Picnicing on a Steel Beach

            I hadn’t been topside in days.

            Work had kept me down. Transferring from troubleshooting my radar equipment to working in the galley as a crank (or to be politically correct “Food Service Attendent”) had kept me busy. Not to say I hadn’t had downtime –I had, but I had better uses for it than seeing the sun.

            But as we sat on the mess decks watching Anchorman 2, waiting for our next tasking, the Commanding Officer comes over the 1MC:

            “Good afternoon! It is a beautiful day outside today – and I mean it this time, unlike yesterday when it turned out to be overcast and cold! Well, we have Jose and Bulldog in the water and we’re about to race them against the ship. Come on topside and see which is fast. C.O. Out.”

            We glanced at eachother briefly. There was an unsaid thought that passed between all the cranks on the messdecks. Then we popped up, turned to CS1 and peaced-out. We half-walked, half-ran down the passageway to the flight deck. We were excited for the chance to watch a big ass destroyer go up against two little motorboats in the middle of the sea.

            The sun glimmered on the water – it was so blue! A deep, cobalt blue. A few fluffy clouds floated about the sky, and a light breeze settled over the ship. It was gorgeous. I had been so used to the weather over our last two months of patrol, that I hadn’t even considered the outside could be so nice. It had been rainy, cold, and windy all the other times I had ventured out.

            I leaned against the torpedo tubes and watched as the rhibs dashed across the water and left over waves larger than they were. Then the CO popped on and shouted for them to get to their marks, to get set, and GO!

            The rhibs took off, Jose in the lead. Their passengers clung to anything they could grab ahold of. We sat there.

            I looked to my friend in question and she just shrugged. Then the stacks spouted a puff of white smoke. The ship vibrated.

            We were about to go into warp.

            We began to move.

            Slowly. Ever so very slowly.

            The engines whirred. The rhibs were so far ahead of us. We could see them looking back, wondering if we had forgotten that we were also in the race.

            But we gained speed. We gained and gained until the whoops and hollars of the gawkers could no longer be heard over the hum of the engines and the roar of the wind. We gained on them. We kept on gaining until we were side by side. Then we were gone, left them in our wake.

            Our gorgeously azure wake.

            The CO announced our win and the ship came to a stop. Everyone was laughing and resumed their games and lounging. A football was being tossed around on the missile deck, meanwhile another football was being tossed between the rhibs. At one point it was fumbled into the water and we enjoyed countless minutes of watching them attempt to recover it.

            This slid seamlessly in with the picnic the First Class Petty Officers were throwing for us on the flight deck. Music was playing as the smell of barbequing drifted across the weatherdecks. People were out lounging, playing, and dancing in their civilian gym clothes. Tanks, shorts, leggings. It was all good. We sat crosslegged on the deck as we ate off paper plates to our fill.

            Fishing poles were cast off the back as people leaned against the safety lines and smoked what they had – vapes, cigarettes, cigars. It was a great day. The entire ship came out to enjoy a beautiful day together. We sat in large circles on the ground, officer, enlisted and Midshipmen. We danced the cha cha and watched as our Command Master Chief did the nay-nay.

            It’s days like this that you look out to the horizon, to that place where the sky meets the sea, and you have to say, “this is why I joined.” There are shit days. Every job has shit days. There are shit bosses, shit months, shit tasks. But then there’s a nice day where you can laugh with your friends in the sunshine, eat a hotdog made for you by someone higher ranking than you, and just be okay with the world.