20070915 to Seattle and Oosterdam
Up early, quick breakfast, and hustle the little car to the waiting line for the ferry. It came along after a bit. We boarded and took station at the end facing Seattle.
Some fog obscured the city till we were pretty close to it so we didn’t have the pleasure of a skyline view.
We took the car to the downtown Hertz location & dropped it (with a little confusion regarding where to park it in a large lot mostly municipal). A cab took us to the boarding area for the Oosterdam. Then we went through the boarding routine of document-checking and suitcase-dropping and so forth. Then the obligatory boarding photo - I always feel like an idiot when doing that.
Finally we boarded and were shown to our cabin. Very nice, if a little compact. But, hey, nothing’s as compact as a submarine.
It’s always fun to get up high and watch as the ship gets underway, which it did at 1500. The rain cooperated by stopping, so we were able to get good pictures departing. Then we started running around to find friends. Naturally, we found some.
We found Ken & Sylvia Hicks first. Ken & I put USS Ray (SSN653) into commission in Newport News, Virginia, in 1966/7 and deployed on it several times. Ken was rated a Machinist’s Mate and served in the Auxiliaries division - taking care of all sorts of pumps, valves, compressors and other machinery. In the Australian Navy, he’d be called an “Inside Wrecker” and be joshed about all the stuff he’d broken.
We also ran into Charlie & Elva Steed. Charlie was a student in a sonar school in Key West in 1962/63 while I was there, but not in the same class. We progressed up the paygrades at more or less the same time and both finished as Master Chief Petty Officers.
We went to the opening ceremony by the AAA and USSVI people that opened the trip formally. Then we went off to dinner. We wandered around talking with people and then retired to the neat feel of vibration through the hull.
Link to D's pictures
20070916 Oosterdam underway
Link to O's pictures
Breakfast and then touring the ship. I signed up for the cribbage tournament.
Later in the morning there was a meeting of all the members of the USS Woodrow Wilson Association. We had a formal meeting that lasted about 15 minutes but was sufficient for those serving as officers to say they’d attended (I have no idea what expenses they deducted from their taxes for serving). There was a fair representation - about ten or twelve. Mel Cross (who served many years aboard this ship - something like 12), Dick Tate and Carl Scott were those I remembered best.
Woodrow Wilson wasn’t my favorite boat. I didn’t like the idea of running away from anything that looked threatening, but that was WW’s job - to stay hidden and in communications so as to be ready to fire missiles at any time. So I served - and left it as soon as possible to go to USS Ray.
Off running around again. We went to lunch with Ken & Sylvia.
At lunch the wine steward came around so we could order. Ken noticed the name Emilio on his tag and asked if he were of Filipino derivation and he said yes. Ken mentioned he’d spent some time in the Phillipines on submarines. Emilio hoarsely whispered in his ear, “Are you my daddy?” That broke Ken up and I was laughing like mad. So for the rest of the trip, Emilio was calling Ken and Sylvia "Daddy" and "Mommy", calling me Onkle Coyote and Aunt Dolores and so forth. Many giggles. Sylvia, Emilio, and Ken.
