Week 2 of CARR’s “Sunset Cruise 2012” – hugging the coast

CARR Families and Friends,

Family Readiness Group Note: All CARR friends and families are invited to a meet and greet potluck dinner on Thursday, June 14th 5-7pm at Mt. Trashmore Kids Cove in Virginia Beach. Request all attending bring a dish, dessert, or drinks to share. Please RSVP to usscarrfrg@gmail.com or on facebook OR on facebook: (www.facebook.com/USSCARRFRG) and include what item you will be bringing. If you are not sure what to bring, please contact the FRG and we will provide suggestions.

Day 3 – Sunday, June 3rd
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This morning we arrived in Mayport to onload our helicopter and Coast Guard detachment. Most of our Sailors had the opportunity to make it over to the NEX to get last minute items they forgot back in Norfolk.

Shortly after getting underway on Sunday afternoon, we conducted a precision anchorage for training and then headed south along the coast of Florida.

The Florida Current (known commonly as the Gulf Stream) pushes to the north, so we hugged the coast in order to minimize the current we had to overcome.

Day 4 – Monday, June 4th
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This morning we conducted a certification exercise with the Coast Guard and our helo detachment in order to conduct airborne use of force against drug boats. This certification involved exercising communications and validating that we understood the requirement to use force. Once complete, our assessor flew off and we continued south.

Today we handed out our deployment t-shirts; with everyone receiving two. Since it is going to be extremely hot down south, I am permitting everyone (except the Engineers who must wear fire retardant coveralls) to wear the t-shirt along with their NWU pants. The gray t-shirts have the ship’s crest on the front and a picture of CARR along with “Sunset Cruise 2012” on the back.

Great job to ET1 Casey Strom and ET3 Matthew Darby who quickly responded and fixed our communications circuit that we use to communicate with the helo. They immediately identified the fault and rapidly conducted repairs.

Day 5 – Tuesday, June 5th
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We continued our transit to the Caribbean, passing through the Old Bahama Channel. The Old Bahama Channel is a strait off the northern coast of and south of the Great Bahama Bank. It is approximately 100 miles long and 15 miles wide running between the Bahama Islands and Cuba. The narrowest portion of the Old Bahama Channel is between 22° and 23° North latitude, where its width rarely exceeds twelve miles. The Spanish colonial trade routes, which originally favored the Old Bahama Channel, shifted to the Straits of Florida (the New Bahama Channel) as it was a safer alternative. In the Old Bahama Channel, ship captains had to pick their way through the low lying cays and shoals of the southern Bahamas.

Day 6 – Wednesday, June 6th
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Great job to Auxiliaries Division who took on the task of replacing the filters in our reverse osmosis units (this is how we turn seawater into freshwater). BZ to EN1 Jason Woller, ENC David Boulter, CWO2 Dilson Ramirez, and EN3 Brian Sutton…although it sounds easy to change out a filter, this is a complicated task that took about 11 hours to complete. Immediately after completing the filter change out the entire crew benefited, we now are drinking clean and pure water that rivals any bottled water – Great job!

Day 7 – Thursday, June 7th
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Today we passed through the Windward Passage and passed Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as we headed south.

The Windward Passage is a strait in the Caribbean Sea nestled between the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). About 40Nm wide, the passage connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea and is the path most cargo ships take between the Panama Canal and the eastern seaboard of the United States.

For those of you who did not receive our updates last deployment, a little background on GTMO…The bay was called Guantánamo by its original inhabitants, the Taínos; however, Christopher Columbus landed in 1494 and renamed it Puerto Grande. When Spanish settlers took control of Cuba, the bay became a vital harbor on the south side of the island and was briefly known as Cumberland Bay when the British seized it in 1741. The naval base, nicknamed “GTMO” or “Gitmo”, covers about 45 square miles on the western and eastern banks of the bay. It was established in 1898, when the United States took control of Cuba from Spain following the Spanish-American War. A perpetual lease for the area around Guantánamo Bay was offered February 23, 1903, from Tomás Estrada Palma, the first President of Cuba. The newly formed American protectorate incorporated the Platt Amendment into the Cuban Constitution, which granted the United States “complete jurisdiction and control” of the Guantánamo Bay, while the Republic of Cuba is recognized to retain ultimate sovereignty.

