Hester's Head

http://www.navy.forces.gc.ca/ottawa/news/ship_news_e.asp?x=1&id=702

You find a couple links to youtube there, which, of course, I can't get anywhere near on the defence network. You'll be happy to know that we didn't shoot Santa down (though we made a video of that too Reindeer steak for Christmas!)

The other link is Christmas greetings from some crewmembers. There might be one from me in there too. I made one, but have no way of knowing if it was posted on the site or not.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Merry Christmas to our troops in Afghanistan
From your sailors in the Arabian Gulf

This is also for those not in the CF.
We are in the Canadian Forces and we do what we're told. Just as there are some sailors who don't want to be here, I'm sure there are some soldiers who don't want to be there. But we are all in the military and we all do what we're told. They were given a mission; you can trust that our troops in Afghanistan want to get the job done. After their grandfathers, fathers, uncles, probably even grandmothers and mothers, did what they had to do in the two World Wars, Korea, and elsewhere around the globe, you better believe that they do NOT want to come home and have to tell their moms that they weren't able to finish the job. We should do everything we can to support them and keep letting them know you support them.

We had an overnight visit from the CDS on the 22nd as he is on his way to spend Christmas with our troops in Afghanistan.

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On the left is one of my Able Seamen. I'll take a moment to tell you about AB Spence, just to tell you what kind of world ours is. He doesn't own a watch and was 95 minutes late returning from leave in Bahrain. (Everyone in the CF is snickering, but can anyone else guess what his punishment was?) He had a summary trial in front of the XO, pleaded guilty and promised to buy a watch. He was found guilty, fined $800 and confined to ship for 17 days. I suppose he was fortunate that the first 15 days of his punishment were at sea.

The highlight of the CDS visit though was having breakfast with Rick Mercer and ribbing Mary Walsh about being in her pajamas (she came to the mess for breakfast in flip flops). I didn't have my camera, but someone took my picture so I will have to track the pictures down.

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I'm not responsible for any of these pictures. The Doc took the first one and the aircrew took the two of the snakes from the Sea King earlier today.

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We've been at sea for a couple weeks straight and the days have come to a complete halt. Our next port visit is at the end of the month and isn't getting any closer. I'm not sure how many times yesterday I calculated the number of days till our next visit, but the number kept coming up 10. I'm not sure why, but the days are going slow. We do have Christmas decorations up, but it really doesn't feel like Christmas at all. Even though we are at sea we received some mail today. It came via several loads slung beneath a helicopter from the USNS Spica. And I got a package! My mom sent me two of the huge tins of Timmies coffee and four of the travel mugs. I'm not sure why she sent me four mugs, but now I have something to give my secret Santa. Thanks mom! Our molly told me that we are running low on coffee, so I will share the Timmies with the rest of the mess. I think the two tins should last about a day. I heard that Tim Horton's supplies the east coast ships with coffee - how can the Pacific Fleet get in on that action?
We did do an exercise with the Navy Seals from one of the American ships, we got to be the bad guy. I ended up on one of their Rhibs and went for a ride. Talking about driving it like you stole it. I had to hang on tight and ended up completely drenched with boots full of water. The salt was running off me in the shower.

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We had a brief two-day stop in Bahrain for the Task Force change of command ceremony. A German Rear Admiral handed over command to a British Commodore in a ceremony on a Canadian frigate. I had the pleasure of carrying (holding it in my right hand and coming to attention and standing at ease a few times) the New Zealand flag for the ceremony. I was duty the first day so I had one afternoon to check out the little Kingdom of Bahrain. At least I had the first evening to come up with a plan of attack. We had some tourist pamphlets and I figured that I needed to see the Tree of Life and Oil Well Number 1. And I hoped to pass the Grand Mosque and the King's palace on the way. I mentioned my plan to a couple people and suddenly there were four of us making the trip.
There is a 400-year-old tree in the middle of the Bahrainian desert fed by an underground aquifer that no one knows the origin of. Mike told me that he had seen something about Bahrain on the Discovery Channel investigating whether it was the home of the Garden of Eden. Something about forests, plants, etc, whatever, that hints at it. Maybe I should've Googled it for you first. Nah. I'll leave that to you and I'll Google it at my leisure. Suffice to say that we hired a taxi to help us find a tree.
Taxi drivers are notorious rip-off artists in Bahrain. One Bahrain Dinar is three Canadian dollars - 1 BD should get you anywhere in the city, 5 BD should get you anywhere on the island. By my calculation that meant about 10 BD to get to the tree and back. The driver wanted 30, and it took some effort to get him down to 20. And off we went. 20 ended up feeling like a deal because we ended up in the cab for close to three hours. We had to drive all the way through Manama, past the Grand Mosque and the King's Palace. But the King doesn't stay there anymore. Then we drove through the desert countryside. The King's new digs are in a huge compound south of the city, we couldn't even see the building....

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