"We all live on a yellow submarine, yellow submarine..."
to the more appropriate:
"We all live on a massive grey warship, massive grey warship...."
However, upon suggesting this to him and his fellow sailors, they had a better suggestion, that involved tossing me overboard. To which I told them I would only concede if they made a plank and let me wear an eye patch. They did not like this idea either so we had to just agree to disagree.
The morning started off bright and cheery, and I was full of excitement and enthusiasm. I got a tour of the ship, and found it funny to have everyone greet James, "Good Morning Sir." Apparently, he is kind of a big deal around there. As you can see I was even excited to be standing near torpedos, and I am not a huge fan of destructive things:
We sailed out of the harbour and were headed to a firing range about 40 miles (or was it KM, or nautical miles... who knows it doesn't' really matter to the story) off the coast. The weather was beautiful and sunny, a bit chilly, but nice regardless all the way until we left the harbour. Then the large rolling waves, wind a rain began. At this point sea sickness was setting in and I was not too impressed:
So I took retreat in James bunk and he got us sea sickness tablets. At noon James had organized a big guns show, where they were going to fire some machine guns, and other things. He is the gunnery officer, and in charge of that. He told me if I felt well enough I had two options I could go watch the guns, or I could actually come up to the control room and watch him in action, (he gives all the orders and pushes all the buttons and such.) I did not think I would be able to do this because he had told me it was all classified, but they had gotten special clearance so I opted to watch him in action so I could understand his job. I thought I was feeling better, but as soon as I got into that dark rear facing control room, I thought differently. I was standing behind James with my vomit bag, taking deep breaths, the whole thing was only going to last about 15 minutes and I thought I was strong enough to handle it. He put on his headset and took his seat and started giving orders and doing his job. About 2 minutes into this, I suddenly felt red hot and knew I was going to throw up, so I turned around and asked the nearest person if I could just leave the room or if it would mess anything up. They told me I could leave. I ran out of the room and I got to a set of stairs I must have really looked like I was going to puke, because few people actually ran out of my way. Thankfully, I made it to the bathroom before I actually had to throw up. I really did not want to throw up in one of those little bags. Then I returned to his bunk and tried not too feel sick. I could hear all the big guns going bang on the ship and when James returned he said, "I turned around and you weren't there." He was quite impressed I made it to the bathroom before vomiting.
There were supposed to be a bunch of other things going on during the day like an aircraft fly over and man over board demonstration, but the weather was just too nasty and they had to cancel most of the things. I spent the rest of the time in the bunk trying to sleep.
When we returned to the harbour I could feel it straight away, and while my stomach was still raw, I felt a million times better. I went to find James and he gave me a proper tour of the control room and the bridge where they steer the boat and the rest of the ship. Despite being quite sick, it was actually a nice day and a great experience, I am very glad that I was able to go. I am also very glad that I am not in the Navy.
Well in the land of tomorrow I must go write an essay, have a fabulous yesterday!
