America Home of the Free

The Navy is steeped in tradition and one tradition which is almost spiritual to watch is when the flag is raised each day at 8am and then when it is lowered each evening at sunset. The sailor who is in charge of this duty dresses in his/her best whites in respect for our flag and our amazing country, The United States of America. I sat in silent wonder as our flag was raised one morning and to add to the moment the sailor who raised the flag, HM2 Smith was a good friend of mine whom I worked with in the operating room. I am grateful to be an American and am grateful for the men and women who serve in the Armed Forces who leave their families and sacrifice so much for our freedom. We should never lose sight of this precious freedom that we have and always remember that our country was established by God fearing men who loved the Lord and wanted America to be free. We are truly blessed!

Soya Atos

We were given one day of liberty in Ambon and I wanted to do something off the beaten path so one day when the internet was my friend I looked up Ambon and came across a place that looked interesting – Soya Atos. I did not want to venture there without someone who spoke the language so I invited 3 of the Indonesian interpreters to go with us. We had an amazing experience. Soya is located on Mt. Sirimau and the roads up were very steep and windy. The drive itself was an adventure. We rolled all the windows down and just enjoyed the breeze and the scenery. I loved waving to everyone and seeing the smiles we got in return. The mountain town was so calm and peaceful compared to the chaos of the big city below. They told us that there are 2 million people who live on the island of Ambon.

The road ends at the city limits of Soya. There I was so grateful to have Indonesian speaking people with us as no one knew English. V was the most assertive of our interpreters and she took care of asking if we could walk up to the baileo, or ritual meeting place and the sacred urn. One the the men in the village agreed to be our guide. He told us that the walk was 600 meters up these stairs. We were like – stairs no problem as that is all we do on the ship is walk up and down stairs. Well this was quite a hike up old stairs that were covered with moss. They rose up through the rainforest with trees on either side. There were tons of fruit trees on either side of the stairs. Mango was the only fruit that I was familiar with as they named off the names of the fruit trees.

The stairs wound all up the mountain and it was fun to keep moving upward. There were creepy spiders along the edge. I don't think I would want to wander off into that forest as who know what kind of bugs and snakes lurked in there. Eventually we got to a locked gate which our guide opened for us. Then the stairs got narrower and steeper as we continued to climb. At the top were some stone remnants of a “temple” where we could stand and overlook the bay below. The view was amazing and it was super cool to be up in the middle of a rainforest overlooking the sea in the middle of nowhere. I heard one of our group say that if they did nothing else on this trip this was would have been enough. I was so glad that it turned out a great place to visit as I really had no idea. I really do like to go off the beaten path. I don't think any American's had been there in a long time.

I noticed another small set of stairs going up into a small cove. I asked V to ask the gentleman where those stairs went. He said that he would take us up, but that we had to get in order of oldest to youngest. I looked around and thought surely I am not the oldest, but alas I was and so I was the first one that climbed up this small stone stairway. Our guide went up first to the “Sacred Urn”.   The legend has it that it never is empty that there is always water in it and that the water has healing powers. There was a “cup” of sorts resting on a plate that covered the top of the urn. The cup looked kind of like a coconut shell, but only thinner and more pointy. He dipped this cup into the urn and handed it to me. I took it and immediately looked back at the group and said, “There is no way I am going to drink this water” He then motioned for me to dip my fingers in the cup and rub the water on myself. I did so, but left out any chanting or praying that I'm sure the locals do when performing this ritual. It was kinda cool to be involved in something that was special to this little town. Our group was very respectful of this place that was sacred to this people. After everyone had approached the Urn we were then asked to form a line youngest to oldest and that is how we descended the mountain. The whole experience was so unique and I felt like I had stepped back in time. I loved being a part of something cultural and special to the people of Soya Atos.

