The Sentinel, Second Cruise 210323

       My first cruise was fun and exciting with all the new things I learned about shipboard life and fixing aircraft components and launching planes. There were new places to visit overseas. I was new in the squadron and had a lot of old hands to meet.

       By the time the second cruise rolled around I was a seasoned shipboard sailor heading back into the same places and by that time we had our daughter Annie, so instead of me going to miss one person, now I had 2 for me to miss seeing. The cruise was going to be a long one and there weren’t going to be new people to meet or new equipment problems that I had yet to solve.

      I remember the morning well. The lines were pulled in from the carrier pier on North Island; the tugs pulled in and began pushing the ship away from the pier. The water turned from the blue of the bay to a muddy brown from the ship dredging up mud as the tugs pushed it away sideways from the pier. Once out in the bay the ships propellers took over and we turned about and started moving around North Island as we headed for the open seas.

      The picture below shows the roundown I write about just below the picture. Look at that red stripe that is at the aft end of the flight deck. That is where I sat as I watched San Diego and the USA fade into the distance.

       I headed up to the aft of the flight deck and then sat on the round down (the farthest point aft on the flight deck. The steel plate there is curved downward and it was a good place to sit and watch San Diego fade into the distance.) The view was great as long as I didn’t look down and see that if I slid off it was about an 80 foot drop into a boiling cauldron caused by the 4 massive propellors as we left on a long cruise. Far too soon North Island faded away about 15 miles out so I changed my view to the light house on Point Loma. The sadness increased as that left my view and all that was left was a long cruise before I saw San Diego and Joyce and Annie again.