[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 18, 2004] What a difference a day makes. Yesterday we worked with another cutter, testing an electronic positioning system that will help the Coast Guard prove cases in court, which required ten hours of steaming back and forth, pinging the other ship on radar and recording both positions…
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 17, 2004] So I got to do a courtesy call on another Coast Guard cutter. Which means I got suited up like the BTMs and took a boat ride. I can’t tell you how hard it has been NOT to beg, plead, whine and cry to do this.…
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 16, 2004] The Captain scrubbed a boarding due to heavy seas. The bosun’s mate, the person who drives the boarding party over to the fishing vessel in the small boat, came to the bridge afterward, and the Captain explained the reasons why he’d scrubbed the launch. “Agreed,” said…
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 15, 2004] About seasickness, since almost every single non-Coastie person who has emailed me has asked if I’m seasick. Yes, once, the first full day of patrol. I woke up, sat up, and threw up. Later that same day I walked into the wardroom pantry and the seaman…
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 14, 2004] Two poems I found posted by the mid-watch on yellow sticky notes on a bridge window. I added the titles. Night Watch Cold wind blowin’ On the sea tonight One screw turning’ One screw tight Box steaming In the lee tonight Cold wind blowin’ On the…
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 13, 2004] We did a safety boarding on an opilio crabber. I tried to talk the boarding team into bringing back some crab but they wouldn’t go for it. Then I tried to talk Ops into swinging the boat hoist over to pick one of the pots as…
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 12, 2004] Some word pictures of life underway: One of the bridge windows has been invaded by a mysterious dark green microbial growth. Members of the watch have been known to embellish it with a Marks-a-lot. This morning Seaman Oliver has replaced the previous dragon illustration with a…
Two men lay dead on a battlefield and one said “Hey!”
# Permanent link to War novel? Vampire novel? No, it’s just Peter Lovesey again.
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 11, 2004] So this is what we did last night. It’s about eleven-thirty, most of the ship has turned in for the night. I’m brushing my teeth and EO Tony Erickson knocks on the door to tell me we’ve caught a SAR case. I shoot up to the…
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 10, 2004] A boarding at first light, of 123-foot longliner fishing for Pacific cod. “This is the only place in the world you’d call that a small boat,” says XO Phil Thorne. “In any other fishery it would be illegal.” The swells were only five feet and the…
