‘Dry Dock Karma’

It’s hard to fancy in this day and age that sea going ships are still dry dock’n and refurbish’n the same way they were a  hundred years ago! ‘Back in the days of Yore’… before ‘Noah and the Ark’… ships were hauled into these strange contraptions and emptied of their aquatic contents only to leave the big hull sitt’n on a couple of snatch blocks at the bottom of a giant emptied pool!!!

Dry Dock is a damned dirty place and one hell of a way to waste some time doing nothing. The ship’s got holes in the hull with cables runn’n in every which direction, welding cables (I’ll get to that one), thousands of tags hang’n in every overhead, nick and cranny, and the ‘yardbirds’…  wretched, sorry sons-a-bitches running left to right over taking the whole gaudamned place…

The C.O.C. has noth’n better to do than assign a bunch of retarded watches to keep the ‘crackerjack’ ranks from think’n up too much stupid shit to get themselves into… A horrible situation that would suck the life outta you if you didn’t take it all in stride!!!
I remember my first Dry Dock, USS Steadfast, on the ol’ Baglady in the summer of 89’… Mostly remember one of my shipmates had a wife work’n onboard and she was quite a looker… nobody could keep their damned eyes off of her… she was a true knock out… cause that’s what her husband would do if you stared too gaudamned long!! I also remember a fire in the middle of the gaudamned night…

“Dinga linga linga linga ling… Ding! Fire, Fire, Fire… Fire in the cruise lounge… forward… portside!!”

I remember Mark Niehoff runn’n down the p-way like a madman at 0200 hours in the morning in his skivvies try’n to put out a gaudamned electrical fire in the door between the cruise lounge and the forward berthing compartment… no thanks to a welding cable gett’n crimped into the hatch with over a thousand amps runn’n through it!! Niehoff didn’t even get so much as a pat on the back for his troubles… these days you’d get a Navy Commendation Medal for that shit!!!

But so is the way it was back then…

Then was my second ship… the mighty Carrier USS ‘Chucky “V”… Yep, that’s the one Osama Bin Laden was sent to Davey Jones Locker from… I spent my first two years onboard in a Complex Overhaul from 91 to 93’. It was time for this bird farm of massive oxidation to do some time on the blocks in the ol’ Dry Dock…

It was a pretty cool proposition watching one of the biggest gaudamned pieces of steel ever built sitt’n in one of the largest dry docks in the world… watch’n the enormous screws… “hock’n a loogie” over the flight deck and watch it all the way down… ‘splatt’ into the rust filled pit below… steal’n air hoses, needle guns and knuckle busters from yardbirds leaving them lay’n around…

Yep, this was a different kind’a dry dock period… Right in the middle of the restricted area of Penis Anus Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington… a true wonderland of repair shops, supply distribution points, stores, crates, hoists, cranes, cut up ‘Cold War’ submarines, you name it…

This place was a scavenger’s paradise for cumshaw agents of wholesale misappropriations where it’s better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission…

We came up with everything from freshly minted air tools, paint thinner, rust inhibitors with names we couldn’t pronounce to placards with the name ‘USS Nimitz’ printed in big bold letters on the side… wonder if those sons-a-bitches are still look’n for that stuff!!!   
The U.S. military just got done kick’n Sadam Hussein’s ass all over the Mideast and we were busy lay’n up our systems cause we knew we’d be hang’n around for a while…

Knock’n off ships work by 1200 hours everyday liv’n for Thursday Zone Inspections and late night libations with the local Bremeloes… unless your ass was in Fire Watch Division your lack of usefulness made for a complete absence of any gaudamned common sense…
My buddy Shawn Mitchell was ‘Fire Watch’… he told me about how the sons-a-bitches would be doing hot work on one side of a bulkhead while he’d be twiddling his thumbs on the other read’n some nudie magazines forever and a day staring at the gaudamned bulkhead before he’d realized the hot work had been over three or four hours and no one let ‘em know they were finished!!!

 Meanwhile Chief walks into one of the working spaces with an open void and no gas free chit only to find an empty six pack of Rainier’s finest and a nasty puddle of piss in the far corner… what else were them pipefitters good for!?!?

If we didn’t wanna get caught doing nothing… then off to the Gaffey to waste our time… the Gaffey was an old Army Rust Bucket of a ship we used for temporary office and living space while the ‘Chucky’ was on blocks… we usually found some quite dark corner to sleep our day away so we could party all night!!!

When Chief would come look’n for us,

“Where the hell you sons-a-bitches been all gaudamned day!!!”

We’d give him that shit eating grin,

“Sorry Chief, we were down at the mobile blood unit by the NEX donating to the cause…”

Of course Chief would replie,

“You sorry asses try’n to dilute the blood supply with 180 proof plasma? Sorry sons-a-bitches get back to work!!!”

But nothing was ever more memorable than walk’n in on the little feller in the AIMD berthing head yank’n his tally wacker like no tomorrow… brought on a whole new meaning to ‘turn’n Japanese’…

Years later… things still hadn’t changed. Spent a couple of Ship Restricted Availabilities at Todd Shipyard in Seattle. On my last one pulling in on the ‘Mighty Momsen’ we heaved our lines over to the pier right about 1600 hours and the shipyard whistle blew… ‘HONNNNNK!!!’

Next thing we knew everyone of them sorry bastards dropped the lines right on the deck of the pier and commenced to walking off while we stood there with our proverbial ‘dicks in our hands’… The shift lead had to come runn’n back out scream’n and hollering,

“Get back on the lines you all get overtime… you all get overtime!!!”

Found out later it was the whole gaudamned Union thing causing the debacle… Couldn’t give a shit less if we tide up to the pier or not… guess that’s what I get for cumshaw’n all those air hoses and chip’n hammers all those years ago!!!

Karma’s a Bitch…