One of the things a US Navy ship practices over and over again is the 'man overboard' drill. Reason being that if someone falls over the side into the ocean, you want to get that person back as quickly as possible. Since using real people is not a great idea for practice, we use Oscar.
Who is this Oscar you may ask? He's a dummy. Really. Made of international orange cloth and floats, poor Oscar gets tossed over the side and we go an pick him up. Practice.
Well, yesterday we were practicing. Oscar goes for a swim and the ship turns around. We decide to lower one of our small boats for the recovery (this boat is a RHIB - Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat, about 7 meters long). Everything is going well and we're about to lower away, then someone sees a shark. Yikes. Since this is practice, we don't want to mess with a shark. So the ship circles around again to make the shark get board and go away.
Except that he doesn't get board, he hangs around. And he's not a shark, he's a whale! Big one too, at least 20 feet, probably more like 30 (the length will invariable increase every time I tell this in the future...but I digress). He's interested in what we are doing. But he moves off a little ways and we lower the RHIB. By now, poor Oscar is waterlogged and missing an arm. Then the dolphins show up. It's a party! In the end, Oscar is recovered and we have a whale of a tale to tell. The 'shark spotter' (our XO, or second in command) is teased mercilessly on his aquatic life identification skills.
The other story has to do with wierd things at night on the ocean. We had just left Dakar, Senegal and were heading out into opean water. Very hazy night with ships around us.
Then we see one on fire. That's a bad thing.
Haze makes the fire seem big, and it's flaring up occasionally. So we change course to render aid. We try to talk to him on the radio, but no joy. Then one of our partner officers from Senegal comes to the bridge and we ask him to translate.....
Seems it gets cold on thier fishing boats and they like to start fires to stay warm. We think he was telling us 'helpers' that no he's not on fire and please stop scaring the fish. LOL.
We sheepishly sail on, a little smarter to the local customs.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You realize the dolphins are now miffed that you didn't leave them Oscar as a toy. And hey, sheepish or no, you were all trying to be good Samaritans with that fire. That's way cool. :)
ReplyDeleteWow! That must of been way cool seeing a 75ft whale up close like that! Don't feel bad about the fire. I once gave a radio control toy car to an Iraqi as a good gesture - my platoon SGT looked at me and said, "You know, Sir, they sometimes use those things to detonate IEDs". It took my Platoon SGTs $40-flashlight to get the thing back. God bless NCOs.
ReplyDeleteI expect when they really have an emergency on board or if their camp fire were to get out of control it will be hard to get help. Sort of like crying wolf, eh?. Take care, Ken!
ReplyDelete