In 1934 the Avery Porko treaty reaffirming the lease granted Cuba and its trading partners free access through the bay, modified the lease payment from $2,000 in U.S. gold coins per year to the 1934 equivalent value of $4,085 in U.S. dollars, and made the lease permanent unless both governments agreed to break it or until the U.S. abandoned the base property. After the Cuban Revolution, President Dwight Eisenhower insisted the status of the base remained unchanged despite Fidel Castro’s objections. Since then, the Cuban government has cashed only one of the rent checks from the U.S. government. The Cubans claim that the check was cashed by mistake. The remaining uncashed checks made out to “Treasurer General of the Republic” (a title that ceased to exist after the revolution) are kept in Castro’s office stuffed into a desk drawer. The United States argues that the cashing of the single check show’s the validity of the lease.

This afternoon we held a frocking ceremony on the flight deck; BZ to the following Sailors:

Our newest Petty Officers First Class:
IT1 Richard Freese CS1 Brian Cook             FC1 Adam Lemons
LS1 Daniel Shelton ET1 Casey Strom           OS1 Rafel Trice

Petty Officers Second Class:
OS2 Caleb Bryant FC2 Justin Campbell     DC2 Andy Fernandez
BM2 Travis Gardner FC2 Jacob Gonzales     EN2 Joseph Lawhorn
OS2 Quinton McDonald ET2 Corey Mink BM2 Matthew Mudderman
GSE2 Dale Robinson     OS2 George Walker       AE2 Eli Kerner

Petty Officers Third Class
GSM3 Mark Craddock CS3 Aaron Kinchen       EN3 Ryan Dahl
OS3 Matthew Lyons     EM3 Jeffery Farlow       EN3 Brian Sutton
OS3 Jonas Flesher   GSM3 Michael Vaughn LS3 DeWayne Gilkes
AD3 Ethan Wallis             YN3 Scott Hunt

Day 8 – Friday, June 8th
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Congratulations to CS3 Willie Martinez for his superior performance as galley captain from April to June 2012 – he was most deserving of recognition as Culinary Specialist of the Quarter. BZ also to LSSN Keith Green and GSMFN Tyler Manning for their outstanding performance as Food Service Attendants – congrats upon being selected as Food Service Attendant of the Month (June and May).

Once we passed south of Cuba we were diverted from our intended track due to bad weather ahead of us. Today we are headed around Jamaica – unfortunately there is no possibility of pulling in there. Wave heights and winds are definitely increasing…I continue to stress the importance of ensuring all items on CARR are secured for sea for both personal safety and to ensure we don’t break equipment.

This week we began a new recognition program in Engineering Department, Engineer of the Week. This week the recognition was earned by EN3 Joshua Young for outstanding performance in watchstanding and maintenance. He was awarded a $10 gift certificate to CARR’s store and a well deserved day off from watch-standing.

Day 9 – Saturday, June 9th
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We continued our transit to our operating area while battling the winds and seas. Although not the roughest seas we have ever encountered, their effect are exacerbated because the seas and winds are both pushing on our port beam. We have all had enough rolling around and are ready to get into some better waters –  hopefully tomorrow.

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Jessica Meissner           OMBUDSMAN
April Linton               Co-OMBUDSMAN
Jackie Lease               FRG President

Please join CARR along with our OMBUDSMAN and Family Readiness Group:

CARR
https://www.facebook.com/FFG52
OMBUDSMAN
http://www.facebook.com/pages/USS-CARR-
ombudsman/219688138070847?sk=wall
CARR Family Readiness Group
www.facebook.com/USSCARRFRG

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Until next Sunday, stay safe CARR Family and Friends!

CDR Patrick Kulakowski
Commanding Officer
USS CARR (FFG 52)
“Courage, Will, Determination”