Shooting on the High Seas...

The highlight of my day today was getting re-qualified on the M-14. For those not in the know, that's the standard Navy issue rifle. Apart from it's weight, it is a very accurate and easy to operate weapon. Every time you report to a new command, and every year thereafter, you are required to basically take a Shooting Test to verify that you remember how to operate it and to demonstrate that you have at least half a chance of hitting your target if you were ever attacked. This is one of the things in the Navy that I really enjoy, and regret that we don't get to do it more often... sometimes I wonder if maybe I was made to be a Marine, but then I think of all the running they do and the much higher risk they put their families through, and I remember to count my blessings that I am a Sailor. Anyways, I had a lot of fun out there watching people shoot, watching new guys trying to figure it out (I never laugh at them, it's just interesting to watch first-time shooters and how they react). An interesting thing about how the Navy does their gun qualifications is that because we have such a small area to shoot in (generally we shoot on the flight-deck... it's just big enough to land one small helicopter at a time) that they can't use standard targets at standard distances... so they have to move the targets in pretty close to us and then they use these targets that are SUPER SMALL in order to simulate shooting at a distance. I have shot enough with the M-14 that I feel plenty comfortable operating it... my only worry is it's weight... sometimes I have a hard time keeping the barrel steady and I have to really focus on proper technique in order to shoot well. Unfortunately I screwed up on the first set... our targets weren't lined up with us, they were off-center almost by a whole person... so if you shot at the target directly in front of you, you would be shooting at the wrong one... you had to actually shoot at the target that was lined up with the guy on your right... so my first 8 shots were all on some other guy's target... gee, I hope that wasn't an "innocent bystander!" :) They never told us beforehand about the targets being off though and when the Line Coach finally realized what I was doing and told me, I had already "failed"... they told me to continue on with the other sets though b/c it looked to them like I was "on target", just on the wrong target... so I shot the rest of my shots in the kneeling and sitting positions... I thought for sure I'd have to "requal" but when they stepped up to the targets to grade them a couple of the Gunner's Mates were pointing my target out and commenting at how tight of a pattern I had... and then the guy grading the targets got to mine and said "dang! Somebody got surgical with this one! Who's is this???" Naturally I knew that not only did I pass with flying colors, but I had made a very good impression... 'course, this is the Navy, so their shooting standards aren't exactly very high... but I have to admit, even I was impressed with how tight my shooting pattern was... I remember back in the day my shots were EVERYWHERE... :)

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

From Brandon: Well, we hit our first port: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This is my 2nd time there, and it was great to have gone again! I didn't do too terribly much there this time, but I did the one thing that I really wanted to do there: DIVE! Our last day there I got up really early before sunrise and caught a bus from the base to downtown Waikiki where the dive shop was that I had arranged to dive with. Luckily it turned out that only 1 other person was diving that morning in my group so it was me, him, the Dive Master, and the Boat Captain. The first dive spot was about 15 minutes out to sea, just outside the bay. We jumped in and used a pre-installed line that went to the ocean floor to pull ourselves down to a depth of 110 feet (the deepest that I've ever been!) -- the visibility was right around 100 feet!!! After we were just a bit descended, the object of the dive began to come into view: an old WWII Corsair fighter plane... apparently the pilot had run out of fuel and had to crash it into the harbor... it sank there and is still in great shape considering it has been sitting in salt water for so long... you could still see pieces of the engine, the compass is still mounted in the cockpit, the propeller is still intact... it was very kewl! We spent about 15 minutes on the bottom examing the plane... there wasn't much sea life around other than schools of about 4 different kinds of fish that had obviously made the Corsair their home. I realized that wreck dives aren't really my thing though. It was interesting though b/c at depths greater than 90 feet people are said to start suffering from "Narcosis" which is a natural event that occurs because your body builds up too much Nitrogen at deep depths, and it is similar to being high or drunk but without all the adverse side-effects. I wasn't sure I was feeling anything, until I picked up my camera to take a photo and it took a minute to register whether I was looking at the front or the back of the camera... so i think that perhaps I felt the effects of Narcosis jsut a bit...The second dive of the day took us to only 40 ft. --we were down for a little over 30 minutes. It was a sea cave... after descending to about 30 feet, we swam toward the shore where there is a rocky outcropping on the surface but under the surface there is a huge hold... swimming through it and just a short distance brought us to a cave that had a skylight with sunlight puring in... NOW THIS WAS MY KIND OF DIVE!!! We saw 2 or 3 4-1/2 foot white-tip sharks (within maybe 6 feet outside of my reach!), several "medium"-sized sea turtles chilling in corners sleeping, several Moray Eels sticking out of rocks hissing at us, a *HUGE* crab stuck to the ceiling... that thing was BIG, his body had to be atleast as big as my head! After exploring in there, we swam out of the cave and along the coast, and we spotted this "medium"-sized (to me, it was GIANT, but the Dive Master said "no, that's medium for us") sea turtle just sitting on the ocean floor chillin' and looking at us... I went down to a boulder he was sitting next too and just watched him watching me... it was very kewl... I could have easily reached out and petted him, that's how close I was... his body was very big... maybe 2-4 times the size of my torso! We also heard whales nearby and on the way back to the boat another sea turtle swam up to me within about 8 feelt and swam with me for about a minute or so... IT WAS AWESOME!!! I have photos that I will post here as soon as I am able to get them developed. Unfortunately I burned most of my film on the Corsair and by the time I got 3 or 4 shots of the sharks, I ran out of film... :(







