It was a great week out in the pond for the NORTHLAND crew. The skies were sunny, the weather was warm. The week began with the usual Sundaes on Sundays to help combat the heat. The line was out of the mess for this creamy goodness. The ice cream was followed by a ship-wide game of Bingo, with YN3 Murrell running the show. Thanks to the Richmond Council Navy League the prizes for the game were gift cards and gift certificates to the ship’s store.

The week was also filled with training and drills in anticipation for our upcoming visit to TACT, Tailored Annual Cutter Training. The .50 cal gunnery exercise was very exciting. The sight and sound of the guns going off is quite a treat, and the gunners were so accurate that the target was sunk in record time. We also conducted a general emergency drill to test the ships capabilities of fire fighting. The crew passed with flying colors, so don’t worry we are safe.

The crew also stood up to render assistance to a vessel in distress during the first search and rescue mission of the patrol. Although we were not able to assist, the people on the vessel were rescued and taken to safety. Check for an update next week as NORTHLAND continues to stand by in the open ocean.

Congratulations DCC Sullivan. On 01 Dec 2007 the then, DC1 Sullivan, put on his anchors and was advanced to Chief.

BM2 Montejano, a whiz on the charts

BM3 Story, a squared away sailor

DCC Sullivan with his new anchors

HS1 Marin pumping some iron

LTJG Hitzel showing off his sweet stash

Sailing vessel in distress

SK1 Polsaki manning the sound powered phones

SK2 Fullmore, kinda looks like a gnome

SN Hoffman, SN Degener, and YN1 Pata enjoying the break

SN Hoffman, SN Slape, BM2 Ververka, and BMC Krotz enjoying the beautiful blue water

SN Huffman looking for boat traffic

SN Perkins pointing out land