A long standing pal of mine from my Uni days is in Her Majesty's Royal Navy, and they docked their ship in AD on Sunday for few days. He's currently an officer on HMS Chatham and has spent the last few months in the North Arabian Gulf around Iran and Iraq. This was their first time on dry land for about a month and I managed to get together with him and some of his navy chums a couple of times, for the odd beer. Well, actually I had the odd beer, but they seemed determined to drink AD dry! But I suppose they deserve it as after these four days, they're back up to the North Arabian Gulf, and aren't going to be on dry land again for another month. It's actually pretty good to see a pal from back home over here.
He managed to take us onto the boat this evening and have a look round. An amazing experience. As you would expect, these boats aren't made for comfort, they're functional, and the equipment on there was pretty impressive, and that was before we saw the weapons, including the 4.5 inch "gun" at the front!
It was good to walk around a Navy boat and see how "our boys (and girls)" live when they're out at sea, and though they haven't yet fired (and hopefully won't fire anything in anger), they are risking they're lives in dangerous environments, and are doing it without the home comforts we all take for granted.
Here's my pal and me on the ships bridge - that's me in the captains seat!
No comments:
Post a Comment