What do you miss most about being out at sea?

The rush of being on the flight deck. The sleep you get from the rocking of the ship. The view. Watching the news as North Korea is pissing itself cause your off their coast doing only God knows what in the air. Watching the Sea filled with jelly fish that light up at night.

I was just thinking about this the other day. I miss the reveille songs..

I also miss seeing the phosphorescence at night and just watching the water.
I miss being in the wardroom. I miss the smell of the ship. I miss hearing the bosun's pipe. I miss being on the bridge and knowing that I'm telling a billion dollar warship where to go.

From an embarked Marine stand point, I miss the constant noise and controlled chaos of ship life. After my first deployment I could not sleep if it was quiet.

On a side note, I learned just how much power the BM1 really holds...for any other non-navy people on here; if "Boats" says to do something just do it...I spent plenty of time with a needle gun in my hands removing non-skid for spitting on the deck and not cleaning it up in a timely manner. Oh, I do miss it.

I guess what I miss most about being at sea is watching my soup sway from one edge of the bowl to the other as the ship pitched and tossed in the sea. It just made me aware of the fact that I was just another individual in this world and I was tossing and swaying with the world's personality. Also miss hanging out in the chain locker room where I could grab an enjoyable smoke while listening to the ship churning through the waves.

Nothing! This Air Force guy hid to spend 90 days on the USS LaSalle. That was way more time on a ship than I wanted. My regards to all you Navy vets who do this as a matter of course.

Stopped, dead in the water on a glassy sea off Saudi Arabia in the early morning.

Cruising at any speed in the tropics at night, watching the florescence of the ships wake rolilng over and by.

The view from the bridge and the clean night air

i miss the taste of really fresh water on board ship. They convert salt water to fresh and reduce the amount o particulates in the water to very, very low numbers for the boilers. i miss sunrise and sunset at sea. The smell of salt water, and sweet water when near a shower at sea. The comrade of guys I am working with. There is a closeness that isn't felt in the civilian world.

I'm guessing everyone might have seen this but, just in case...this pretty much sums up how I feel about being at sea.
Reflections of a Blackshoe

By

Vice Admiral Harold Koenig, USN (Ret), M.D.





I like the Navy,
I like standing on the bridge wing at sunrise with salt spray in my face and clean ocean winds whipping in from the four quarters of the globe - the ship beneath me feeling like a living thing as her engines drive her through the sea.


I like the sounds of the Navy - the piercing trill of the boatswains pipe, the syncopated clangor of the ship's bell on the quarterdeck, the harsh squawk of the 1MC and the strong language and laughter of sailors at work.


I like Navy vessels - nervous darting destroyers, plodding fleet auxiliaries, sleek submarines and steady solid carriers.


I like the proud names of Navy ships: Midway, Lexington, Saratoga, Coral Sea - memorials of great battles won.


I like the lean angular names of Navy 'tin-cans" Barney, Dahlgren, Mullinix, McCloy, -mementos of heroes who went before us.


I like the tempo of a Navy band blaring through the topside speakers as we pull away from the oiler after refueling at sea.


I like liberty call and the spicy scent of a foreign port. I even like all hands working parties as my ship fills herself with the multitude of supplies both mundane and exotic which she needs to cut her ties to the land and carry out her mission anywhere on the globe where there is water to float her.


I like sailors, men from all parts of the land, farms of the Midwest, small towns of New England, from the cities, the mountains and the prairies, from all walks of life. I trust and depend on them as they trust and depend on me - for professional competence, for comradeship, for courage. In a word, they are"shipmates."


I like the surge of adventure in my heart when the word is passed "Now station the special sea and anchor detail - all hands to quarters for leaving port", and I like the infectious thrill of sighting home again, with the waving hands of welcome from family and friends waiting pierside.
The work is hard and dangerous, the going rough at times, the parting from loved ones painful, but the companionship of robust Navy laughter, the 'all for one and one for all' philosophy of the sea is ever present.


I like the serenity of the sea after a day of hard ship's work, as flying fish flit across the wave tops and sunset gives way to night.


I like the feel of the Navy in darkness - the masthead lights, the red and green navigation lights and stern light, the pulsating phosphorescence of radar repeaters - they cut through the dusk and join with the mirror of stars overhead.


And I like drifting off to sleep lulled by the myriad noises large and small that tell me that my ship is alive and well, and that my shipmates on watch will keep me safe. I like quiet midwatches with the aroma of strong coffee - the lifeblood of the Navy - permeating everywhere.


And I like hectic watches when the exacting minuet of haze-gray shapes racing at flank speed keeps all hands on a razor edge of alertness.


I like the sudden electricity of "General quarters, general quarters, all
hands man your battle stations", followed by the hurried clamor of running feet on ladders and the resounding thump of watertight doors as the ship transforms herself in a few brief seconds from a peaceful workplace to a weapon of war - ready for anything.


And I like the sight of space-age equipment manned by youngsters clad in dungarees and sound-powered phones that their grandfathers would still recognize.


I like the traditions of the Navy and the men and women who made them. I like the proud names of Navy heroes: Halsey, Nimitz, Perry, Farragut, John Paul Jones.


A sailor can find much in the Navy: comrades-in-arms, pride in self and country, mastery of the seaman's trade. An adolescent can find adulthood.
In years to come, when sailors are home from the sea, they will still remember with fondness and respect the ocean in all its moods -the impossible shimmering mirror calm and the storm-tossed green water surging over the bow. And then there will come again a faint whiff of stack gas, a faint echo of engine and rudder orders, a vision of the bright bunting of signal flags snapping at the yardarm, a refrain of hearty laughter in the wardroom and chief's quarters and messdecks. Gone ashore for good they will grow wistful about their Navy days, when the seas belonged to them and a new port of call was ever over the horizon.
Remembering this, they will stand taller and say,

"I WAS A SAILOR ONCE. I WAS PART OF THE NAVY, AND THE NAVY WILL ALWAYS BE PART OF ME."

Sea? What's that? I was a SEABEE.