Falkland Islands Deployment

YYEEEAAAAHHHH! Bring it on! Guess where I am? At sea! I don't think I've ever felt so pleased to be at sea! Usually I always want to get back to portsmouth! But after the last few days where the ship has suffered more and more delays- for whatever reason- it's such a relief to actually get away, just in time to make sure we can still fit in the whole program! I don't think I could say any more goodbyes!
My week has been very bizarre, with no real work on as such, just waiting and waiting to go. Having said that, thank you very much to everyone who saw me on sunday or tuesday, or sent me messages over the last few days. Was really nice to have a little send-off!
So, the ship's running smoothly and I'm looking forward to a good 2 hours sleep before I get up for the middle watch (midnight-4am), and am quickly adjusting to sea life. During evening rounds, the XO (executive officer, 2nd in command) made a few points he wanted us to all adhere to about this deployment. Basically, this is a little different to if we were going somewhere like the gulf. We should be able to sink into a decent routine, which wouldn't be the case in other places- therefore, we need to all make our own personal targets and goals individually- something to achieve over the next 6 months... like take up a new hobby, get some qualifications etc... I'm not going to say what mine are, but the gym was absolutely HEAVING with people making the same deployment regime as me earlier, and my plate struggled to keep all it's food on it at dinner! Speaking of dinner, I've never been that impressed with ship's food in the past, but tonight's choice was amazing- roast pork stuffed with garlic, pasta carbonara, beef and mushroom puff pastry pies, boiled potatoes, courgettes, broccoli & cauliflower bake... and loads more! mmmmmmmmm....
Since I seem to be the media man in the mess, I've been taking passport photos of people and printing them out for our "HMS Gloucester ID" passes, but I am wondering how long I will have to wait before I get my best chances of photos... I'll be sure to post them all up on here anyway (if they're good), but here's a photo my Dad took of the ship at 2pm this afternoon as we departed Portsmouth. I was on watch at the time so wasn't on the upper deck to wave goodbye... but, I did sneak up the funnel to have a quick peak out the funnel door to see all the families waving from the round tower... see if you can see me!