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| On a quiet afternoon I can sit on the
porch, close my eyes and hear those screw counts, the hiss of control valves,
the muffled words of young guys now grown old and those six-plus seas trying
to keep us from doing so. But the best sounds were those "soundings" that
grew more and more shallow over the break of the continental shelf followed
by "Chief of the watch, on the 1MC: Surface, Surface, Surface" - then:
"The upper hatch is cracked. Permission to open the upper hatch".
...and what about smells? The combination of land smells and that lovely iodine smell of the sea as fresh air sweeps through the boat with everyone getting hyper and the cranks putting on one of their Rolling Stones, Beach Boys or Herb Alpert tapes and two-blocking the volume control and that crazy stew burner boogyin' out of the galley doing his little bump-n-grind between the tables as we all sat ready to go up in our foul weather gear and harnesses, legs stretched out on benchseats and all the older dudes, just a-grinnin' and not even caring if it's "Jumpin Jack Flash", "California Girls" or "Tijuana Taxi" peeling the formica off the crews mess. Hey baby - next stop, NavWepSta, Goose Creek... We goin' home. |
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| Sid Harrison ETCM(SS) USN(Ret) | |||
