We left Sunday, February 21st for the Samoan Islands! However, this is my first time since 2002 going directly to Pago Pago from Honolulu. The last time I did I was one of the 13 crew members who took the Townsend Cromwell on her last voyage to her new home in American Samoa after working in cross decking the Cromwell to the Sette. That journey took me to a beautiful woman who was to become my wife. I was new to NOAA then and it was my first time going to the South Pacific. I read the Michener novels or watched Saturday afternoon matinees on TV about sailors in Polynesia when I as a kid. Of course those guys in the movies never had to work! Nevertheless, a romanticist vision that never eluded me! I lost count how many times I went to the South Pacific on the Ka’imimoana, Hi’ialaklai and the Sette and of course one time cruise on the Cromwell. This will be an addition to those past journeys and the first time to Western Samoa on another ship besides the Ka'imimoana!
Last blog was dated December 13. I didn’t mean to stay away from the blog for this long. Probably those few that follow think I may have lost interest. In fact it was to the contrary. Since the last blog was written, I was in a middle of a job where I worked twelve hours a day nearly seven days a week. After that job was completed the holidays arrived along with the wife coming from Hawaii the day before Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve we drove down to Cambria, California for the Christmas Holidays.
Cambria is a small town located on the Central Coast California. It is about 18 miles north of Morro Bay located west of Paso Robles wine country. We went wine tasting at local wineries, lunch along the waterfront at Morro Bay, walk along the beach in Cambria and enjoyed the Christmas lights that covered our hotel on a cold crisp Christmas night. Had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, barbecue at another and just enjoyed each other’s presence. We spent four days in Cambria and packed up the car and headed towards Big Sur. On the way to Big Sur we stopped in San Simeon to visit Hearst’s Castle. After that it was off to Big Sur to spend the New Years. I warned my wife ahead of time not to expect any amenities while staying at Big Sur. The cabin had no telephone, television and the Internet. We spent the days talking to each other and our night life was at Cannery Row and the Wharf in Monterey. We greeted the New Years in a quiet Big Sur fashion of tranquility. Most of the time at Big Sur was spent at the Henry Miller Memorial Library or sitting on the porch at the cabin watching deer go by or eagles soaring above us! Big Sur was a transcendental inspiration for us. We will go back but not wait 30 plus years to do so again!
The two weeks of vacation felt as if it never existed. We enjoyed lunch or dinner at some lavish restaurants including the famous The Fish Hopper in Monterey on Cannery Row. We got homesick for the islands so we found a Hawaii theme restaurant called Hula’s Island Grill in Monterey. We shopped in Paso Robles, Mountain View, Travis Air Force Base Exchange and Commissary and bought Japanese items in El Cerrito.
When two weeks of leave was over, the wife stayed with me for another two weeks and accompanied me to work. What wonders it did for my personal morale. If she had not come to California it would have been four months away from home, then a week or two back in Hawaii and three and a half months in Samoa after that! A total of seven months away from home minus two weeks! Spending our time together like that made me want to spend more time at home. We have been in our new townhome now for seven months but I only spent two months at home!
We departed from Vallejo on January 31st. The day was cold and windy. As we entered San Pablo Bay to head towards San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate for the Pacific it was getting to be strenuous. Not a good sign for veteran sailors though San Francisco Bay is not a place where you would be sailing on a glass smooth plain like you would in the Horse Latitudes or better known as the Doldrums near the Equator. That evening and later on that night was the worst conditions I have ever encountered in my entire sailing career. The winds were up to 60 knots and swells from 30 to 35 feet! I was called to the bridge because the newly installed GPS had malfunctioned. This affected the communications and navigation equipment. I worked for four hours that night trying to figure out why the new component didn’t do the job. Of those four hours I must have spent three and a half hours holding on to something as I slid off the chart table many times during the rocking and rolling I was experiencing. I went outside to check to see that the antenna had not blown off its mast. I shined the flashlight towards the sky and the antenna was there and the sky was clear! We were not in a storm! We were caught between two fronts! The water that looked like rain from a storm was actually the ocean that was blowing over the bow and high above the flying bridge! I finally switched over cables to a working GPS unit that allowed one component to constantly nag the bridge staff about errors. I stepped outside again to get another glimpse of the antenna but this time I was hit with an object! It was a cable with a TNC connector used on GPS antennas! That was my problem! The cable had come loose from the antenna and was flying freely with the hostile winds. Next morning under slightly better conditions, I reconnected and weatherized the connector and adapter as well as secured it so it would not come loose under those conditions ever again!
