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.