One of the best things about being in the Navy is that we got to
visit a lot of different countries. Some of the best ports visits
occurred when we went to the Caribbean in the winter. I recall
leaving Halifax harbour when it was below zero Fahrenheit and really
windy on the focs'le and two days later it was warm, sunny and 70
degrees. Then a few days later when we were in Caribbean waters it
often felt so hot when you left the air conditioned ship to go the
the upper deck that you slowly sucked the air because it felt like
it would burn your lungs.
One of my
favorite ports was the small Caribbean island of St Lucia.
This was my first exposure to people who were really poor. The
ship hired a local contract to paint the ship and the contractor
volunteered his crew to take the garbage out of the ship each day.
What we discovered was that he was paying his workers with the food
scraps he collected from the ships galley. In addition to left
over food this also contained table scraps from the plates were
often contained sailor's cigarette buts. In spite of
this the workers were happy to get their share at the end of the
day. This is somewhat understandable when you consider how poor
and desperate these people were. For example, shoes in the only shoe store in Castries,
the capital of St Luicia, sold for only 50 cents,
yet most people couldn't afford them and were barefoot.
OSFC Hutton in from of Gun
Sitting on an Anchor in Boston Harbour
OSFC Hutton
Relaxing in Eight Mess
Lisbon, Portugal
While serving on HMCS Assiniboine I got to serve in two NATO deployments.
Although this usually involved being away for six months at a time,
sailing with the NATO Squadron meant really great
port visits. Also Squadron staff always organise a number of
activities while in port. There were always brewery tours, beer ball
games and plenty of night time activities. While serving with the
NATO Squadron I visited ports like Amsterdam, Lisbon, Hamburg and
Rotterdam. I also recall transiting the Kiel canal which was quite
the experience given it was very narrow in places.
There were also interesting trips back in Canada. I recall one
summer we sailed North and visited a number of ports in northern
Quebec and in port visits in Hudson and James Bay. That Trip we
also
sailed into Frobisher Bay where we had to dodge a lot of ice to
visit what was then called the city of Frobisher Bay and is now
Iqaluit. On this trip we were one of the first ships to refuel
across the Arctic Circle. We all received a scroll for crossing the
Arctic Circle on that trip. This goes along with the one I received
for crossing the Equator the year before.
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)