Fish Out of Water

This morning USS BLUE RIDGE, Flagship of the U.S. Navy 7th Fleet, got underway from Pier 12 in Yokosuka, Japan. On past similar occasions I'm usually standing on the deck or the bridge wing taking pictures of the pier and harbor as they recede into the distance. In this novel view, BLUE RIDGE herself recedes as I photograph from the pier.

Watching your daily workplace and frequent home away from home take off without you makes for a strange feeling, like missing a plane or train to a new destination. Some of my friends and shipmates will not set foot on this ship again, for soon they will soar off into the distance to a new Navy life adventure. For them, this view may be all the more poignant. One can barely fathom the memories and experiences left behind on that haze gray floating edifice after a two to three year tour on the Fleet Staff.


But for most of us, it's only a temporary separation. The mighty BLUE RIDGE will simply transit a few hundred yards to its new berth, an imposing dry dock at Yokosuka Naval Base. There the ship will undergo DSRA, or Dry-Docking Selected Restricted Availability.


During this phase of her life, the 40+ year old veteran of the Western Pacific makes herself available for repair, rehabilitation, refurbishment, upgrading, and other maintenance intended to extend her life expectancy. This would be analogous to taking scheduled time off from work for a facelift or liver transplant. (A more effective air conditioning conduit for the Fleet Surgeon's stateroom is in the plan. I understand that a liver transplant may be less technically challenging, so we shall see.) 


For the ship to really be available for this major work, the crew and Staff have to disembark entirely. So this week we moved to our alternative workplace, a barge floating behind the dry dock. Definitely not an upgrade, this barge will be our office away from home for the next several months. This is disruptive. On the positive side, we get to go home every night. (Hopefully our families see that as a positive disruption.)


So BLUE RIDGE and her occupants are now fish out of water. The changes experienced this week sit upon us uncomfortably, at least initially. Experience tells us that strange will become familiar over time, whereupon a new change will occur, and we will begin another cycle of going to sea. We'll be ready for that, I think.


Whether we choose it for ourselves or it chooses us, change always spins our life into a different direction. We may or may not be prepared. We may or may not like it. Watching change happen to my workplace and alterhome, I pause to reflect on the more significant changes that have affected me, my loved ones, friends and shipmates in the last year. The litany is long and profound, some events incomprehensibly tragic and sad, others more joyful and lighthearted. Some were expected and some were well beyond imagination. Some were weathered well, others barely tolerable. And yet life rolled on, for most.


And we humans thus affected have changed as well. From time to time we are all fish out of water. Can we always hope for a better ocean ahead?