As you can see, I was more than a little at home.  Almost all the paintings are hanging somewhere in my condo.  Except the nude on black velvet in photo 2.  As I was about to pack up in Amsterdam one of the Navy sailors came and begged to buy it from me.  I sold it to him for what I paid for it in London (I believe).  I hope he still has it.

 

When I went out to meet the Bowditch in Belfast I air freighted a trunk full of books and tapes, plus my seven suitcases and skis on the plane with me.  When it came time to come back, I took 4 suitcases with me, but I took advantage of the well known (by July) rumor that the next dry dock would be in Hoboken.  So I stored both my 18 tatami Judo mats and excess luggage in the ship for pick up in Hoboken. 

 

When I met the ship in Hoboken, the new Captain was very annoyed with all the excess luggage that came off the ship.  I think he was initially annoyed at the thorough search of the ship for drugs by the customs people.  The customs people were not thrilled with my 18 Tatami mats which are made from rice straw.  I had to take them sealed in the van directly to a tank in Brooklyn where they were soaked in cyanide gas for 24 hours.  They always smelled like almonds after that.  I finally donated them to the Utica NY Judo program at the YMCA.

The EMO (middle) with two of the then 4 CPOs.  When I came aboard at Belfast there was one CPO and one Seaman everyone else were 1st to 3rd PO.  At some point several of the 1st Class PO passed their Chief exams and we reached a peak of 4 chiefs out of 30 some Navy enlisted.  I am not sure, but I think the CPO on the left was Gary something.  I'm terrible with names.

I have a few shots to show what a joy it was to eat off of wet table cloths, and even more fun with sandwiches only.  I remember how nice the Atlantic was to us, so nice that we tended to spend the winter in the Med.  The Med was like a still pond in the backyard of Europe.

 

Well here are a few the calm Med to remember it by.  These were shot in December1968 aboard the Bowditch.

Between inports at Lisboa. 

Some shots of April 1968 between inports at Lisboa.  If you remember, after leaving Lisbon we got a message that our new corpsman had just missed us by a day.  Then one of the Navy sailors broke out in a terrible rash that was driving him even more crazy than normal.  So it was decided to pull into La Coruna Spain up in the NW corner of the Iberian Peninsula above Portugal.  A message was sent to have the corpsman meet us in La Coruna.  The current corpsman would escort the sick sailor to the nearest Military Hospital and then continue on to his next duty station.

 

It seemed like a good plan, and we sailed into the harbor at La Coruna it was as calm as a mill pond.  It was there that I volunteered with the help of one of my Judo students who was a Tex Mex (MSTS helmsman) we contacted the local Coke Cola factory and arranged for a delivery.  By the time it came, the wind had picked up and the boat to ship transfers were jump while you are close.  Since the boat wouldn't stand still, we pulled each case of soda by tying a line around it and fishing it over the rail.  Sailors can be clever with a line and knot.  Every case clear the rail with only one breaking open when it hit the deck.  But, no bottles broken or lost.  I think we bought around 30 cases of 12 bottles.  Mixture of Coke, and grape Fanta and orange Fanta.

 

With every thing on board we went right back out to that gale (force 7 as I remember it) that was waiting for us.

 

After being introduced to the new corpsman, I didn't see him around.  I asked one of the sailors where he was.  He told me, "he is in his room, actually he is in the little room next to his room.".  He had been in the Navy something like 12 years and never been to sea.  But after his second or third trip to Nam, he was "tired of training Marines to play Pinochle and be a good partner to have to send them home in worse condition than they arrived in Nam."  So he volunteered for sea duty.  As I remember, he had married a Navy Nurse who by then was a housewife and mommy.  He was a funny guy. After about a week of praying to the stainless steel goddess, he felt a little better.  So he decided to go to the movie thinking this might take him mind off his troubles (stomach).  Unfortunately, that night it was a pirate movie.  He didn't want to commit himself to taking a seat, so he stood in the door to where the movies were shown.  The first scene he saw was in the cabin of the pirate captain.  The cabin featured a big brass lamp hanging down.  The lamp was swinging back and forth.  We were swinging back and forth at a different pace and direction.  3 more days in the little room!  Then he finally got his sea legs and he didn't have any more trouble. 

 

Well the weather had to get better May was just around the corner.  But it was first back to Lisbon for some R & R.

Entry into Lisbon requires going up the Targus river.

I remember having a glass of Port in the Ritz Hotel in Lisbon in March.  I got to talking to a elderly American lady who had just come across the Atlantic in a cruise ship.  She  said how rough the ocean had been, and that they had been 7 hours late getting into Lisbon.  I asked her whether her ship had stabilizers.  She said, "Oh yes, we could hardly feel any ocean waves."  I tried my best to sympathize with her discomfort, but somehow couldn't equate being 7 hours late with 3 weeks of wet table cloths.

 

These photos show a fishing boat going into the Targus.  This boat was about 100 feet long, well the photos speak for themselves.

May was suppose to be better, but it was hard to tell it from March and April.  At least for the first week.

 

Being a Tech Rep, these constant storms made it difficult to fulfill our primary duty--sleeping at least 10-12 hours a day.  The major problem was that having braced yourself in your bunk, the minute you fell asleep and your body relaxed, the ocean would toss you from side to side waking you back up.  I solved this by sending away for an air mattress.  The kind you blow up at the beach or when you are camping and don't particularly fancy sleeping directly on the ground.  I would half blow it up so I could fold it length wise.  Then I would put it folded up between me and the rail on the bunk.  It would be strong enough to push me against the wall of the back of the bunk.  This would keep me secure enough to not get tossed around when I fell asleep.

But then we were headed south at best speed to join the search for the USS Scorpion SSN589.

 

Steaming south past the Azores, I remember being down around 2 degrees north which is as close as I got to the southern hemisphere.