The Soeharso – the Indonesian Hospital Ship

There was the reception on the Indonesian ship Soeharso that only 25 people from the Mercy were invited to. Each NGO and partner nation were to send one representative from their group and I was asked to go for LDSC. All the Navy personnel wore their “whites” and the NGO personnel were to wear their uniform – which consists of a blue collared LDSC shirt and khaki pants. To say the least I was very under dressed for this occasion. I may burn my shirt and pants when I get home.  It was fun to see all the different military uniforms from many different countries that attended this reception. We took the Band-aid boat to the pier and then we boarded cars to drive to the Soeharso that was docked at another pier. There were tons of policemen all around the ship for protection as the party was attended by a lot of big Indonesian officials. The Indonesian military wives were dressed in beautiful long Indonesian style dresses. My hiking boots just did not cut it. Ironically all 3 of the other representatives from the other NGO groups all worked in the OR so I knew them well and had someone to pal around with. We mingled with the Indonesian people. The Indonesians that we spoke with wanted to try their English out on us. It was fun to talk with them. The reception was held on the flight deck of Soeharso and at the back of the flight deck we saw a group of people congregated so we walked back to see what was going on. There was a table full of a fruit called, durian fruit. It is a fruit that smells really bad – hence they had it far away from the reception, but it is a favorite fruit of the Indonesian people. It is a huge fruit that is about 3 x as big as a grapefruit and with painful spikes on the outside. It is hard to pick up without getting hurt. Durian fruit grows on very tall trees and should never picked from a tree, but should be allowed to fall to the ground and then it would be ready to eat. The skin is tough and a knife is needed to make a cut in the spiny skin to get to the fruit inside. The inside is separated into sections that are full of these “fatty - sticky like” large seeds. The ministry of Health of Indonesia was out at the table with us and he was trying to show me how to eat it. The idea is to eat the meat around the seed and then spit out the large seed. The seed is about 1 ½ inch long by ¾ inch. Well it was all I could do to not spit out the fruit the minute it hit my mouth. The texture made me gag, but here I was standing next to their Ministry of Health and I wanted to be respectful and experience this new fruit so I had to eat all the fruit around my seed. I smiled a lot and tried not to gag too much and cleaned off as much of the fruit as I could before dutifully spiting out the seed. He encouraged me to get another bite – but there was no way I could stomach any more of that. They even had a wash station to wash your hands so your hands could not stink like durian fruit. That was probably the most memorable event of the whole evening. They say that the smell of Durian will stay on your hands for 3 days. I still can taste durian a day later on my tongue. I believe durian is an acquired taste and my palate just has not arrived yet.

The Bridge

My father has always taught me the importance of networking and meeting new people. I have tried to meet and make friends with as many people as possible on this trip. It has made this experience so much better by doing so. Friends really enrich our lives. One of my boson friends introduced me to the Chief Navigator of the ship and he took Michelle and I on a tour of the Bridge the night after our Navy concert. I really wanted to see the Bridge as it is behind the “red” lines that we cannot cross. The Bridge is located at the highest point forward on the ship. The view is amazing! The Navigator showed us all the GPS's, maps, steering consoles, and cool computer planning screens. He showed us the course the Mercy had taken around the islands of Indonesia and our projected path to Australia. He showed us charts with sea depths on them, that helped him to keep the Mercy a safe distance from shallow water. Navigating takes a lot of math and time. It is a very complicated job.

 The navigators work 4 hour shifts then are off for 8 hours then on for 4. On the starboard side on the deck is this huge, 12 inch in diameter or so, beautiful lit up compass that is checked every 30-60 is checked against fixed points on the shore to make sure the ship is still where it needs to be in the harbor.

He has to calculate where the anchor is and then the length of the anchor and the length of the ship to make sure that when the tide and current moves the ship some that it would not get into shallow water. It was all very interesting to learn and it was amazing of what the navigator job entails. Modern GPS's, paper topical maps, and old time compasses are used just to make sure everything was correct. There is no room for error. Next to the compass is this gigantic pair of binoculars when I looked out them I could see details of houses on the shore. These are used to find the fixed points on the shore to make the calculations needed to anchor the ship and to make sure it stays where it should. Very very fun! Michelle and I were giddy like school girls after our private tour of the Bridge. This was a perfect ending to a totally fun night. It could not have been better!

