Submarine-Walrus-Walrus-Submarine

Duty watch casing at the rush

 

I seem to recall that we had an Elephant Seal sitting on the back afties hatch while in San Carlos. I also seem to recall some brave back aftie trying to 'persuade' it back into the water with a Pusser's mop or similar. 1986 in case you're wondering!

 

What about the alligators on the casing in Port Canaveral.

 

And a baby grey seal (SOOOOOOOO cute!) asleep on the forward casing, just out the water, in Faslavatory! I snuck up on it and managed to stroke it before it woke up fully! Saw me and legged it - story of my life!!

 

Aaah, bless.

 

A bat flew into the rotors of our lynx which was turning and burning on the flight deck. **** knows where it came from, we were miles away from land.

It didn't die, just got stunned after head butting the spinning rotor.

Not fancying a pet bat, one of the WAFUs casually toe punted it into the ogin.

 

What was the bat made of to counteract 600 RPM of berp? Inconceivablyunbreaktium?

 

Remember climbing out of the main access hatch in Kings Bay and seeing a manatee between the boat and the jetty, looked like a sealion on steroids. A day later I was sitting in a bar on Jax Beach watching the walter mitties on display when another one of the bastards emerged from the surf amongst all the paddlers and cool dudes. Glad I was in a pub watching because I would have soiled my seagoing undercrackers if that had surfaced next to me.

 

**** knows, it was nails. The general consensus was that it flew at the rotors from underneath, just clipped the underside of one of the blades and got knocked out. It's also possible the downdraft just blew it straight into the deck and it didn't actually touch the rotor disk at all.

Either way it didn't deserve to be hoofed into the OG 1 November. It would've been cool to have it on a lead like a kite and take it on runs ashore scaring wrens.

 

If it can take a rotor blade it would have laughed at Oggin.

Bats = nails.

 

My only other brushes with wildlife at sea were going out on the QD one morning to find f*ck loads of dead flying fish that had accidentally landed onboard and using an upturned dead whale as a 20mm target.

 

You wouldn't have actually. They are the most gentle and inquisitve animals you could hope to see underwater. I have been lucky enough to dive with them several times.

My last job in the RN was teaching diving to the Pongoes in Belize - a tough job but some-one (with the right quals) had to do it. One day I had 6 or 8 Percy Pongoes on their very first dive in 4 or 5 metres all sitting in a semi circle while I showed them mask clearing, when........ I saw a large shape behind them..... they saw me see a large shape behind them........ the large shape advanced through them, getting a bit flustred by now! It turned out to be a Manatee. What an amazing first dive experience for them all.



Note, they are mammals as they have whiskery faces!

 

You'd still cack yourself if one suddenly poked its grid out the water right next to you whilst you were just belling around in the surf.

 

Agreed. I literally shat when a dead crow landed on me once. I'd probably have heart failure if a manatee surfaced next to me if i wasn't expecting it.

 

No really, you wouldn't! They haven't got a big FO pointy fin - they have got a happy smiley face!


That's why (allegedly!) old sailors used to try and shag them, thinking they were mermaids!

 

Do tell....

 

Please tell

 

So do goats but I nearly had a stroke when one stuck its heed in my basha.

 

I posted it here someplace but can't remember where. Anyway, here's the gist.

I was on exercise somewhere on Salisbury plain, not a million miles away from New Zealand farm (for those that know the area). My section was at the time non tactical and we were pretty much in the middle of the plain away from any trees, with the only cover being some bushes. We had stopped for a brew, some scoff and a fag. As we were sitting there chatting away, from out of nowhere a crow landed slap bang on my lap, dead. No warning, no nothing. I leapt about three fcuking metres in the air, as did the two blokes nearest me. It was big, but not as big as the deposit in my combats.

 

I remember a civvy who worked in the MACCO in Collingwood (1996) who was an ex matlow who took Intrepid ( maybe Fearless) out of build and then on deployment down the Med. He claimed that during a hands to bathe they had a shark enter the dock whilst they were playing water polo!!! Heard this from 2 very reliable sources but would like to know if its really true