They that go down to the sea in ships

One of the many hats I wear at work is that of Port Services Officer. This entails responding to LOGREQs (Logistics Requests) from ships mooring up or getting underway from our base, or from piers in San Francisco - the latter of which are a bit trickier to manage.

Recently, in addition to a few standard operations for locally homeported ships, we also handled EAGLE's presence at San Francisco's Festival of Sail and BERTHOLF's first arrival at her new homeport - our base.

The folks in my branch have been doing a terrific job with all of these standard and non-standard operations. Still, I aim to be present at all pier evolutions to observe/supervise the event. After all, I'm responsible for the shore-side of things, and it never hurts to add an extra person's situational awareness.

For BERTHOLF's maiden voyage into her new homeport, she stopped first in downtown San Francisco to onload passengers - high-dollar Navy League commissioning ceremony donors, Coast Guard Auxiliarists, and crewmembers' families. Our folks facilitated the parking and transportation from the base to downtown SF as well as security and linehandling at the pier. My friends who are stationed onboard the ship squeezed me onto to the guest list, so I had the privilege of riding BERTHOLF from SF into the base.

It was my first time "underway" since a short emergency ATON trip on CYPRESS back in early April, just after I was sent home from TAO school and shortly before the medical transfer orders finally came through. Even then I felt like a passenger. I stood watch, but with mid-watches, you sleep through half the day's work. Fully qualified, there was no need to train me further as a conning officer or Ops officer - I was going to drive a desk and manage medical appointments for the near future. Relieved of all collateral duties, I instead spent my time trying to ensure my knowledge and experience had been passed to the next crop of junior officers. For once then, I had the time to go sit on the bow and watch the waters of the steamy Gulf glide by us; to gaze up at the stars dropping brilliantly out of an inky sky; to observe a string of ship's evolutions without being called to some duty or other.

On BERTHOLF I was unmistakeably a passenger. It was an odd shift of perspective to focus so intently - from the ship's flight deck, no less - on the pierside linehandling. During the two-hour voyage up the bay, I roamed restlessly on the "visitors'" flight deck. After talking with my friends stationed onboard, I eventually gravitated to an ideal vantage point just aft of the bridge wings. The bridge, to my disappointment, was (of course) restricted to crew-only. As we approached the pier, I listened carefully to the conning officer's commands, feeling and timing the ship's various reactions beneath us, silently rehearsing (as always when I'm not driving) my own set of shipdriving commands.

BERTHOLF is an impressive ship, incredibly quiet in operation, and (from what crewmembers say) a very smooth and stable ride even in heavy seas. The brief taste - particularly as I had to head straight from disembarking the ship to my office, filled with unanswered emails, voice messages, stacks of paperwork, and endless meetings - was to remind me yet again how much I miss underway life.