The BHR Chronicles Chapter 2

Been working out 2 hrs a day, lifting weights and running, eating a healthy diet - protein bars, egg whites, carbs, low fat items, hell even tuna salad (the smell of which repulses me), but last night in the Mess Deck they served one of my vices...SHRIMP! I tried to walk past them but turned back and ended up eating about 20 fried shrimp!



This morning I woke up at 0600 to the usual morning whistles and decided to PT (exercise) on the Flight Deck. There ended up being a group of sailors jogging in cadence that I joined. Seeing the sunrise over the island of Kauai was indescribeable. The top of a submerged submarine to my left and a few smaller boats to my right. Way cool.

Yesterday my corpsman and I got a tour of the bowels of the ship. All in all there are 9 decks beginning with the Flight Deck. We made our way all the way to the lowest deck. I got a tour of the engine room and the actual engines and drive shafts themselves. Pictured below is the Engine Room (an unclassified picture as I was told).




When the bridge signals down to the Engine Room to speed up, they turn the black wheel on the right which opens up pressure as a result of the engines producing more heat and boiling more water. This pressure increase causes the drive shaft to rotate faster and ultimately causes the propellers to turn more rapidly, moving the boat forward faster. (This of course is the dummed down version of it). It's much more complicated than that actually. (Mike I could have used you on my tour!) The pictures are of me climbing over the drive shaft, and of the actual engines themselves.




All in all, I was impressed at the complexity of how the ship runs. But I can only imagine what it must have been like prior to using electricity when Sailors had to manually shovel coal into the engines. During my tour they told me we were burning approx. 350 gallons of fuel an hour at approx. 3.15 a gallon! And get this - all in all the ship can hold 6 million gallons of fuel at once. (Angelina was intimidated when I told her.)

Been getting settled in a lot more. Treating some head lacerations - people running into hatches and such. One of my Marines had a really bad sprained ankle yesterday from a Flight Deck injury, but all in all the Uglies are doing well.

Last night at about 1900 it came on the PA "Hot Dog Eating Contest will commence in the Mess Deck at 2000". I thought to myself "I have got to see this"...


Rows of Sailors lined up and when the MC said "Go!", they stuffed their faces with weiners! I think the winner had eaten 10 weiners in 3 minutes. That's a lot of weiners!!! (and these things weren't Oscar Meyer, they were like grade F meat lol)



It's been a somewhat slow day today, and playing Spades (a card game) seems to be a common past time with my Marines. We had a couple of drills the past few days - Man Overboard Drills, Missle Attack Drills, General Quarters/Man Your Battlestations, that kind of thing. It's been a great experience thus far. To answer my roomate's question, "I haven't gotten sea legs yet".



I leave you with a picture I took this morning from the Hangar Deck of Kauai. In the back is the PMRF (Pacific Missle Range Facility) and Barking Sands. More stories to follow. While this entry wasn't so colorful, I wanted to give you a little insight into the day to day life aboard...