Hi-jinks and adventures ashore-Foreign style Part Duex

So the second day of liberty in the wonderful city of Cannes comes along. This time though the launches start moving around at 10am. So myself and a two good buddies all decide to go grab some brunch in town and walk around take in the sites. We had heard that there is a tour boat which for about 15 francs one could take and go visit the island that Alexander Dumas wrote his classic story "The Count of Monte Cristo" about. Then somewhere else in town was the hotel that Mr. Dumas stayed while writing a couple more of his books. We discussed trying to get all of this in as we rode the liberty launch into town.
It was still pretty early in the morning by the time we put feet down on the solid ground again. We stopped over at the little food tent that the mess cooks had set up, grab a bottle of water between the two of us and grab some fresh fruit. Walked out the security compound and headed into town. Because it was a typical summer day in the south of France we decided to find an open air restaurant to grab a bite to eat at.
Walking along the main street at the water front, we just taking it all in. I happen across a simple convenience store and stopped in real quick to grab a pack of chewing gum and grab see if I could grab the a newspaper that was written in English. I had known that in a variety of places the "Times of London" and the "New York Times" were sold overseas. I got lucky and had actually found a copy of both the "New York Times" and the "Times of London" at this convenience store along with a pack of gum. After walking out of there we found the little restaurant to grab brunch at. It was primarily outside and gave a pretty good view of the harbor and the beaches.
We sat down and ordered up some grub, both of my friends are devouring the sports page from the NYT because they are baseball nuts. I was sitting there reading the sports page from the "Times of London" when I came across a section talking about the starting grid for the Monaco Grand Prix. After skimming the grid and then reading a couple of article about the race for that weekend, I realized that I wanted to go. Over lunch I finally conned both of my buddies into wanting to go. I used the classic, "Since we are already this close...." and "May not get another chance on the government dime...." debates. After about 2 hours of talking, I finally won them over.
So after seeing a few of the sights we wanted to in town, we walked around and found a European version of Ticketmaster and tried to get tickets for the race, only to find out that they had sold out weeks ago. Then all of us did the collective thought at the same second and shouted "MWR! They got to have bought some tickets". So we went back to fleet landing and just happen to run across the Fun Boss. The Fun Boss is a civilian who is brought on board a ship to help organize tours, trips, and other fun things to keep sailors entertained while out to sea. So we cornered the Fun Boss and asked what if they had scored or could score us some tickets to the race. The Fun Boss answered up that nope, there was to be no tickets for USS Oldboat to send anyone to the race. All of us were pretty well bummed out.
We started to walk away from Fleet Landing, looking for someplace to go and drown our sorrows. As we walked along the harbor front again, we noticed that a number of the shops that were opened were starting to bring everything inside. A couple comments about that and wondering why, when my friend Jason looked at his watched.
"Well guys it is only 1730. Lets go and find some nice restaurant that is squid free or close to squid free.", he said.
All of us agreed. So we staggered back down around the harbor front and at a turn we walked up an alleyway. Found just a few streets back a nice little restaurant that again had a nice view of the harbor, a nice jazz band playing, and outdoor seating. We sat around talking about how bummed we were about not going to race and what we were all going to do the next day. All of us were lucky in that we didn't draw duty until the final day in port.
The more we talked about how cool it would of been to seen a race, the more we got annoyed. That was until a gentleman a couple tables across from us got up and walked over. He came over and said that he couldn't help but overheard our conversation. He then mentioned that he was a member of the garage crew for BMW.

He invited us to join him and a couple other members of his crew at a few tables over from ours. We had already eaten and were just enjoying some beers, so we picked up and sat in. Greetings and intros all the way around, he introduced himself as Steve. He was an ex-pat American, was in the US Army as a tanker stationed with a unit in Germany. He got out after Desert Storm and pinged around in the European racing circuits. Finally got picked up by BMW just as they were starting their Formula 1 racing career. He did the basic garage things to a car or to tweak an engine or body before it goes on a practice run or the night before the big race. He then mentioned that he could get us pit passes if we wanted them. All he wanted was a Zippo and a command ballcap from USS Oldboat. It seemed that his father was on Oldboat when she was younger and he just wanted some memorabilia. We said deal and agreed on where to meet him over at Monaco, he then said nuts to that and told us to give him a call and he would send a company car to pick us up.