Dancing with the Commodore

Wednesday evening I was able to go to a Navy Band concert right in the heart of Ambon. It was organized as a ComServ – which are activities put together by out good chaplain and his staff - so all our transportation and security were taken care of. There were about 40 of us that went. Once we arrived at the pier we boarded buses to go into the mall in town. I was anxious to see the town as we drove so I headed straight for the front seat. The bus had no “nose” or engine in front so when you are sitting in front you can see everything as the whole front of the bus is a huge windshield. I sat right next to the driver. I was surprised how much bigger and more metropolitan Ambon is compared to Ternate. We drove on narrow, winding streets as we headed into the city center. Our bus driver was an aggressive driver who used his horn a lot. I seem to get these kinds of drivers here. The streets were littered with trishaws, young boys and men cycling passengers off to their destinations. I was sure our windshield would soon be splattered with trishaw drivers as our bus driver was not timid about moving forward. It was like honk the horn and step on the gas. We seemed to drive a long time – well over an hour and we were still not at our destination. As I was next to our driver I could tell that he was a bit nervous and kept using his phone. Finally we pulled to the side of the road and we thought we had arrived, but instead our driver jumped out and left us. He had gotten lost and had gone to ask directions. It did not matter to me about being lost as we had gotten to see a whole lot of the city. The drive was really quite fun. Our driver did return and we started off again. He turned down this road that was a one way street and traffic in all lanes was coming straight for us. The traffic here consists of motorcycles and taxi vans pretty much like Ternate. They were coming at us fast and by this time it was dark and all we got to see were headlights. This did not bother the bus driver one bit. He would not let something as small as a one way street deter him from his goal of getting us to the concert. Since I had a front row seat to the ongoing traffic and elderly pedestrians that we were so close to squishing on the side of the road, it was quite a scene. The horn on the bus and our imposing size pulled us through until we got to the end of the road. There is one thing about going the wrong direction on a one way street – there is no going back – you've just got to find the end as soon as possible and get off when you can. Uturns are out of the question for a huge bus on very skinny roads. There were all sorts of people out for evening strolls and they were walking on the side of the road with a small ditch separating them from where the houses were. I was sure the mirrors on the bus that stuck out super far were going to hit them and knock them into the ditch. I held my breath a couple times. After we turned from the on-way street we could see the spot-lights in the sky which marked the band concert.

The Navy band was surprisingly good. It was pretty different for me to see this “rock band” up singing with their Navy whites on. The outfits definitely did not match their music. Our seats were back from the band with that wide open space in front of us. The leader of the ComServ, RP1 Snow, got up and started dancing. I did not want to miss out so I got up right along with her and about 12 others and started dancing with the music. I kept motioning to my group to get up and come along and dance, but no one would get up. Oh well. We had a great time and I got to get some great pictures of the crowd as we were right next to them, of course separated by a fence with armed policemen near the fence. Finally my Georgia friend, Linda, got up and started dancing with me and then Michelle came out. We just laughed and laughed. The commodore was there with the Ministry of Tourism and Miss Ambon and they all came out to dance with us. The ministry of Ambon gave the Commodore & I sashes and then Commodore Franchetti and I danced together.
 

 
It was so much fun. In the end I was dancing with all the Indonesian women who were the dignitaries. It was hysterical. I was super sweaty, but had had a great time. This was quite an event, venders were selling glow in the dark toys for the kids and food was sold in carts along the side. There were probably about 1500-2000 people at this concert. At the end the police made a barricade so we could get through the crowd to our bus. I felt like a movie star with my newly acquired sash on as we walked through this break as the throng of people crowded around us to get back to our buses.

