‘Everybody’s saying goodbye’
July 9th, 2009 | Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
ABOARD THE AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIP MAKIN ISLAND — I’m writing this from a catwalk just below the flight deck on the starboard side, where 20 or 30 sailors are seated in pajamas or workout clothes, finishing last cell phone conversations with boyfriends, girlfriends, wives, children, aunts, etc. It’s a scene Jan Chipchase would appreciate: people with no personal space of their own inside the ship, creating invisible bubbles to communicate with loved ones.
We walked down this catwalk earlier after a quick spin around the ship and the Makin Island’s spokeswoman, Ensign Lauryn Dempsey, explained that cell phone reception is poor below decks, but to keep sailors from wandering and talking on the flight deck, or the hangar bay, the ship had set aside the starboard catwalk as an authorized place to use cell phones.
“Everybody’s saying goodbye,” she said.
Tomorrow morning this ship and its crew, which have spent eight years here in the yard and endured a hurricane, labor problems, and extensive re-work of the electrical system, will finally leave for good. Everyone is tired of the undergarment-saturating humidity and the choice of two liberty options in Pascagoula: Wal-Mart and B-W3’s.
Live blogging from the Makin Island will probably be secured after this post; once we get out into the ocean, Scoop Deck’s Sprint wireless card will be out of range. Tomorrow the crew will man the rails in their dress whites — Chris will be snapping away — and the job of getting this monster underway will probably make it too hectic to blog anyway.
I did want to describe how it’s supposed to happen, though: Makin Island’s bow is now pointed upriver, away from the way out to sea. In the morning two tugs will pull us out into the channel, now a glittering river of ink behind me, spin the ship around and point us out to the Gulf of Mexico.
A firey orange moon, big as a tea tray, is rising behind me over the river, and there’s a warm, muggy wind blowing over the deck from the gulf. A voice just came over the 1-MC announcing taps.
