Just a day or two after we had wrapped that rescue up our ship suffered a mechanical casualty. It happened at about 1:00am. Pretty much everyone was asleep in their bunks when the general emergency alarm started to sound. Immediately curtains were thrown open and sleepy-eyed sailors began jumping out of their beds and pulling clothes and boots on as fast as they could. All the while we listened to announcements that there was a major fuel leak in the engine room and that the main space fire doctrine had been set. As soon as I had my boots on I ran topside to man my position at the helm. Not long after I got up there the ship's generators failed and we lost all power. With no power to steer by I stood by the helm and monitored our position with a battery powered GPS unit. We were within a few miles of land so there was some worry about us striking submerged objects or running aground. While I stood there in complete darkness we listened anxiously to the radios and the reports of the fire teams preparing for the worst. Luckily, miraculously, no fire ever did start and the engineering officers were able to get the emergency generator up and running so that we could limp into port for repairs. We ended up in Miami for a week and a half while the engineers overhauled the engine room.
After we got underway again and headed south it wasn't long before we found two boat loads of Haitian migrants trying to sail to Florida. We embarked 172 in all and had to destroy their boats. Having the Haitians onboard was not a fun ordeal. They were dirty and stinky and not at all pleasant to us. I was selected as one of the security watch standers so that meant that I had to be out on the decks with them for 8 hours a day to make sure they didn't jump ship or start a riot or anything. There were a few times when some of them made make-shift weapons and tried to start fights. Nothing ever got too out of hand although there were a couple of times when things were pretty tense.
After I would come in from a migrant watch I would feel so filthy that all I would want to do was get in the shower and scrub for about an hour. Unfortunately, fresh water is not plentiful on a ship so I would still have to take 2-3 minute sea showers. I never really did feel like I could wash the migrant smell off of me.
On the last night that we had them onboard, while I was doing a security watch, I think one of them tried to put a voodoo curse on me.
There I was, darkness wrapped around us as we steamed toward Haiti. The five of us on security watch sat silently at various stations surrounding the migrants. I sat at the furthest point astern on the flight deck. It was near the end of my watch and everyone was asleep, or so I thought. Suddenly a piercing cry interrupted the night. One of the Haitians began chanting something with ferocious intensity. It was all jibberish to me but a couple of times I thought I caught the word "voodoo" thrown into the air. The chanting had only been going on for a couple of seconds when our interpreter came bolting up the ladder to my left. "Who's talking?!" he demanded in a voice saturated with fear and concern. I pointed out the general area that I thought the chanting was coming from. The interpreter took a couple of steps forward but then halted at an invisible barrier. In Creole he started to shout angrily at the one issuing the incantations. The wailing stopped and the air grew silent again. After a few more seconds the interpreter turned and headed back for the ladder. I asked what had just happened but with a shake of his head the only reply I got was, "Bad."
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| Craning the broken helo off. |
We unloaded the migrants in Cap-Haïtien and landed a MH-65 Dolphin helicopter on our flight deck. We only had the helo for a few days though before it broke down. We sailed back up to the Florida Keys and had to crane it off our deck. The patrol was pretty uneventful for a couple of weeks after that. We stopped to take on supplies and got shore-leave on Grand Turk Island. It was a nice island but didn't have any phones.
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| Grand Turk is where John Glenn splash landed after he orbited Earth for the first time in 1962. This was a replica of his spacecraft, "Friendship 7". |
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| A view of Grand Turk from the highway. |
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| I was really excited when we took on these "Utah Onions" as part of our food supplies in Grand Turk. I never expected to find something like this in the Caribbean. |
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| Grand Turk. |
After we left Grand Turk we met up with the DEA and did a few drug busts in the Caribbean. I wasn't really a part of those operations so I don't have much to write about them.
Finally, right before we came home, we stopped for fuel and supplies at Guantanamo Bay. Gitmo is always a fun port call and it was a nice place to unwind for a couple of days before heading back to New Jersey.
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| I see this van every time I go to Gitmo. |
We returned to home port three days before Christmas so I was able to spend the holidays at home with Jessianne.
--Skyelr
