At sea

August 25th, 2008 04:20LST

We have been at sea for about two days now and nothing too exciting has happened. We met up with Iroquois and Calgary today. I was in my rack since I was off watch but we RAS'ed Iroquois. When I got up for the afternoon watch there were boat transfers going on so I got a couple good pictures of both ships.

We have received orders to head for the horn of Africa to hunt for pirates. Apparently 3 ships in the last week have been hijacked and we are to go and see if we can't do something about the pirates.

For those of you who remember my early days in the navy, I was on HMCS Preserver (Protecture's sister ship) as a boatswain and I did the Somalia mission. Which of course is the Horn of Africa. The fact that I'm headed back there right now is kind of surreal. Its one part of the world I never expected to or really wanted to see again.

Besides the fact that we are going pirate hunting the big topic of conversation has been the feds cancelling the JSS (Joint Support Ship) project. Every one seems pretty disappointed about it. That project was going to be the beginning of a new era for the navy, and now its gone. I think what is worst is that nobody really seems surprised by it. I guess we have all become used to the feds making promises and then not following through.

Alot of us are starting to seriously wonder what kind of future the navy has, if any at all. The 3 remaining destroyers are on their last legs, these tankers are just about done, and the frigates are already at mid life. And there isn't any solid plans to replace any of these ships. I've heard more than one musing that this is the beginning of the end for the Canadian Navy. I can only hope that this isn't true. I don't look good in green.