Ah, to be young and dumb and .... again. It was serious business, but didn't
seem that way at the time.
Know what you mean, never seen an HT work on the hull! Bucket of steam, 20
feet of waterline..... I saw 5 cubic yards of sailboat fuel up for auction
on EBAY, figured it must have been a (Navy) sailor that did that!
Speaking of rats, while we hunted pirates off Thailand, a friend was
"swapped" with a Thai sailor and spent a couple days on one of the coastal
patrol boats working with us. Even after hanging out all over the far east
and Hawaii, he reported back that he'd never seen bigger rats anywhere than
in the berthing compartment and opted to sleep on deck.
We never saw any pirates. These guys were raiding boat people boats, robbing
the refugees of their very meager possessions and usually killing them.
Our plan was for Thai PBRs to flush the pirates out to sea where we would
greet them with the 5 inch.
We knew the pirates were there, probably didn't work out as they tipped off
by the Thais.
Good stuff, thanks Larry. MMC
"Larry" wrote in message
...
"MMC" wrote in news:xX%Mf.21051$_c.15983
@tornado.tampabay.rr.com:

26. A boat can fit on a ship. A ship can not fit on a boat.


Didja EVER see a "Ship fitter" actually fit a ship? Ours should have
been called "Plumbers"....go figure???

I took the liberty, no pun intended, of sending this out to my many
ship/submarine contacts across the planet. By the time you read this, I
suspect many Navy sailors will be thanking you, in thought, as I am, in
realtime. I wouldn't be surprised if it made the secure airwaves to the
new digital radio rooms now being installed.....as a test message, of
course, yeah.

Thanks....great fun.

A chief on one of HMS' new British destroyers invited me to rum rats in
Valetta Harbor, Malta, that would have been in 1966. At that time the US
Navy forced us to buy up the old blues flathats we weren't allowed to
wear, but were required to have in our seabags in case any U-boats
surfaced. I used to swap them for other Navy hats with as many countries
as I could. It started my extensive Navy hat collection, which goes on
to this day. I just acquired the new ballcap from the USS Ohio, the new
SSGN class boomer. My hat is especially nice as it is the "conversion
crew" hat across the back, making it rare years from now.

Too bad about rum rats.....HMS wouldn't be the same, now.

It was summer in Malta...hot as sin. If you stepped inside a British
ship, you were in an air conditioned space. Almost no space, especially
the crew quarters sleeping 180 guys in the Repair sleeping compartment,
had A/C, then. I slept in the air conditioned cal lab in a custom-made
hammock from the greatful guys in the canvas shop who enjoyed my cable TV
signals in their shop.