in one day (the day before I was admitted to hospital with Gall Stones) which was a great achievement for me and I think that over the course of the last 5 months I have managed to rack up about 600 miles on the bike. I just hope I can keep my levels of fitness up over the winter months so that I can achieve my aim next year of cycling 200 miles in two days.

 

Finally I also made it to XO if only for a week when I was transferred to another ship. It was a great experience and I feel that I proved to myself that I am capable of doing the XO role.  As I like to say “Self realisation is the first step to enlightenment.”

 

Anyway 5 days to go, and then it is home to Debbie and the little ones, I am really looking forward to seeing them as I haven’t seen them since the christening, although I must admit I am not looking forward to nappy duty as I am quite slow when it comes to changing nappies and little William always manages to escape when I am half way through. The joys of fatherhood I suppose. Well I wonder what the next few months will bring?

 

Mankind's Final Century?

Is this the final century of mankind? If not the final century almost certainly the beginning of the end. How long can the earth go on supporting an exploding population whilst the politicians turn a blind eye. You only have to look around to see that we are on the edge of destruction. World population is doubling at an ever increasing rate and yet resources are dwindling, how will we support ourselves in twenty to thirty years?

There is so much we take for granted, and assume that emerging technologies such as solar power, wind power etc will save us. However all these sources rely on petroleum products, whether it is in the materials to produce the solar panels and wind turbines or the transport of them. I hate to say it but I really think we are going to live through some very interesting times and I really think that in the next 30-40 years the human race will make decisions that will either ultimately destroy us or allow us to continue in much smaller numbers. I do worry what the future holds for my little Elizabeth and William.

I think we should all learn from Easter Island as what happened there is a good analogy of what may happen to us. They were an isolated society who were advanced for their time. They were capable of great feats of engineering, moving stone heads of 70tons across the island and erecting them. However when their natural resources (mainly wood) ran out they descended into anarchy. Now if one translates the island into modern thinking, the island would be the Earth. The tribes on the island would be the nations of the world and the trees would be the equivalent to our oil. When the island was discovered by Europeans the few remaining islanders came out in canoes and the first thing they wanted was wood to build canoes with. We are not going to get rescued by some alien race, we are it and we have to deal with the problem we are creating.

Maybe I worry too much and I should say sod the future live for the present but then where would that leave Elizabeth and William. I wonder if I am alone in thinking that the end is nigh or whether we all know it is coming and we just turn a collective blind eye to it.

Not Long To Go

Things are finally busy and I only have three weeks left until I escape on leave.  It is good to get back to sea though rather than being tied up alongside; it is just ashame that it has been so rough as it is a little uncomfortable getting thrown around.

 

I had a good start to the month though as I was transferred to another ship and had a temporary promotion to Executive Officer for a week.  It was a great experience and helped me build my confidence for the future. Although I am pleased I transferred back when I did as I think some rather irate Marines were about to rejoin the ship.  They had been away for the weekend and left all their kit neatly layed out on the tank deck ready for Monday, however as we were expecting rough weather over the weekend I had the lads secure it all so we scooped it all up on a couple of pallets and threw a cargo net across it.

 

The transfers to and from the ship were fun.  I got picked up by the marines in one of their big ribs; it was quite an exhilarating trip out to the ship doing 30-40kts across Falmouth bay in choppy seas.  I thought I was going to end up with whiplash or get thrown out the boat.  The trip back between ships was much more pleasurable though as they sent a Lynx to pick me up and I had a nice flight across the rolling hills of Devon.  It was nice transferring and getting taken from door to door so to speak as I didn’t have to worry about anything.

 

Well I came back and had little time to get my feet under the table with a backlog of a weeks work to catch up and the ship had already embarked our flight.  However because of the weather during the first few days much of the flying was curtailed.

 

Well not long to go now, I have started righting my end of term report and will start compiling my handover notes in the next few days and then home in December to Debbie and the two little ones

 

 

 

So That Was October

October was a strange month and quite frustrating.  The first two weeks were spent undergoing a maintenance package so operationally we had little to do.  As always I had lot of planning to do for next years programme and liaising with the squadrons for Novembers programme kept me busy.  For the first two weeks I put a lot of effort into planning for our involvement in staff college sea days.  I know it was going to be a horrid week but we would have been busy which is always good.  Anyway surprise, surprise we broke down and ended up swing around an anchor for 12 days waiting for a dry dock.

 

As we broke down our plans for having little William christened in Portsmouth were scuppered but we managed to have it re-organised for Falmouth. Only problem was we got stuck at anchor so we had to postpone it a further week.  Thankfully we finally got into Falmouth and the christening went ahead.  I had been quite worried how it was going to go as the little monster was screaming his head off an hour before the service and we couldn’t get him to settle. Thankfully he calmed down before the service and then managed to sleep all the way through, even when the Chaplin poured water over his head.  It really was a great day and it was lovely having the little ones and Debbie onboard for a few days. Both Elizabeth and William have such great little characters it does make it hard to go away but I have to earn a living I suppose.

 

Well came sailing day the wind got up so the ship got stuck in dry dock, however I did manage to get some sea time as one of our other ship’s was in the Bay and was loosing it’s XO for a few days so I was asked to transfer. Although I knew I would have to return to a pile of work I jumped at the chance as it meant a promotion, if only for a few days.  I had quite a hairy joining as I had a lift from some RM chaps in a fast black boat; it was quite exhilarating at first but once we got out into the bay the ride was quite jarring.  I thought I would get to the ship suffering from whiplash and incapable of doing the job. Thankfully that wasn’t the case and it was a fun boat ride.  At least I had been on the ship before so things were familiar and having to Dock up and down on the LSDA’s is reasonably straight forward. Well only another two days of being Executive Officer and then it is back to my other ship for my final month before leave. At least the transfer back should be a bit smoother and I will be getting a lift door to door as our embarked flight are coming to pick me up so I get a ride in a helicopter, it’s all good fun.

 

Well only a month left and then I will be home and on leave for a couple of months. It will be good to get home and see Debbie and the little ones.  After almost five months I am sure Debbie will need a rest as it can’t be easy looking after the little ones day in day out.

 

As always I have started drawing up a jobs list for when I am on leave as there is always so much maintenance to do around the house. I just never seem to get on top of it. This leave though I am determined to get it cracked and get the jobs ticked off.

 

Well so that was October, I wonder what November will bring.