Donations by Latter-Day Saint Charities

I often like to go exploring the ship and am always finding new places that I have not been. This week Kaye and I were wandering the ship and we found pallets and pallets of boxes donated by Latter-day Saint Charities. They were labeled hygiene kits, school kits, surgical supplies, medical supplies. We found these pallets full of boxes on 2 different floors. They sported the same logo as we have on our shirts.

Donated Pallets of Supplies by Latter-Day Saint Charities

It was especially cool to see the boxes labeled hygiene kits and school kits as I have personally been involved in creating these kits. I felt a touch of home as we saw these. To be a part of a experience that we are able to share these items, that are lovingly put together by LDS members back in the states, is pretty cool. So keep serving and get involved. Know that these kits are being put to use and are appreciated by the Indonesian people. I worked the Scullery again tonight and I worked along side one of the supply officers. He told me that the Pacific Partnership had a finite budget and that it was running out of certain medical supplies and then the LDS church stood up and said “What do you need?” and they filled the gaps by sending more supplies to the Mercy. He said it was amazing the amount of supplies that they had donated by them. He was very impressed and complimentary of the LDS church.

I was able to visit the Optometry lab and got a great tour of how they were making glasses. They cut all their own lenses and have glasses of many strengths all done when the go ashore to do MedCaps. They have given out thousands of pairs of glasses on this excursion, 6,000 were given out in Ternate alone. From distance lenses to reading glasses. That 's a lot of lenses to cut! The sailor working there picked up a really thick lens and let us hold it up to look through and you could see a whole person's face in this small lens. It reminded me that life is all about perspective. It's our choice how we view life. I have found it interesting that some people may grumble or complaine about life, but in the end if we keep a proper perspective and keep in mind the big picture then our lives can be a lot better. I try to remember this each night as I crawl into my miniscule bunk to go to sleep. It's all about the experience and complaining about my bed won't make it any bigger or fluffier so I just do my best to roll over without hitting the wall or falling off and go to sleep!

The Engine Room

July 25, 2010

Today our group leaders arranged for us to have a private tour of the Engine Room. We spent the next hour exploring the bowels of the ship. The Mercy, and it's sister ship the Comfort, were commissioned by Congress in the 1976 when the hospital ship used in the Vietnam war was old and needed to be replaced. The Mercy was created from an old oil tanker. This was more cost effective than building a ship from the ground up. All the work was done in San Diego and was not finished til the early 1990's. The oil tanker, SS Worth, was gutted except for the engine parts and then the hospital modules and all the berthing areas were built on shore and then placed in the existing compartments. It is 894 feet long and 105 feet abreast. The tour was super cool, but very hot and loud. We all had our ear plugs. Some of the rooms were over 118 degrees. We even got to see the rod that the propeller is attached to. I really enjoyed this tour as I love to explore and experience new things. He gave us some stats that were interesting. The fuel for this trip cost $8,000,000 and the whole humanitarian project is costing $25,000,000. The Mercy's fuel tanks hold over 1 million gallons of diesel fuel and 789 barrels of Jet fuel. The ship actually runs on steam, and the diesel fuel runs the compression engine that creates steam with powers the ship. The ship distills it's own potable water through distilling sea water. They heat the sea water until steam is formed and then put it into a vacuum and the fresh water is taken from the steam and then the extra salty left over water not distilled is then put back into the ocean. The ship consumes 60,000 gallons of water each day and the boiler alone uses 7,000 gallons of water each day. The ship holds 356,000 gallons of fresh water. The ship has two separate piping systems for water. All the toilets use sea water and those pipes are 3 times as thick as the regular pipes and were designed for sea water. The other pipes have all the “gray” water from the showers, washing machines, dishwashers, sinks and this water can be put back into the sea as long as they are a certain distance from the shore. This ship fastest speed is 18 knots and it would take it 3 miles to stop if going at full speed. The Engineer said that we usually travel about 14 knots.

Meg Ferguson my LDSC Friend

This turbine turns the propeller.

 

Me with my "Dora the Explorer" Backpack