Falkland Islands Deployment

I've been a little lethargic and slow recently, hence the lack of photos. For the second time on deployment I've felt like I'm 8000 miles from home. I think the weather hasn't helped- we're over the winter down here, but spring is just damp and cold, and the sea conditions are sometimes terrible. The other night was quite funny, it was just starting to get rough as we travelled round to the north of the Falklands, with people starting to feel queasy, and then all of a sudden the ship seemed to just fall off a cliff- You suddenly get that light-stomach feeling you get when free-falling on a theme-park ride... and then BOOM! The whole ship shook, with a loud bang. You can't help but instantly worry that you might hear "Hands To Emergency Stations, Hands to Emergency Stations!"- but that's just paranoia- you know it's just the weather! For good measure though, the evening's film broadcast was "The Perfect Storm"!

So after a good half an hour of poor conditions I decided to go up to the bridge with my camera, and the officer of the watch gave me permission to take some photos. Unfortunately the windows were steamy, so these images are poor quality, but you can see exactly what happens, and why it feels like we're falling off a cliff. The top photo shows us approaching a very big wave, not going too fast, but you can see the wave is a good 30-50ft high, almost coming above the forecastle.
The photo on the left here is the ship riding up it, and at this point most of the forecastle is out of the water as the balance of the ship goes over the crest.... And then the bottom photo is the forecastle plummeting down, the very front of it falling somewhere between 70-100ft, hitting the water, creating the kind of walls of water that makes me think of a certain water divide in the old testament in the bible... but I don't think Moses' staff had over 5000 tonnes of displacement....
Pretty epic?

So that was just a couple of days ago. Those conditions were "Sea State 6"- but the swell of the waves were huge. It's quite fun when you're on the bridge I think. But everywhere else onboard you just feel ill! And it wasn't long after that that the command made a decision to head back round to the south of the Falklands to get some shelter and anchor for the night.

Anyway, going back a few weeks, we had a couple of nights back in Stanley, managed to pick up some more memorabilia and have an absolutely DELICIOUS meal out at the Stanley Brasserie... that's me there eating some spicy chicken skewers and couscous... and the T-shirt is my first birthday present of the month! Thanks Madeleine! Just about THE most applicable T-shirt for my reputation at the moment!

And er, Doc's posing in the wellies that me and him both bought for an extortionate price. But they are the best wellies in the world, really grippy, and they're thermal insulated down to -40degC. Apparently. This photo below is from out the back of Stanley, you can see our ship anchored just in the mist. And I have to say, where on earth is a red double-decker bus going to be used in Stanley?

Someone had an old mobile artillary gun that may well have been used back in 1982. Doc couldn't hotwire it unfortunately. So it's back out to sea. That's where we are now, that's where we've been for quite a few days now, whether at anchor or sailing or on exercise or on patrol, my job is the same. Same old, same old.

Apparently next week we're going to be doing a firing exercise with the 4.5" gun- bombarding a land target... and apparently some hooligans from the army are going to be advancing on the target, somewhere between our ship, and the er... target we're firing at!?!? Madness. Some people are quite simply harder than me. And after all that, our ship has to get used to fighting Typhoons (see my last blog entry)... I don't know anything about warfare, but I am pretty sure that no amount of practice is going to allow us to defeat those badboys. I just hope that everyone who owns a typhoon has a good heart...

So if you wondered what sort of mood this blog is being written in, let the photo below convey all of my emotion. That's Gary there by the way. I call him Garibaldi. He prefers me to call him PO Garibaldi. I think I've watched too many chic-flics & heartbreakers recently. Australia, Pretty Woman and The Notebook already this week. Dear me, I need to reset myself.

Recently, I have been, or the ship has been doing the following:

• Sailing around in made up navigational boxes at sea
• playing war games with the new typhoon aircraft (the new eurofighter)- and believe me, they're awesome. Beyond words. The only aircraft I've seen with so much manoeuvrability that it can kind of handbrake turn in the sky to change direction, giving it the ability to really swarm on the ship.
• Had a lovely meal at the Brasserie in Stanley
• We tried to get ashore on one of the local Islands, found the weather was to rough for our RIB, and ended up almost sinking it! Unfortunately my camera got very wet and I had to dry it out for 24 hours...
• Met COMPORFLOT (Commodore of the Portsmouth Flotilla), and preached to him about driving 10,000 miles for Charity. He loved the idea and wanted to help us out with sponsors. Awesome news! (see below).

And for the rest of the time, if it wasn't work, I'd been working with Olly on our Mongol Rally project- and this is what we've achieved so far:

1. Our website is up and running with official logos and everything (Thanks Gemma-www.gcgb.org.uk)
2. We have our first sponsor, who are going to buy our car for us!
3. We gained the backing from Command and from COMPORFLOT... which could be gold-dust, just waiting to see what comes of it.
4. The fleet PR team are also in on our little project
5. The Captain has kindly dealt us a major prize for our fund-raising raffle: A day out at sea on HMS Gloucester...!

We are also waiting on a whole load of other bits of news. It's very exciting, our project has really taken off since the management have got hold of it, and our MEO is backing us all the way. After a month and a half in the dark, we're really feeling positive about how much progress has been made! If you've read to here and still don't know what I'm talking about, it's worth clicking on our website link and taking a quick look... http://www.gcgb.org.uk/

I think this is my favourite quote from the tour so far... this came about months ago, but I'll never forget it. And you had to be there, which kind of makes this blog post a little meaningless...

(Talking to 6ft6 Jamal from the caribbean, with the world's biggest hands):

Ras: So have you ever been in a fight Jamal?
Jamal: Na man.
Ras: Never at all? Have you never got really angry with someone you've wanted to do something to them?
Jamal: Well there waaas this one guy... 'e was reeeeaally annoyin.... so I squeeeeezed 'im 'til 'e stupped moovin......!

(No wonder he's never been in a fight since...)

Recent news: Currently in Stanley- well, anchored nearby- running a 50% leave routine, which is not fun for the killicks, since there's only 5 of us qualified now... and Horse goes home next week which means we'll be doing 1 in 4 duties... eurgh.

I'm feeling good though, I can now run the 2.4km run in 10.05, just 14 seconds slower than my time in basic training... so feeling pretty healthy right now!