Home Once Again
Well, friends - I'm home. It's been a long deployment, with some hard times, but it's over. I'm happy to say that we should have a bit more time in port than before, though I can't say how much. I'm just glad to be back on solid ground.
Here's the basic deployment timeline:
- May 23rd: left from Mayport, FL
- Late May: visited Roatan Island, Honduras
- Several days later: passed through the Panama Canal to the Pacific Ocean
- Late June: visited Panama City, Panama
- Mid-July: visited Trujillo, Peru
- Late July: visited Panama City, Panama
- Late August: visited Panama City, Panama
- Mid-September: passed through the Panama Canal back to the Atlantic Ocean
- Late September: visited Curacao, Netherlands Antilles
- October 6th: Returned home to Mayport
That's the basic gist of our port visit schedule. Along the way, we got in the way of a few drug-runners and the approximately 8.1 metric tons of cocaine they were carrying. Military.com has a nice summary of our accomplishments.
The port visits were great, and you can see some of the pictures taken along the way in my photo gallery. There you'll find pictures of me swimming with the dolphins and hiking in the Panamanian Jungle, as well as some beautiful scenic shots from the countries we visited.
The day before we came home, we took some family members and friends of the crew on board for what we call a "Tiger Cruise." They spent the next 24-hours seeing how we really live - or at least a semi-glamorized version thereof. My dad was able to come along and enjoyed it thoroughly. His short years in the Navy many years ago did not include being stationed on a ship, so it was a new adventure for him. You can see his pictures on his flickr site.
My phone number and email address haven't changed, so toss me an email or give me a call some time - I'm excited to hear what's going on in your life. If you've misplaced my contact information, you can find my email address listed here.
It's great to be home!
p.s. the RSS feed for my blog has recently had a few issues related to my new blogging software. They should all be fixed now, but please let me know if you have any issues with them or any other area of the web site.