Charleston!

Last month Skyelr was fortunate enough to be sent to Charleston, SC for some extra training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Complex.  He spent two weeks there learning how to board other boats.  He loved it!

I drove down over the weekend he was there to spend a day and a half with him exploring Charleston.  What an awesome city!  We loved wandering around and seeing all the cool old architecture.  We also toured an old aircraft carrier from WWII.  It was enormous!  I'm amazed at how aircraft carriers are run--so so many people and so much space to organize, the logistics must be intense.

Here are some pics of our trip.  They aren't in order.  Hope you don't hate that.

Oh, and after the aircraft carrier we visited South Vietnam.  That's right.

Skyelr with Charleston harbor in the background.  If you look really closely, you can see Fort Sumter out there.

A recipe on the aircraft carrier for 10,000 chocolate chip cookies.  That

's crazy!

On the aircraft carrier was a Medal of Honor museum.  Douglas Munro is the only Coast Guardian to ever have received the Medal of Honor. 

Cool wrought iron and fun architecture in Charleston.

Coast Guard Station Charleston

Cannons at Battery Park

There were these amazing trees in White Point Gardens.

Me and a tree!

Fort Sumter Confederate memorial

This is more White Point Gardens.

Hey, this picture is a good example of a vanishing point!

I think this was called rainbow row or something.  Lots of pretty houses in the morning sunlight!

Skyelr in front of the pineapple fountain!  The pineapple symbolizes Charleston's hospitality.

Me in a swing on the pier.  Swings on the pier, cool idea, no?

Me and a fountain.  You can play in this fountain all you want, but it was too cold for us that morning!

Gate and pathway.  Skye took this picture, so I'm not sure where exactly this is.

There were a surprising number of gas lamps.

This church steeple is leaning about 3 degrees.  Apparently it was bombed heavily during the civil war.

More Charleston.  The palm trees lining the sides of the roads are the coolest!

I really liked this house.

Charleston! and Skyelr.

Oct.-Dec. Patrol

I got to deal with just about everything on my last patrol.  After about a week of getting underway we happened, quite by chance, upon a powerless vessel that had been drifting in the open ocean for five days. Onboard were three fishermen who had been living on seawater and a raw barracuda that they had managed to hook. We performed an at-sea rescue and got them all safely onto the Vigorous. They were very excited and grateful to be able to contact their families and let them know that they were still alive.

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."

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. 

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".

A view of Grand Turk from the highway.

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.

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.

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

Jan 11th, 2012

We survived! 

We survived another patrol AND we survived the holidays.  We're pretty darn amazing! 

So, what's happened between now and the past blog...  I don't even remember what our last blog was about.

I just checked it out, what a great blog that was, by the way, and NOW I remember everything that happened to us since our last post.  So, most noteworthy of all, I found out that I am PREGNANT and we are going to have a baby in late spring of 2012! 

My pregnancy has gone beautifully so far.  As a matter of fact, it went so beautifully in the first couple of months I didn't even guess I was pregnant.  I should have known, though, when all of a sudden I became obsessed with drinking milk, even to the point of drinking boat milk (the boxed milk they have on the Vigorous, not like boats are lactating all of a sudden.).  And tomorrow morning is that big ultrasound where we find out whether it's a girl or a boy!  Super exciting! 

This is a picture of me tonight.  My mom requested an up-to-date picture, so here I am at 19 weeks!

 So, two-ish weeks after we learned this grand news, Skyelr went on a two-month long patrol.  He gets to blog about that himself!


My older sister Lauren and her daughter Molly came out to the east coast to visit me and the Pitt family.  What a great week!  We spent a few days up here in Cape May, and then a few days in Alexandria with Bryan, Jessica, Danny, and baby Wendy.  It was so much fun! 

The kids on the beach in Cape May in their cute pumpkin hats!

The gang at the National Arboretum

Eating at the second Five Guys ever opened!  Ooh, I do love me some Five Guys.

For Thanksgiving I went to visit family in Utah.  I got to see both my family and Skyelr's family, who were in Utah so his mom could get a knee replacement.  

My mom and I at Hotel Utah!

The lights at Temple Square

 

Bowling with my mama!

 

 

My parents took me out for pizza and rootbeer at the Pizza Factory.  YUM!

Me and Forrest in Utah visiting with Chad, Jen, and Holland!  Dori and Baird were there, too.

The boat pulled in three days before Christmas.  We celebrated Christmas just the two of us here in Cape May.  We went to church, talked with our families on Google, and had dinner with some of our good friends out here. 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Eve on the beach in Cape May

Skyelr bought me a Snoogle and I LOVE IT!  It's a body pillow especially for the cool and pregnant.

