| Letters and Diary Non-Fiction posted January 12, 2025 |
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Trans-Pacific Cruise 1974
Captain's Log
by Tom Horonzy
Location: North Island
Coronado, California
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Ship: USS Barbour County
Ship: USS Barbour County
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Midshipman Summer Cruise 1974
Midshipman Summer Cruise 1974
The toot of a bosun’s pipe announced the Captain's arrival and marked the end of leave. It was also the beginning of a Midshipman's Cruise across Earth's biggest pond - The Pacific. The crew's duty was to instill into America's future officers sea legs while enroute to exotic ports of call, including Pearl Harbor, Yokosuka, Subic Bay, and Hong Kong.
During the voyage, all uninitiated pollywogs are sponsored by certificate holders to become Golden Shellbacks, which, in nautical terms is when an inexperienced tar becomes an experienced deckhand by crossing the equator and international dateline simultaneously. The day is celebrated by course and rabid hazing spiced with friendly frivolity as the ship makes the aforementioned crossing.
The gangplank was hoisted by a davit and secured in place. Hawsers were released to the piers. Tugs assist Barbour's release from the shore. Waters aftward begin to roil as propellers turn and churn the soup. Slowly, 'she,' the endeared term sailors use for ships, drifts from the dock, veering starboard towards the great unknown, for once the harbor is cleared and the shoreline vanishes, the view becomes endless. Water is everywhere. Its depth is as deep as the view is far.
The gangplank was hoisted by a davit and secured in place. Hawsers were released to the piers. Tugs assist Barbour's release from the shore. Waters aftward begin to roil as propellers turn and churn the soup. Slowly, 'she,' the endeared term sailors use for ships, drifts from the dock, veering starboard towards the great unknown, for once the harbor is cleared and the shoreline vanishes, the view becomes endless. Water is everywhere. Its depth is as deep as the view is far.
The essence of the sea is unfathomable; a mystery in every voyage. It can be as soothing as silk sheets. As reflective as a mirror until a breeze fractures its surface. Within hours, simple wavelets can evolve into uncontrolled mayhem like a woman scorned. Her peaceful complexion replaced by towering waves, burrowing brows, and uncontrolled ringlets driven beneath hurricane winds. Combers can become so unimaginably large that only the most deranged, drug-induced doggies can imagine themselves hanging ten inside the tubes of such gnarly pipelines.
Time and again, even a naval warship can be buried under tons of crashing waves, causing sailors aboard to turn unflagging hope into frantic prayer, pleading the sea return the vessel to the surface instead of swallowing them as a shark would a seal.
Many a ship has been torn to pieces so small that even their existence can be questioned. Then, as suddenly as the tempest arrives, peace reigns allowing shipmates to revel in the maelstrom’s passing and a smooth sail.
Marvels I've witnessed at sea include porpoises cutting to and fro in front of the bow of a ship speeding at fifteen knots as effortlessly as fluffy white clouds passing overhead. I marveled at how an albatross could glide behind and above the wake of a ship endlessly while flying fish skipped white cap to white cap like stones thrown by a young lad's hand. At night, as the boat sails atop vantablack waters, shedding an ethereal bioluminescence off its hull like diamonds or glow sticks gleaming in the darkness of a dark Amazonian forest.
Once a sailor, always a sailor. Visits to foreign ports were year-round Christmas presents in varied languages. I have been ashore in Rio, Barcelona, Rome, and Cannes, where I understood what was said better than in Boston and the Bronx.
I am glad to have sailed three grand bodies of water, the Atlantics, the Pacifics, and the Med. The spirits adventured still stirs my soul as a swizzle stick stirs a martini.
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I was a Squid for ten years, and the experiences gained live today as the day they occurred. Forever grateful for the wins and losses. Anchor Aweigh still makes me tear.
The photos are my own. A couple are from another cruise while temporarily assigned to the Coast Guard.
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and 2 member cents. The photos are my own. A couple are from another cruise while temporarily assigned to the Coast Guard.
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© Copyright 2025. Tom Horonzy All rights reserved.
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