SSN 680 Sea Stories
- Paul Gomez
- Sea Stories - 680
- Hits: 5314
Well, it was just another rare day in port and I was standing Below Decks during the mid-watch. This was a Catch-22, since having to stand watch during the night or early morning could be EXTREMELY boring if there was nothing to keep your mind busy. On the other hand, at least on the mid-watch you could count on the various daily activities that had to be performed which helped the time pass much more quickly.
I had reached that critical point as a watchstander where you knew everything you needed to know to perform the required duties and had an air of confidence that made you feel that no challenge was too great.
On any given Below Decks watch, I had no trouble blowing San #2, bringing on potable water and checking in with the Torpedo Room security watch every 30 minutes, all while making my normal rounds to record the endless readings on the log sheets. On this particular night, I decided to push the bar a little higher by performing a number of these activities simultaneously. This wasn't an uncommon practice by the more experienced watchstanders and I felt I was ready to join their ranks.
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- Brad Williamson
- Sea Stories - 680
- Hits: 17665
Great sea stories have a few things in common. They are all based, at least loosely, on some real event. They all hold the listener's attention - not usually too hard to do on day fifty-eight of the 'Sea of None of Your Business' hostage crisis. They all generally start with the expression, "This is a no-sh___er."
The title 'Sea Story' can be deceptive. That name comes from the fact that they are usually shared at sea when time, distance from friends and family, and general boredom coalesce into a fertile ground for the emergence of the shared community experience we called a 'sea story'.
Not every sea story, however, starts at sea.
This is one of those stories. And it's a no-sh___er!
- Brad Williamson
- Sea Stories - 680
- Hits: 4750
Duty in Subic Bay. Just another day on the Bates. In fact, just another night on the Bates. Sometimes you just wanted to scream.
I wasn't a big fan of the night life in the 'Po, but stuck on the boat was stuck on the boat. I'd rather be sipping an icy San Migoo' and buying skewers of mystery meat from a street vendor's grill by the metric ton. Or a bucket of shrimp fried rice.
But I took my turn like everybody else. I was the Engineering Duty Petty Officer, and it was after midnight. I'd been back aft on a casual tour, and engineering, like most of the boat, was deserted. I shared coffee and stories with the Shutdown Reactor Operator, found a lighter for the Roving Watch, and then wandered up topside.
- Steven Perry
- Sea Stories - 680
- Hits: 5061
I left Sub QM school in Groton for San Diego the last week of October of 1981. The QMCS at the school had said that the Billy Bates was a very Special Boat. I was one very excited QMSN.
My orders said to report to COMSUBRON on-board the USS Dixon or Sperry (I can't remember which one had our Squadron), for the William H. Bates at SUBBASE San Diego. So like a newbie, I walked down the pier and went right by the Bates, as my orders said report to COMSUBRON.
The minute that I requested permission to come aboard the tender, they had a Security Drill. I was stuck on board for about 2 hours!
- Brad Williamson
- Sea Stories - 680
- Hits: 3326
This is a story about a cow, a cow that walked on water, the Jesus cow. And I'm not making this up. This is a no-s______!
It takes place just off the coast of South Korea...
You really have to love South Korea. I've been there many times since I left the Navy, and every visit has been exciting and interesting. Looking out over the night time brilliance of the Seoul city lights from the observation deck of the Seoul Tower, rivaling the Seattle Space Needle for majestic views. Scurrying along, crab like, 500 feet underground in the cramped invasion tunnels the North Koreans dug under the DMZ. Enjoying magnificent traditional Korean fare in restaurants hundreds of years old.
I've really come to love the place.
But all that was in the future back in 1985, when our Westpac adventures took us to the port of Chin Hae.
Sonar had been fighting some self-originated noise for days, if not weeks. It was killing our capability for the Spec Op, and the crew was feeling the pain. We scoured the boat for sound shorts. Days had been spent crawling around outboard everything, under the deck plates, and in the overhead, looking for this elusive noise problem.
- Brad Williamson
- Sea Stories - 680
- Hits: 3592
Anybody been sailing in San Francisco Bay lately? I don't mean Sunday afternoon, lazing under the sun, draped around the cockpit of your 47 foot Carver. I don't even mean scudding before a stiff breeze on your 14 foot Hobie Cat hanging on a lanyard with only one hull in the water.
I'm talking about the serious, no holds barred, get dirty, get wet, darn near get drowned kind of sailing, best done in a 300 foot pleasure liner with more shaft horsepower than you can talk about and a power plant you only refuel once every twelve years, if you get my drift. I'm talking about taking the Bates into Alameda and Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Serious sailing.
Every sailor knows that the approach to San Francisco Bay is one of the most dangerous in the world. The coastline and the wave action combine to produce truly horrendous sea states, with hard to predict wave action and treacherous currents. Rocks and shoals abound and eye your boat with salacious greed, ready to grind you up for a single mistake. Bridge crew have been lost here. Shipping traffic is nearly equal to the straits of Malacca, and the seascape and Golden Gate bridge combine to produce a relatively narrow channel. And that's when the weather is good!
- Sean Gawne
- Sea Stories - 680
- Hits: 4255
Submarines are very complicated machines, so the crews get a lot of training on how to operate them. Some of this training is unique to submarines, such as the submarine escape training at sub school. One thing a lot of people don’t realize is that nukes don’t usually get to attend sub school, so we missed out on a lot of the fun stuff. It’s also rather odd that most of the engineering department, with the exception of the officers and the auxiliary mechanics, never got the benefit of submarine school training. Perhaps this is why the submarine damage control trainer was invented.
The damage control trainer is a very special training simulator, designed to replicate the experience of flooding in a submarine. Flooding is an awful thing on any ship, but at least for most sailors there has always been the option of jumping overboard or getting into a lifeboat. Submariners don’t have that option. To make things worse, flooding on a submarine is a much more serious problem than on a surface ship.
