Just like the North sea, the Bearing Sea can get NASTY
VERY quickly!
My first and only time around the Horn gave me a HUGE respect for Magellan and all others that passed that way.!
"Wooden Ships and Iron Men" comes to mind! I just cannot imagine what they went thru.
I never had an inkling that pounding water from waves could do the damage I saw once we rounded The Horn. It beat and
bent the hell out of pipe railings on my aircraft carrier. Tore up my crane and ripped off 30 some odd life rafts. I guess with waves breaking over the flight deck has a LOT of force behind it.
I was dying laughing at the people getting sea sick on an aircraft carrier................a damn Cadillac of the oceans!
LOOONG lines to get Dramamine at the Doc's door! I made fun of the goobers wearing the silly little patches. But the MOST fun was screwing with the Marines and the Air Squadron when we found them in the chow hall. I almost never used the Chief's Mess, where the E-7 and up enlisted eat, I most always ate with my guys. Any way, me and my 'Old Salt' First Class would make sure we sat next to our soon-to-be victims.
We'd start off talking about the weird crap we've eaten around the world. Sometimes that's all it took for them to leave in a quick fashion and with obvious distress.
Sometimes it took much more drastic measures to get our desired end result!
It kinda depended on what they were serving on the line, but we had some reliable go-tos.
There was one measure that got a very strong 'response' that snowballed so bad, we both HAD to leave the Mess quite quickly.
My First Class lost the coin toss before going to the Mess, so he had to be the 'geek'. This time we sat in the middle of about 8 fresh outta bootcamp Marines opposite to each other. We started eating and then started 'reminiscing' about our worldly eating escapades. That got a good response, but it wasn't good enough. I raised up my glass of milk and started to make a 'milk toast. This was a signal for my First Class to 'pay up' on the coin toss loss. We clinked classes and with that, it garnered the attention of the Baby Grunts(Bootcamp Marines). Taking my cue from their attention, I took a big swig of my milk, quickly spit it back into my glass and exclaimed, "Oh Jesus! The damn milk is sour as hell!" and slammed the glass down on the table. We're at sea in rough weather. You generally eat with your arms on the table surrounding the tray and your hand on your drink.
My First Class grabbed my milk from my hand an slugged it down in one go! He let out an "Ahhhhhhhhh!", slammed it down on the table and exclaimed, "That was good! There’s nothing wrong with that damn milk!"
Linda Blair Projectile Vomit erupted from two of the Baby Grunts that were obviously just picking at their food! This was a little more than what we were expecting.................................but there was MORE to come
It was like the chain reaction of a nuclear bomb going off!
The two sitting next to each other with their projectile vomitus trajectory reached across the table, on to the tray and in the lap of the Baby Grunt across the table. This is where the nuke went critical! Every single grunt did their impression of sweet little Linda!
The smell was pretty bad. We jumped up and left the table without a look behind us! We were struggling to maintain..................maintaining a frigging straight face! We could hear additional gut-wrenching spasms with the grunts still lobbing vomit bomb!
We banged out trays into the trash, put it in the wash slot and got the hell outta there!
While still trying to maintain our composure,we had equipment to check out on the hangar bay, damn plane elevator door, so we made our way there. The Old Man was there talking to the Air Squadron CO right by the damn elevator door!
The Squadron CO came over to me to ask the status of the damn door. I calmly told him I had finished it myself and gave some intense training to the little retard that broke the fugger...............not in those exact words. He says thanks and goes back talking to the Old Man.
We have avoided the possible train wreck, so we check the equipment. I'm talking to this one kid that was operating the door., Outta the corner of my eye, I catch the Old Man glancing my way, I try to blow it off. We have a very good professional relationship. He walks over after finishing his conversation. I'm a little nervous, but not much. My First Class IS sweating it though. I motion to him to chill.
The Old Man asks what I did to fix the door operation and what I thought caused it. I jump into professional mode and explain it. As I'm explaining to him, his facial expression begins to slowly change. I'm not sweating it because it's a damn smirk emerging from his face!
Then he drops the possible bomb! "Did you guys hear of what happened in the aft Mess?", with a little chuckle at the end. I say something on the order of 'Oh yeah! It was nasty as hell and we got out of there real quick.'
He chuckled out loud and said, "Yeah. That's what I heard." and walked off.
Once out of sight, we both look at each other and both breathed a sigh of relief and then erupted in nervous laughter.
A few months later, the Old Man and I had a bit of a conversation due to me getting new orders. He knew what went on that night. He thought it was funny as hell because he had done almost the exact thing 30 years before!!!!!! That made my damn YEAR!
It was fun back then and It is really stupid to pay money to go out on a boat and get sick!
and we knew it had to be a predator.
....they'd be bringing me out like this........
.
....that is why I Think we still need the Small 8 week finish Autos Available....sometime Speed is needed over harvest weight......
......I leave one neatly on the drawers every evening....for the Duvet Dash on the cold mornings........
