Pictures!

Alright, time for some pictures...they're pretty much all Coast Guard related, mostly from my days at the good old CGA.


This picture is from down at the docks at the Academy. We would take out these 70 ft WWII era "T-Boats" and practice docking, man overboard drills, etc. I think this was the same day that my instructor wasn't happy with our approaches (even though they were going along fine) and said he was going to show us how it's done. He proceeded to ram the dock at nearly full speed (I say nearly because at the last second he realized he was going way to fast and yelled "all back full") and took out on of the pilings on the dock. Luckily those boats are indestructible and we didn't break the boat in half. This was the same instructor who backed over a buoy and got the buoy chain wrapped around the propeller. Your tax dollars at work!I don't know if you've ever been to Mobile, but there's not a ton of things to do there. We went thrift store shopping and found these gems and decided to wear them on the flights back to the Academy. I felt a little sorry for the lady sitting between me and the guy in the orange on the flight back. We told her we were high school football coaches on the way back from a coaching clinic. She probably believed us because who else but high school coaches would wear those shorts? Didn't everyone have a coach who wore these growing up? Yeah, they're pretty ridiculous.

This is my roommate Joe. We roomed together most of the time at the academy. For some reason, they thought it was a good idea to make us switch rooms every semester, which was a huge pain that took all day.

Junior summer we spent a majority of the time training the incoming class. It basically involves walking around and looking angry and yelling a lot. There's no air conditioning there so needless to say it gets a little hot and humid in the barracks when you're doing PT. Not only that, but I have the distinct memory of the stench that we would give off because they didn't let us do laundry often enough.


Most of my swab summer (first summer, we called the freshmen swabs, probably because it's just about the most demeaning term you can use legally. A swab is the "nautical" term for a mop, and that's mostly how you get treated) was spent standing on the bulkhead, looking straight ahead and trying to memorize material that they required us to know. For your entire freshman year you were required to memorize three meals in advance, which really required 4 meals because after breakfast they would ask you about breakfast the next day. Yeah, I know, it's pretty insane.The best part about the Swab Summer was the week spent on the Barque Eagle. It was a prize of war from Germany after WWII. There were still some Nazi symbols on the wall in the engine room. My favorite part would be sail stations when we would climb up in the rigging and set the sails. You haven't seen a sunset until you're up on the Royal (it's the top sail on the mainmast that's about 140' in the air) at sea.

I once gave a keynote speech at the National Museum of Naval Aviation. Only 2 of my classmates listened but let me assure you, it was a masterpiece. I think I saw tears a few times.


Cadets at the academy have to stay in shape. This was probably my 1212th rep.


The best day of any cadet....graduation day. Most college students miss their days at school, and while I miss being with my friends every day, I don't miss that place one bit!


Doing fisheries boardings in the North Atlantic. I wish I had pictures from on the fishing boats (you see some weird fish onboard), but it's kind of unprofessional to be inspecting their vessel and taking pictures at the same time. I think I saw the Old Man in the Sea on one boat. He was the captain of the vessel, and was 77 years old and still fishing. He was probably the most grizzled person I'd ever seen.


A CG Jayhawk helicopter. If you've never ridden Coast Guard Airways I recommend it.

I thought it was a good idea to hold the monkey in Roatan, Honduras. I probably took 15 showers after this picture was taken.


Swim calls were always a good time during long patrols. We would just stop the engines and go swimming, although we only did it a few times in the two years I was on board. Jumping off the flight deck was fun so I decided to move on to bigger and better things....
Jumping off the ship near the bridge seemed like a good idea at the time, but this picture didn't end well for me. After this one I stuck to the flight deck for future swim calls.


Finding a good barber underway can be difficult (barbers are usually bad enough, and when you factor in a ship that's pitching and rolling and a novice barber it's pretty bad), so I just shaved it at the beginning of the patrol. I'd just shave it now but Liz won't let me!

My last watch underway as the sun was rising. I miss seeing the sunrises and sunsets, and the amazing night sky that you can only see out to sea where there aren't any lights to blot out the sky; however, waking up at 3am to stand watch is highly overrated. Overall I'd say getting stationed on land is definitely preferable.