We made it back to Hawaii in eleven days! Seeing Molokai in the distance from the port side portal looked so good! The feel of sub-tropical air and sunshine was so uplifting after months of Northern California winter that brought El Nino rains and on clear nights freezing temperatures. I had come to loathe four season weather especially winter! Later that day we sailed around eastern Oahu and appeared to us Diamond Head and the skyline of Waikiki! Home at last and Hawaii looked so good! I was ready to retire what few winter clothes I had brought with me. I looked forward to getting home though I had the unfortunate task of telling the wife that I was going to be there only for twelve days.
No one should have a marriage where home life with the wife is like visiting a long distance relative. The norm in this life would be the dorm like atmosphere of a ship with your own stateroom assigned by rank. Separation from the better half feels customary. Some people like it but as time progressed I began to dislike the concept. Saying goodbye was common but the hellos were always extraordinary! We have been married for over eight years and our marriage was no different than that of us during our courting period rather than being a married couple. It was if as she was still living in Samoa and I in the United States with me flying to the South Pacific every so many months to live with her. It just didn’t feel right and the old stereotype of a salty sailor in love with the sea more than a woman was a myth than actuality. It was a line used by people who had a mythical romantic vision of sailing the seas who had never stepped on board a ship or experienced the conditions I had encountered weeks earlier leaving San Francisco.
I stretched the President’s Day weekend to a four day weekend and took the next Friday off as well. My new rotating partner had sailed with me from Vallejo to Hawaii in his bid to make his transfer to the islands permanent. He carried the load and had done majority of the work. During these twelve days a retirement seminar was held at Fort Shafter. I made up my mind at the last minute to attend and hurriedly submitted an application and was accepted. I’m certainly glad I did because I had asked a question about my situation and found out that I can retire with full benefits as I qualified because I had the time and age to do so later this year! We were thrilled knowing that the light was at the end of the tunnel.
I am seriously contemplating on making this sailing season my last and put in for retirement at the end of the year. I will be 60 years old in September and a month later I will have 28 years of service. However, before I do that I want to consult a CPA about taxes, an attorney to make up a will and to be a family lawyer in case anything should happen as well as a financial advisor who is familiar with federal employees’ benefits. The most important opinion would be from my wife who thinks it’s time for me to hang it up and move on to something new. We have been kicking around a few ideas here and there and also consider moving back to Samoa and retire there.
The irony of this trip is that this same route I took for my first excursion into the South Pacific 14 years ago after I joined NOAA in 2001. And this may be my last trip to the South Pacific with NOAA as I contemplate retirement 15 years later. What a way to end a career if I do! I think I’ve seen enough and it’s time to settle down and lead a normal married life of being home, work on the condo and get myself back in shape. Life is too damn short to put up with stress and as you get older you see through unnecessary politics that is imposed on you! It’s time to pass the torch to the next generation and give that world to them. Time flies fast as now I am that old guy who is thinking about retiring to give the opportunity to someone younger. I am optimistic and the next generation will do fine and maybe even better than the boomers! Every generation goes through the “ain’t worth a damn” comment from the older group as I still remember the same things that were said when I was that age. Same things were said during the time of Socrates and Plato.
The irony of this trip is that this same route I took for my first excursion into the South Pacific 14 years ago after I joined NOAA in 2001. And this may be my last trip to the South Pacific with NOAA as I contemplate retirement 15 years later. What a way to end a career if I do! I think I’ve seen enough and it’s time to settle down and lead a normal married life of being home, work on the condo and get myself back in shape. Life is too damn short to put up with stress and as you get older you see through unnecessary politics that is imposed on you! It’s time to pass the torch to the next generation and give that world to them. Time flies fast as now I am that old guy who is thinking about retiring to give the opportunity to someone younger. I am optimistic and the next generation will do fine and maybe even better than the boomers! Every generation goes through the “ain’t worth a damn” comment from the older group as I still remember the same things that were said when I was that age. Same things were said during the time of Socrates and Plato.
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