Deployment, Day 173 – In port Hawaii (again)

As you head east through the Pacific Ocean towards the west coast of the United States, the very last point of land you will pass before you get there is Hawaii. In fact, the stretch of ocean between Hawaii and the U.S. west coast is the largest stretch of water in the world that you can travel without hitting any land. It is only natural that Hawaii is the last stop before our return trip to San Diego.

Unfortunately this, my ninth trip to Hawaii, won’t be that enjoyable. First of all, we arrived about twelve hours later than our scheduled time. We were late because the night before we pulled in, we responded to a distress call from another vessel. There was a private motor vessel that was about 130 miles away from Honolulu. It was damaged in some way and was taking on water faster than it could pump it out. I was the OOD during the initial response. We had to launch our search and rescue helicopter and escort the vessel throughout the night until a Coast Guard ship arrived to take over. Our helicopter actually rescued 4 of the 5 passengers from the boat and took them back to Hawaii with us (the fifth survivor stayed with the Coast Guard to try and fix the boat). All of these operations made us late pulling into Pearl Harbor. I only had enough time to grab some dinner and a couple drinks before I had to get back to the ship for my duty this morning.

The second reason that this port call won’t be as fun is because today, the second day, I have duty. Today is my first CDO watch since qualifying. It was a pretty quiet day, with the exception of having to deal with one of our sailors getting arrested out in town.

Finally, since tomorrow is my last day, I will have to come back to the ship again that night. I won’t get to stay out in town at all during this visit, which will save me money but will take away one of the best points of going on liberty: getting to sleep somewhere OTHER than the ship.

It’s all good though. There’s nothing that can dampen the fact that after we leave here, the next stop is home. I really love Hawaii, but it is time to finish this up.