Greetings all,

On top of everything else, I’m fighting off a miserable cold, as everybody is pretty much sick ‘cause of all the new people bringing in Scottish germs… (sigh)

I did have a fun trip the other day though. Some engineers from the Iraqi Northern Arabian Gulf oil platforms were coming up for a visit so, rather than fly the helicopter back empty, a half-dozen of us got to ride down for a four-hour familiarization visit.

We took a British Sea King helicopter in the mid-morning, a bright sunny day with pretty good visibility. The earth below was brown and muddy for the most part. We flew across the Al Faw peninsula – which separates the Khor-az-Zubayr canal estuary (and site of Iraqs’ main port Umm Qasr) from the Shaat-al-Arab waterway, which drains the Tigris and Euphrates rivers into the Arabian Gulf. The border between Iran and Iraq runs part way up the SAA, so there are no ports there until you get up to Basrah.

Fifteen years ago, the Al Faw was like the silted up mouth of most rivers, covered with marshes, reeds and waterfowl. It is now a desert, like so many of the marshes in Iraq, destroyed by Saddam’s campaigns against the Shi’ia in the 1990s. I think the scale of that environmental catastrophe is still not understood in the West.

We landed on Dubuque, a dock landing ship stationed near the two oil pipeline terminals off the coast of Iraq. From there we took a small boat to the northern terminal for lunch. I’d forgotten what it was like to be back among sailors - gruff, scornful of Army land-lubbers, but friendly if reciprocated. And I’d also forgotten how wet and cold and dirty everything is at sea, particularly around oil platforms. Climbing into the boat I had the misfortune of sitting on the windward side of the boat aft, so I got the full salt spray into my face during the ride… (sigh)

After climbing up a rope ladder (not easy when wearing armor and carrying an M-16 and a day pack), we wandered around the barge and the GOPLAT, marveling at the construction of this steel and concrete platform in the midst of the sea. It was pretty beat up, with wreckage still lying about, it having been shelled and bombed by both sides during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.

I then hung about and talked to sailors in the N2 cell while everyone else went off the other oil platform. Which meant I took a RHIB – a smaller, semi-rigid boat – back to Dubuque in the afternoon. That took us by HMAS Warramunga, an Australian destroyer, which was serving on the patrol station with the other picket ships. I’ve attached a picture.

Got back to the LPD with a few minutes to spare, hopped on the helo and we were home before the chow hall closed. All in all a nice diversion, and despite the discomfort, it was oddly pleasing to be out on the water again.

Hope everyone has a nice Christmas weekend!

Fair Winds and Following Seas from a Brown Sand Box Sailor!