Traveling the High Seas to Thailand

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Traveling the High Seas to Thailand

Who would have ever thought that a girl from a little town in New Jersey would get to live halfway around the world, travel to numerous countries, meet great friends, and get paid for it? How great is my job?!

As the title of this entry elludes to, I was on a ship in Thailand. I was deployed out there for a joint exercise with the Thai military called Cobra Gold. Unfortunately, my job had me placed on a ship vice going to work on land. So while others went ashore and chewed a bit of dirt, I was monitoring their movements and activities from the ship. I wasn't too bummed about it though since I ended up getting 4 days of R&R in Thailand.

While on ship, I kept myself busy with work of course, but I was also able to find several fun things to do in my spare time.

The weather in Thailand was very, very humid and the actual temperature averaged around the mid 80s. I took to working in the mornings in my stateroom, and then spent part of the afternoon topside outside the ship. I took my camp stool outside, propped it up on the deck, brought out a book to read, and relaxed. Sometimes I took a little snooze as well! I also did some calesthenics to work up a sweat and stay in shape. I had a rather nice view from the ship and could look out and see Thailand's coast. Some days it was very tempting to just imagine jumping into the water and heading for shore.

In the evenings I went topside as well. My friends and I would prop up our camps tools, sit around, and talk about just random things. It's a good way to relax after being crammed in a tin can all day. A few nights while out on the open ocean I used these huge binoculars called "Big Eyes" to check out the small fishing boats in the area and also check out the moon. It was awesome looking at the moon. Since there was no haze or smog to block my view of the moon, I was able to see it's craters and detailed features. Very, very awesome! There were also nights when we were sailing on the water that is was absolutely pitch black when stepping outside the ship. It would take me about 20 minutes to have my eyes adjust to where I could see things. The stars were incredible on these nights and I'd just sit there and enjoy them (lots of shooting stars).

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/kdupak/60MilesFromPhilippinesInSouthChinaSea?feat=directlink

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