I got Skyelr a picture of his hometown, Heber City, Utah

Us and our Christmas tree!

Skyelr had a good amount of time off for the holidays, and we had New Year's Eve together as well.  I went to bed early, because throwing off my sleep schedule for tradition's sake just wasn't enough motivation.  Skyelr stayed up until past midnight talking with his brother.  That's a pretty good reason, I'd say.  Alas, he's back to his normal in-port schedule and works almost every week day, but we're adjusting splendidly.  As a matter of fact, we're pretty darn happy!

--Jessianne

Update from the Jersey Shore

WOAH!!  She's blogging again?!?!?!?  That, like, NEVER happens!

Ok, so, here's how behind I am:  I have two vacations to chronicle, and the oldest is from July.  We have had several visits from family, we're hoping for more, and that's just the big events.  Our keen followers may be forever in the dark about our trip to VA. 

So I think I'll just kinda give a very short glossing over of the events of this summer and be all caught up for fall.

So, our trip in July was a fantastic adventure to Buena Vista, VA.  Skyelr spent a couple of summers here as a kid, so he was my tour guide. We stopped by some Civil War sites (of course) and toured the beautiful town of Lexington, VA, which is right next to Buena Vista.  We slept in the car some nights, a campground some nights, and slept over at Bryan and Jessica's house on our way back home.  It was exciting!  My three top favorite parts of the trip were:  1) eating ice cream from Sweet Things.  They had homemade honeydew melon flavored ice cream.  2) watching the final Harry Potter movie at a quaint theatre in Lexington.  3) taking a spur-of-the-moment detour to the national D-day memorial, which was actually super cool. 

Stonewall Jackson

Skyelr is a Civil War nerd.

Most delicious ice cream this side of the Mississippi, maybe this side of the world. 

At the D-day memorial

The major event in August for me was I was the director of our stake's girls camp.  Yup, I was in charge of the whole thing.  I wore my cowboy hat so people knew I meant business and did inordinate amounts of tromping around in my hiking boots.  I had a blast and I think that the girls all did, too.  It was awesome!

Then in the beginning of September Skyelr took a week off and we went "out west where [we] belong".  Our first stop was sunny California where we had a Baird family reunion at the Baird family ranch.  I made friends with some chickens, went white-water kayaking, and bought a long-sleeved Sacramento T-shirt at the airport cause I forgot a jacket.  Then we flew to Utah, where we visited with family, hung out with good friends, and ate at all the best spots in Provo, including J-Dawgs (2x!), Hot Dog King (where they treat you like a king--best customer service EVER), and Kneaders (Let's hear it for that french toast!).

Flying to SLC from SMF.  Mostly I like this picture cause I love my sunglasses.

Skyelr and I kayaking the American River

Hanging out with my sisters-in-law at the Baird Ranch

All those Bairds!

Post-river running--we survived!

Longboarding Provo Canyon

The coolest of the cool.

This is what we miss seeing here in New Jersey

Hiking Battle Creek with my parents

And that brings us to the month of October.  We're only a third of the way through the month and we've already had Forrest (Skyelr's youngest brother) out here for a couple of weeks, Forrest and I went swimming in the Atlantic, which was warm, but the wind sure wasn't when we got out, and celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving because hey, why not?  And just because it was such a noteworthy meal, let me describe the Thanksgiving dinner to you:  BEST GRAVY EVER.  (Sorry to my dear dad who makes wonderfully delicious gravy every Thanksgiving; we kinda cheated.) We cooked up a turkey breast roast in the crock pot with a gravy packet that came with the roast and a can of cream of chicken soup.  Skye added the right amount of spices and voila!  It was delicious.  I made (and burned) a pumpkin pie (maybe the burning wasn't my fault--I used leftover frozen pie dough and there wasn't quite enough so the crust was thin and cracked to begin with...) and we whipped up some garlic mashed potatoes that were dreamy.  And Skyelr made himself some stove top stuffing, but I don't like stuffing so I didn't eat any.  And, just since my mom asked, the canned cranberry sauce was fine, but a little gelatinous, but the rest of the meal made up for any deficiency in the cranberry department.

Forrest celebrated his birthday with us.

At the Cape May County Zoo

Forrest's birthday breakfast--waffles and ice cream

Forrest at the beach.  We decided the water was warm enough to swim and went back later

 Well, TTFN!  You might hear from me again, but no promises!

Just Like You Imagined

We recently took a trip out to California and Utah.  While in California we spent one of our days going down the American River.  We had way too many photos for this one blog post so I compiled a little slide show of highlights.  Hope you enjoy!

-Skyelr