Out to sea

For the first time in 45 years, I went out to sea on a Navy ship. This occasion was much different from my earlier “excursions.” For one thing, it was voluntary. 🙂

I had the privilege last Thursday (December 29) to participate in a “family and friends cruise” on the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70). This was an occasion for crew members to host family and friends onboard for a day, a week prior to the ship, air wing, and strike group deploying for several months.

The Vinson’s home port is San Diego . . . more correctly Naval Air Station, North Island, across the bay from the city and adjacent to Coronado. We arrived at the ship a little after 5 am, got underway around 8 am, and returned at about 4:30 pm. The ship went out 15-20 miles and spent a couple of hours on helicopter and F/A-18 demonstrations by their air component, Carrier Air Wing TWO.

The evolutions included helicopters hovering above the deck and troops rappeling to the surface, a supersonic flyby, arrested landing, and catapulted takeoff. I spent the remainder of the time checking out some static displays and being mesmerized by the Pacific moving by. Most of the others on the cruise spent time with their loved ones, just soaking up the moments together.

Here’s a video (just under 13 minutes) from the cruise. I had never seen San Diego from the ocean before. (I had sailed into San Diego once following a brief exercise at sea in 1971 with Naval Special Warfare Group, Pacific, but it had been at night and I had been asleep.) In addition to helicopters, jets, etc., the video has some great views of San Diego, Point Loma, Coronado, and the Pacific. We lucked out with great weather — sunny, in the 70s.

Hope you enjoy! (If you click on “USS Carl Vinson cruise” in upper left corner, you’ll view it on YouTube.)