 After operation Northern Wedding off the coast, and in the fjords (dey were okey-dokey), of Norway, we sailed up into the Arctic Ocean, which of course meant crossing the Arctic Circle. Similar to crossing the Equator, sailors who are crossing these lines for the first time are given an initiation. In our case, after daring to incur Neptune's wrath by crossing his Arctic Circle, by initiation we were inducted into the Realm of Neptune (or something like that... my certificate's in the garage) and thus we became Bluenoses. Given that the medical department, indeed, the entire ship, had been quite busy with the CH-46 crash on our flight deck a few days before, the ceremony was probably much more low-key than it ordinarily would've been. |
 | I'm the one on the left wearing the big glasses. Um... I believe that's all the pictures I have of the Bluenose Ceremony. Mmmh hmmm. |
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Just after leaving Norfolk Naval Base. The physician (who was entirely too enthusiastic about this whole thing) of our surgical team addresses his hapless band of corpsmen on the flight deck. The ship left port earlier than planned... |
| ...because a Hurricane was coming. |
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| Before the ship departed, a few of us came up about a month early to assess the operational condition of the medical department and make sure anticipated supplies were either on board or ordered. It was not a pretty site. Here we are checking the monitoring equipment in the post-op/ICU. |
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| Of course, you can't foresee everything. This is Mickey Gallip suffering the aftermath of the Infamous Exploding Bedpan Washing Device. |
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When not blowing up bedpans, Mickey is an excellent piano player. I brought an old Yamaha guitar along for the ride and Mickey borrowed a keyboard... I think from the ship's chapel... I can't remember. Once we went into a bar in Rotterdam that had a lone piano sitting up on a stage, talked the bartender into letting Mickey play it, and an hour later the place was full... and we were getting free drinks.
Mickey's also out of the Navy and lives nearby in Metropolis, IL, home of Superman (although the Big John statue at the Big John's grocery is bigger than the Superman on the town square). |
| Entering port somewhere. The countries we visited were Denmark, Holland, England, Spain, and a little island in the Med called Palma de Mallorca. In Palma, after being replaced by another surgical team, we flew to Madrid, then home sweet home. I also got a little side trip to Morocco. Countries we got to see at least from the coast included Iceland, Germany (we dropped off the crash wreckage in Kiel), Ireland, and Norway. |
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