What was your biggest hurdle going back to sea duty from shore duty?

Getting there fast enough! Seriously, shore duty was just someplace I had to go to reset the detailer's clock. After my 1st shore tour (recruiting) I was ready to stay at sea for the rest of my life.

You mean to tell me there there was such a thing has shore duty what is this thing you speak of you must tell me more of it,,, you mean where the ground is not wet and there is no color of gray all around or the shrill of pipe every 4 or 8 hours nay nay I say you jest off with your head and I cast you to the depths of the deep for a sailor belongs at sea,,,, there is no such place has shore duty for my detaler would have told me of such places

Two things always struck me. First was the work in the CIC and EW Shed was so different from what you did ashore and it was real work vs. busy work. Second was you have to force yourself not to bring crap with you that you don't need. Amazing how you get by fine with a Walkman, cribbage board, and darts. Guess people need their iStuff now. So when I got commissioned, had a wife, and deployed to Antarctica, I upped the ante to letter writing stuff.

Always had to go with the Two Seabag Rule.

Being a mother it was leaving my children , but I knew I was doing to improve their lives. But it is hard. I had to leave them for a year whn my squadron re-homeported. I didn't want to take them to the new homeport and I only had a year left, so I left them with my parents. THAT was hard, but I knew that where I was stationed wasn't a good place to live, so made the decision to leave them behind.
When I was attached to the ships. I was married, but didn't like leaving kids with their dad, but no choice. Called as often as I could. I loved going to sea, but hated having to leave my babies.

Adjusting from regular food back to ship food, leaving behind family, being tired all the time, oh the list is endless. I will say there is nothing better than being out to sea and having your division coming together and being your family. That is the best part of being on a ship. The friendships you build. It's like an adopted family. You learn to be supportive and their success becomes your success. Nothing better than that. Only a fellow shipmate can truly share the good times and bad times with you

Trying to manage the details of everyday life such as finance, license plate renewals, taxes, etc while you're 2,000 miles and seven time zones away.

Finding my place in a new crew. Not that big a hurdle, though... going back to sea duty was like putting on a well-worn pair of jeans. Jeans that smelled of amine and made you field day.

Getting my sea legs back was one. Even being on submarines we rocked and rolled transiting into or out of a port. Second is the smell, no matter what I did it smelled bad and therefore I did after a deployment. Have to get used to not seeing your loved ones i.e. family or spouse for long periods of time.

I terminated CONUS shore duty twice in a 20-year career and I'm glad I did it. For whatever reason, Type I duty never agreed with me. I got away from recruiting and the Bore College, so there were no hurdles to overcome. All the rest of my tours were Type 2 and overseas shore following sea duty. If anything, I looked forward to the regimentation, camaraderie and the extra pays of the deploying units.

Getting back up to speed in my rate after two years working outside of it.