Being Walter Mitty

[summilux]

My youngest is an officer in the Canadian Navy and we went to Halifax last weekend to celebrate her birthday and pinch her cheeks. On Saturday she gave us a tour of the naval shipyard and took us aboard the HMCS Charlottetown, a Halifax class frigate (4,770 tonnes, 440ft). It was pretty cool to go aboard a working warship. There is stuff crammed everywhere, each corridor is packed with firefighting and damage control gear and ceilings are stuffed with electrical cables and water pipes. Amidst all that are reminders that this is a home and workplace as well as a warship: a wall of pet photos next to the small arms locker, a note on the espresso machine: “Don’t be a shit, empty your grounds”, Christmas lights in the Damage Control Room, MSDS sheets and stickers. There were only a dozen or so people onboard when we were there and it’ll be VERY crowded when the full complement of 300 sailors is there. It was a blast sitting in the Commander’s chair and daydreaming of high seas adventure!

Pocketa-pocketa-pocketa

Fun things I learned: ship engines don’t change their rpm; the propeller pitch is altered to change speed; a ship sails with a large reserve of cash because supplies purchased outside of home ports are paid for in hard currency; the Commander dines alone and is permitted in the messes (officer, senior enlisted, junior enlisted) by invitation only; part of the countermeasures equipment is an object that when thrown overboard inflates to a size larger than the ship itself; the Halon fire suppressant gas will douse a fire but not immediately suffocate a human.