This post is the follow up post to Bloggers Embark, The Prelude.

When I left you last, 15 bloggers were anxiously and nervously awaiting the COD flight to the USS Nimitz. I left out the part about the briefings that scared us shitless, but suffice to say there was a solemn, ironic silence among those of us who can blog and talk like no other.

And then the silence was swallowed up by the reality of the situation. It was time to board the COD and take our place among the DVs that dared travel the same route before us.

---

First impressions

---

Before we knew it, we were a-flight, most of us anticipating the forewarned landing more than anything else that was on the horizon. In fact, there I was sitting in the very back of the plane, facing the rear entrance of the COD and wondering, would we survive the landing?

Though of course I wasn’t so preoccupied with morbid thoughts that I couldn’t capture a few final photographic memories. After all, the Twitterer in me had been completely shut off, for fear of the iPhone getting fried, without an addiction recovery plan.

I also noticed that my thoughts started to drift towards military men and women in general, those subset of individuals that I’ve probably never truly appreciated until this moment in time. I looked around. To my left was a bunch of foreign controls that I was sure took rocket science to operate, and to my right was a very intense Officer trained and equipped for everyday missions such as this one.

A few minutes later this very same man was not so surreptitiously eating strawberries. I found this rather strange as my breakfast, or lack there of, wasn’t sitting pretty.

But as I was saying, my thoughts were focused on the many men and women who had taken this very same flight under very different circumstances. And then my thoughts wandered to my brother, who I miss terribly even though he’s been gone for about a month. See, Jeffrey Allen Van Grove, had recently joined the Coast Guard and is currently going through the hell that is Bootcamp in Cape May. In this moment, I admired his courage and appreciated his ambition more than ever before.

A few stomach grumblings later, the build up of the COD catching a trap on the Nimitz was brought to climax. We hit the ship safely with a thud, a bang, and an abrupt stop. That wasn’t so bad. Quite fun actually.

And then I felt like we were in an episode of Lost. The back of the COD slowly opened to reveal a whole new world, unlike any I had ever seen before, with men and women wearing their respective Flight Deck gear and cranials peering in at us, The Others.

We were then quickly guided inside the Nimitz, where we were stripped of our gear and paraded down a hallway of sailors. I can’t speak for the others in the group, but I remember feeling elated, surrounded, and not exactly possessing a presence of mind.

---

Captain Nasty and the TV Studio

---

Our first and most frequent stop was the TV Studio. There we were re-briefed, introduced to LCDR Jason Salata and LTJG David Bennett, Public Affairs Officers and our primary guides for the trip, and formally greeted by Captain Mike Manazir, whose call sign happens to be “Nasty.”

I was most surprised to learn that as the Skipper his primary duty is to maintain the morale of the ship. He later proved himself to be a generous man with a wealth of information that he couldn’t help but be passionate about imparting. But at this moment in time we posed for pictures, said the pleasant niceties expected of us, and then headed off to lunch.

---

Lettuce and Pilots

---

Oh lunch, and food in general, how you plagued me aboard the Nimitz. I remember thinking, the only thing I can eat here is lettuce. Even the salad dressings were cream-based or included high fructose corn syrup.

The eater in me wanted to ignore the new found vegan diet that I started at the beginning of the year. The determined woman that I am, I didn’t back down and politely tried to find appropriate meal options. Both Jason and David proved instrumental in this pursuit. So, though I do believe the Navy to be strangely behind the vegan times (we did learn that they accommodate all religious diets), I was impressed and humbled by the extra effort made by these relative strangers.

Taking one step backwards time, I remember walking into the room where we would be consuming most of our meals and feeling that shy side of me rear its ugly head. I could barely look up, let alone look anyone in the eye. This feeling would evaporate quickly, but for a moment I stood in complete terror of the dozens of pilots and officers that were innocently consuming their meals around me.

It was at this lunch where I was really starting to feel a solidarity amongst group members. Labels and expectations had been shed aside, the people eating with me were just people all eager and anxious just like me.

*lunch photo by Guy Kawasaki

---

Vultures overlook the Flight Deck, but the Bridge knows all

---

The eye opening experiences of the day came courtesy of being within such close proximity to the Flight Deck that we could feel the intensity of each take off and landing.

Our first taste came a top Vultures Row, an overlook with a vulture’s view of the Flight Deck. The wind was blowing incessantly, the temperature was dropping, and yet the grandiosity of the moment was enough to make me think that I could stand here forever.

Never before had I seen such amazing feats of technology and human orchestration, the Flight Deck functioned like a machine. Four planes quickly positioned at each Cat (catapult), shot off the carrier, and then replaced with four more.

Then F-18 after F-18 landing, sometimes barely catching a trap, coming to a complete stop, only to be replaced by a more recent counterpart 45 seconds later. To say that my adrenaline was pumping would be a huge understatement.

And then there was Freak Show, otherwise known as Samuel Kesler. After returning to the TV studio, Freak Show bounced in with a palpable effervescence and exuberance for his job. He was to be our guide as we journeyed out on to the unexplored frontier that was the Flight Deck. This former member of the circus, pilot, and now Shooter (essentially in charge or orchestrating operations on the Flight Deck), was a captivating individual with a personality and a half.

My fate was actually to venture up to the Bridge prior to journeying out on the Flight Deck, so our two groups went our separate ways for the time being. Up on the Bridge, the Captain proved to be a jovial spirit with a mountain of wisdom. He tried to explain the complicated procedures that went into the elaborate system behind the cats and traps, and while I learned a lot, I feel I could stand up on that vantage point for hours and still be fairly ignorant of the actual goings on. This isn’t child’s play.

I was shocked by the Captain’s humanness. He appeared to be just like any other individual, just with a 5,000 person liability in his hands. He let me sit atop his throne, in the Captain’s chair, and he even poised for pictures, and took shots of others himself. The whole crew on the Bridge was simply fantastic, especially the women who were pretty much in charge of navigating and steering the ship.

And I’ve gone and done it again, so many experiences to share and yet I must prolong the rest of the adventure for another day. Here’s a few more photos to keep you intrigued for more.

My favorite photo from the Flight Deck:

In the mist of it all:

*Vultures Row and Freak Show photos by Guy Kawasaki

Browse Timeline

• « Bloggers Embark, The Prelude

blog comments powered by Disqus