A Geek’s Think

Well, here I am, out to sea on my first deployment. I’ll be gone for a total of six months, sailing around doing Counter-Narcotic and -Terrorism Operations, or ‘CNT Ops’ for short. Basically we patrol the ocean between the US and South America and try to stop a bit of the drug smuggling that’s going on. It promises to be an interesting trip, with several nice South American port visits planned.

We’ve already had one stop on the way down there - just a brief overnight visit to Key West, Florida. It was a nice place, with gorgeous light blue water, but a bit touristy for my taste. Case in point: I saw enough t-shirt shops along the main drag for me to declare Key West the ‘T-Shirt Capital of the World’. Plus, food prices (at least in the tourist section of town) were crazy! Most entrees cost around $15-20, even at the burger joints! Ouch!

I’ll try to get some pictures up now and then during the deployment, but that’s not going to happen very often - our Internet connection out to sea is worse than dialup. I had one day where it took me an hour just to check my bank balance.

<rant>Side note to all you web page designers out there: Not everyone has broadband! Some of us are stuck on slow connections and those sites with lots of images and fancy Javascript do nothing but annoy us and waste our time. Grrr.</rant>

Oh, well. On with the deployment. Ciao!

Remember that ‘potential trip to Europe’ I mentioned in my last post? Well, I just got back from it. USS De Wert was chosen to participate in an international exercise known as Baltic Operations 2007, or BALTOPS for short. This is a US-sponsored exercise designed to improve the ability of the participating navies to work together in peace- and war-time situations. I wasn’t involved with much of that, as my job mainly involves maintaining and fixing electronic equipment, but if you want to learn more you can check out this page for a more in-depth description and this other page for quite a few pictures of the ships sent by the participating countries.

During the trip we were able to visit Aarhus, Denmark and Kiel, Germany - both of which were very enjoyable. Aarhus is a very picturesque place, full of beautiful sights and beautiful people. It was most definitely not a tourist trap, given that in two days of walking around town I didn’t come across a single souvenir shop. We were quite happy to find that most everyone spoke English and were quite friendly. The food was good, though expensive. An interesting meal I had there consisted of a hamburger inside a pita with salsa on it. Here’s a picture. I also ate a ‘Danish’, which was most enjoyable. Mmmm, mmmm, good.

After Denmark came the BALTOPS exercise. I didn’t see much of what went on with that, but one thing I did get to see was the water in the Baltic Sea. On several occasions, it looked like glass, as you can see here.

Our next visit was to Kiel, Germany, which was just starting into its annual Kiel Week sailing festival - the worlds largest sailing event. From our ship, for the entire time we were in port, I could see sailing boats passing by. It was quite the sight to see. I didn’t get to spend much time in town there, but what I saw was quite nice. The food, however, was extraordinary. First, I ate a Bradwurst. Very tasty. Then I went to a nearby restaurant and had a nice sit-down meal. Also very tasty.

Click here for the rest of my BALTOPS 2007 pictures. I got a new camera for the trip (Canon SD750) and have been quite pleased with it. So pleased that I took several hundred pictures. Be glad I was nice and just posted the cream of the crop. :-)

Now I’m home, and quite happy to be here. Our time in port won’t last long, but every little bit counts, and I’m grateful for what I have.