A Sailor's Life Source: Wikiquote
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Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Split, Croatia
Hello again, everyone. I know that it has been nearly three months since my last post, but that is because we've spent a lot of time at sea. We broke our record from the other long underway time that we had. Back in October/November we were underway for 54 days, but after we left Bahrain in January, we were underway for a record breaking 59 days.
There have been numerous news articles online on various news sites and on the Navy Newsstand about everything that we've done during the past 3 months. Mainly our primary purpose was to protect and guard the Gulf of Aden from piracy. The nature of that narrow bit of water in that area makes it easy for small fishing boats in the Gulf to intercept and attack large slow moving merchant vessels.
Nearly every other day we would find out about a new contact that we needed to investigate. We would approach it and communicate with them as well as we could. We would often have to search their boat, and we would gather as much information about them as we could.
Most of our time there was spent patrolling the waters in that area, and we assisted and aided vessels in that area. It was very boring at times, but then there would be times when we would have to go chase down a small boat, and then we would have to man all the small arms gun mounts on the main deck. There were times when it was exciting, but nobody really wanted to have to shoot at small boat while we were out there.
After all the time underway, we made a very short stop in Salalah, Oman. There was very little to see there. I didn't have duty the first day that we were there, so we went out in town to see what we could find. The country of Oman is primarily desert. There were some mountains near the coastline, but aside from a few palm trees and expensive landscaping, there was very little green. We only were allowed to go to a few places where the bus would drop us off. The bus stopped at a Hilton, a shopping center, and a Crowne Royal Resort. We were able to find a nice restaurant and bar at the Crowne Royal Resort, and I was glad that we waited for the 3rd stop, because I heard that the Hilton got a little crazier than I usually prefer when I'm on liberty.
We spent very little time in Oman, and ended up getting underway the day after we pulled in. I don't think there was really very much to see there, but I read some things about frankinsense trees and the perfume from them. Apparently they are up in the mountains, so we didn't see any where we were.
After Oman, we made our way back to the Mediterranean, which is a welcome sight after patrolling the Gulf of Aden for so long. There are some pictures that I have of our ship passing through the Suez canal, which we've done 4 times this deployment altogether. I can email them to anyone that is interested.
Everyone on board has been excited about a couple of good port visits in the Mediterranean after having so little relaxation time in the last 3 months. We were very fortunate to stop in Split, Croatia, which is one of the largest cities on the Croatian coastline. Croatia is a small country directly to the east of Italy. The people here seem to like Americans quite a lot, and nearly everyone was very friendly with us. I think they must teach English in their schools, because nearly everyone had no problem understanding us in restaurants, bars, or other shops that we stopped at.
I had duty the first day that we pulled into port, so I wasn't able to go out in town that day. My chief also had some projects that he wanted us to work on while we were in port, so I spent a good portion of my day chipping and painting a deck that has suffered from a little too much exposure to seawater.
I was excited to get to go out on liberty in a port that we'd heard about a lot of good chances for some relaxation. The weather was a little chilly the first day, but then the next two days that I had liberty there were 20-30 knot winds in the harbor where we were moored. Fortunately the city was on the other side of a hill, and it wasn't nearly as windy there. It was a short 10 minute bus ride to get to the downtown area, and the harbor there is protected from the stronger winds.
The most significant landmark is a Roman palace that was built there a long time ago. All that remains of it is the walls, and a very ruined Catholic church in the center. It looks like they were restoring it, but there was still a lot of work to do.
We stopped for breakfast at a small restaurant, but apparently breakfast isn't very popular in Croatia. Most people drink tea and coffee for breakfast, but we got a basket of bread, which came with jelly and butter. I also ate an omelet, which I think they serve for the Americans that stop by.
After breakfast we walked along the wall of the old palace, and stopped at a lot of the stores along the street. There was a surprising number of lingerie stores, but the guys in the group didn't go in, while the girls shopped for a little while. There was a fish market that we stopped at, where all the fishermen were selling their recent catches of fish. There was an excellent restaurant right next to the fish market where we ate lunch at after we explored for a little while longer.
The restaurant was called Nostomos, and they had a delicious seafood platter. The exchange rate to convert dollars to Kuna was about 5.5, so $1 converted to about 5.5 Kuna. The fish platter was about 400 Kuna, which made it quite expensive. I think my meal cost as much as all the rest of the meals combined, but it was delicious. It had a variety of shellfish, some crawfish, and a whole fish.
The rest of that day and most of the next day we spent walking around town. There were a lot of caffe bar's where a lot of people get coffee, but they had a pretty good selection of alcohol for us to choose from. It had been so long since we'd had the opportunity to drink that we just felt like bar hopping. We ended up stopping in probably 6 or 7 small bars, and having a drink at each one. It sounds like a lot of drinking, but it was spread out throughout the day, and none of us was feeling too tipsy by the time we went back to the ship.
Inside the walls of the palace there were many very narrow winding alleyways. It was weird to walk down one of them, because when you would look down it, it wouldn't look like anything interesting was down there, but as soon as you started walking down it, you would find all kinds of shoe stores, lingerie stores, internet cafes, bars, and small restaurants.
While we were going around to various bars and enjoying the city, we ended up stopping at a place that had cheeseburgers. It wasn't like any cheeseburger that I've ever had before, but it was very good. It was mostly a large light roll that was cut open on one side so that the whole roll stayed intact. Then the meat wasn't too well done, which was good. There was still a little bit of pink in the meat, even though it was a pretty thin hamburger patty. The person at the counter asked me if I wanted mayonaisse, ketchup, pickles, and he even added some chili powder which added a little spice to it. The burger was good, and we left pretty quickly after that.
Unfortunately after about 10 minutes of walking around, I realized that I forgot my backpack there. It was amazing at how difficult it was to find the tiny cheeseburger shop again. I was almost certain of the area where it was, but it took us nearly 30 minutes of wandering around through the narrow alleyways of the city before we finally found it again. The store manager had kindly placed it behind the counter in case I came back for it. I didn't really have anything valuable in it, but I would prefer not to lose my backpack.
It was windy and cold in the evenings, and it seemed like the bus took a long time to show up at the spot where it dropped us off. There was a small shop with New York style pizza near the bus stop, so we ate a couple slices while we were there. I was also surprised to find a number of pastry stands like I have seen in France before. There were quite a few small shops with a lot of pastries available. It seems like a combination of French and Italian cultures have affected Croatia quite a bit.
My second duty day the weather got a little nicer, and I was able to do some maintenance to an antenna that has been neglected during the past few months. I had an evening watch on the quarterdeck, and it started to get windy again during that time. We have been in areas that have been so warm that very few people on the ship have very many really warm clothes, but I had some gloves that I had stashed in my luggage on the ship.
The weather was calm again the day that got underway, and now we are back out to sea again. It won't be long now until we return home, and I can't wait to see my beautiful fiance that has been waiting patiently for me all deployment. I will write about our final port visit in a week or so, and it should be pretty similar to our time in Croatia.
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