Santa in Hawaii




A very kewl tree




Waikiki Beach




Waikiki Beach at sunrise

[- 5JANUARY05 UPDATE: THE DIVING PIX!!! -]



Descending on the Corsair fighter plane


Side profile of the Corsair fighter plane


As you can see, the plane is in such great condition, the prop is even distinguishable still!


An aft perspective of the plane


A huge school of Angelfish (I think that's what they are, someone please correct me if I am wrong!) that live in and around the plane... it was awesome swimming THROUGH them... they just parted and came back together like I was parting the Red Sea!


These fish are sooooo kewl! I have no idea what they are, but I *LOVE* their huge eyes!


Another school o' Fish


The Ocean Cave in Oahu... this was the object of my second dive... unfortunately I had burned up almost all of my film on the Corsair dive, and the pix I got inside the cave didn't turn out too well... but, as I described, we descended to about 40 feet, swam through this opening and then once inside it opens back up to an actual skylight... though we never sufaced b/c that would have been dangerous due to the pounding surf inside... it was in here that we saw the sharks and the napping turtles, as well as the Crab and Moray Eel... *EXTREMELY* kewl dive spot... probably the *BEST* one I've ever been on!!! Just wish I had pix... :(

My Ornaments

Starting last year a few of my co-workers and I decided that instead of adding to our Christmas expenses by getting each other gifts we would give ornaments to each other. We can't go over $5 each. I figured that since we're only giving each other these ornaments that I should make them as personal as possible. So, I made my ornaments last year and this year. I am not a very creative person so this kind of stuff doesn't come easy to me. I'm pretty proud of what I came up with though so I have to show you all what I made. The ornament I took the most pictures of is my favorite.

Brandon left for West Pac 2004-2005

I'm sorry everyone that I have been so behind on updating the website. It's been a very busy month.

Brandon left for WestPac 2004-2005 with the USS Milius on Dec. 6th. It was very hard to see him go especially since it had been sort of unexpected. His ship is an optimally manned shipped meaning they are an experimental ship that is trying to figure out the exact number of people it takes to do all the jobs on the ship. So, they can only have a certain amount of people for each job and they can't go over that amount. Well, the ship was full and they didn't have anyone leaving until towards the end of Pac. The ship wanted to keep Brandon and since he still need more schools for his job they were going to send him to a school while they were on deployment and then when they got back from deployment he would join up with them then. Nothing was for sure until the ship left though. They told us to be prepared to go because you never know what's going to happen since it's the military. So, we tried to get Brandon as prepared as much as we could without knowing for sure if he was going. About a week before the ship was scheduled to leave they told Brandon the funding for the schooling has been approved now we just have to find you a school to go to. We'll tell you by Friday whether we can get you a school or not. We knew to be prepared but there didn't really seem like there was any chance of him going even if they didn't get him the school he needed just because they didn't have room on the ship. The Thursday before the ship was supposed to leave I started having a bad feeling about it. Then Friday came around and I was a mess. I just had the worst feeling about it. I was waiting to hear from Brandon and he normally was getting out of work around 10 or 11am but I didn't hear from him until 1pm. He found out he was going. His school was full and another guy got sent to a school instead. It was horrible. We had tried to not get our hopes up but we had so it really hit us hard. My parents were originally going to come down and see Brandon off and spend some time with me after he left but since he most likely wasn't going they decided not to come since they would see us at Christmas. Fortunately, my good friend Jeri came with me to see Brandon off.
I've included some pictures of Brandon leaving. I also got a great pic of the LHD USS Bonhomme Richard which is basically a mini-aircraft carrier.















Brandon is the person closest to the crane on the left hand side. He is giving the peace symbol in case you can't tell.




The USS Milius leaving for WestPac 2004-2005




The USS Bonhomme Richard leaving for WestPac 2004-2005

Our New Family Photos

Hey everyone,

We just got our family photo taken and we wanted to show everyone our pics. Let us know what you think.