Week 17: Gulf of Guinea

Hey Everyone,

Wow...time sure flies when you're circumnavigating Africa! NORMANDY is currently sailing past Guinea-Bissau and making her way toward the Gulf of Guinea (GOG). It's been an interesting trip since we left Spain, with rougher seas, intermittent communications (currently, we have web-browsing turned off in order to save the bandwidth we need for essential systems), and lots of drills/exercises with the other units in SNMG1 group. The crew doesn't mind so much, because we still receive email from outside sources (i.e. back home) and we can send email to our loved ones as well. Not so bad as when they completely secure email to the outside world and we don't have a clue what is going on outside of the NORMANDY Bubble!

Because of the increase in operations with other ships, merchant traffic, and the general lack of information about this area, we have increased the watch stations manned up in Combat. As such, I have been taken off of the Operational Planning Group (OPG) and am back to standing watch as the Combat Information Center Watch Officer (CICWO). I stand watch with three other Officers (a Tactical Action Officer, and his trainee, and a CICWO trainee). I also act as the Screen Commander, directing all the ships in the force where to go at what speeds and what sectors to patrol. The goal is to get a bunch of people qualified in higher watch stations so that we don't have to have as many people on watch all the time, while simultaneously providing the bridge with extra eyes to maintain a good surface picture. During any given watch (five hour period) we'll run between two and four drills, ranging from surface or air exercises, to quizzes on information about other ships in our group, to communications exercises (where we practice sending signals back and forth), to mini-wars between ourselves. Yesterday, we also had two Strike Exercises, which I ran as the ship's Engagement Control Officer. One of the strikes was planned, so we had ample time to prepare. The second strike came as a complete surprise! While conducting the first exercise, one of the other ships was not able to execute all of her tasking, and the folks in charge of the strike called FINEX (end of exercise). About an hour and a half later, they decided they wanted to see if the problem the other ship was having was ship specific or system specific, so they called on NORMANDY to execute their tasking! Pretty crazy, but since it wasn't planned, it gave us a chance to practice a no-time mission, which is a quite possible situation for a real Strike! The whole thing made for a long day (I started out on watch at 1:30 am and was finished with the final strike around 3 pm...and was quite tired to say the least!) but was a good experience, and my Strike Team got lots of accolades from the Captain for stepping up to the plate and helping another ship figure our their problems.

Early next week, I will enter the GOG and we'll begin patrolling that area. We'll be in places known for piracy and lots of smuggling, so it will be quite stressful, but hopefully we'll learn a lot that we can pass on to future battle groups that deploy here. Working for NATO is completely different than a regular deployment with just American ships, so it is challenging overcoming the language barriers and meeting tasking when not all the ships have the same capabilities as US units, but I think we'll be just fine. While we're in the GOG, we plan to pass through the "center of the Earth" or 00N 00E (crossing the Equator at the Prime Meridian) which is known as either a Diamond or Emerald Shellback (I've heard both, and there is an on-going contest onboard to see who is right about the title....). We'll have a cool ceremony (sort of like the Blue Nose ceremony we had earlier this deployment) where the Shellbacks (those who have already "crossed the line") will initiate the 'Wogs (those who haven't)... It's a big secret what the ceremony will entail, but I'll be sure to tell you all about it after it's over...should be a great time, and hopefully there will be a ton of pictures to pass on!

Other than that, nothing to report for the week! I'm down to six weeks left onboard and trying to tie up all the loose ends before I leave! One of the best things was that I just found out that my Leading Petty Officer made Chief this cycle and I'm so proud of him!! It's just a shame that I'll be gone when he gets to put on his new Chief's uniform and pin on those anchors...hopefully my guys will send me lots of pictures of the event!

Until next time....

Kate