The next with our gear in tow, we made the phone call and had a chance to be behind pit row watching the Monaco Grand Prix. It was awesome and the only thing that I wish I had remember to have done was brought my camera to have gotten some photos. After the race all 3 of us went off with Steve and his crew to a nice restaurant in a casino and enjoy dinner on the companies dime. Even though all of the teams cars did not finish the race, it was still cool to be there and watch the race.

Hi-jinks and adventures ashore-Foreign style

So it came to be that USS Oldboat was on her peaceful summer cruise in the Mediterranean. We had done our support of the NATO mission in Yugoslavia by flying a couple recon assets over Bosnia and Kosovo taking pictures for something or another. Also drawing the tax-free pay for the month since we hung around for a couple of days from April to June. So it came to be that after two weeks the Admiral in charge of our battle group decided we had saved enough money. So we pulled into a beautiful French city called Cannes. It is famous for some sort of film festival, I don't know. What I do know is the place is dripping in money, beautiful women, and history. How bad is it dripping in money, while I was there we saw a Yacht pull in drop the back end and a little Mini drove off the Yacht and around town.

Anyhow, we pulled in on a Friday around noon. It wasn't until something like 3 in the afternoon that we could start to go ashore. Liberty call usually starts with the highest ranking people first and then filters its way on down. So at 3:01pm (1501 for you non-military types) the ships general announcing system started the cattle call with "Liberty Call, Liberty Call for all Officers and Chiefs". At which point everyone but the duty section quit working and hustled off to our berthing compartments to throw on their best mack-daddy outfits.

One of the interesting things that sailors have to put up with is the liberty attire in a port. What it is varies from port to port and even day to day sometimes. At the time Sixth Fleet required that everyone go ashore wearing the minimum of nice pants and a collared shirt. A pair of clean blue jeans and a polo shirt works perfectly. Usually the make verboten for us the wear is things that show American pride or would insult the locals. So people trying to get off wearing NY Yankee caps, Bulls jerseys, or even cowboy boots were turned back to change into something else.

After navigating all that one ends up waiting in line to catch the liberty launch. This is usually a tour boat or some sort of passenger ferry that is hired to run from the after end of the carrier to what is termed "Fleet Landing". The good launches are smart enough to have some folks hawking food and soda, the really smart operators will have booze or beer on board. So one could grab the local version of the Cheetos, a Coke bottle in the local language or a local beer and enjoy the 15 to 20 minutes of joy bounding away from the ship with local cash in the your pocket and trying to decided what to do first.

I got ashore with a friend of mine named Tony (buddies are required in foreign ports) and one of the first things we headed off to do was fine a local restaurant with genuine and authentic French food. We found some little restaurant right by the bay and silhouetted the ship and the setting sun. It was great and looked really beautiful. As we sat their talking about what to go and see next, a bunch of very beautiful girls sat down at the table next from us. Both of Tony and myself had about half a bottle of red wine between us after eating some local food. We were getting giggles and eyes from the girls as we started to talk about whether to just sit here with another bottle of wine and enjoy the house band or go and find other excitement. What finally broke the ice was, one of the girls in an almost perfect "Daisy Duke" southern accent ask us "Y'll Americans?"

Tony and I looked each other in the eye and had a quick conversation with just some facial movements, which basically lead to us staying and having these three beautiful girls join us. We found out talking to them that they were college students from some college in upstate New York and they were doing the study aboard for the summer. The plan was to visit some major cities involved in Western History or something like that. Since both me and Tony were history buff we got on beautifully with these girls. The most they knew about us was that we were from Virginia and we fixed airplanes and in town for the weekend. All of which was perfectly true, we just didn't say that we were sailors, lived in Norfolk, and were going to leave Tuesday morning on the next high tide. We did fix planes since we worked with the aircraft parts. They didn't ask anymore and we really didn't steer the conversation anymore into our backgrounds.

Okay that being said we picked up the tab for the girls dinner and talked them into hanging around to listen to the house band at this restaurant. It really wasn't that bad of a band. They did instrumentals of just about everything from some early 50's rock up to some 80's new wave. As the dinner crowd broke off around 945pm the waiters started to clear the tables inside off and move a few away from the bandstand. Dancing! Oh joy, one of my least favorite adventures. I am just horrible. I can sort of two-step, but anything more or less I look like I am having a seizure. I did my best at dancing. I held my own. As midnight struck at the local church bells the girls want to go someplace else, we looked at our watches and realized that our carriage was going to turn back into a pumpkin at 0200 in the morning. So we had about an hour to really have some fun, the lead girl Mandy came out and said "Well we are staying right around the corner and...." Both Tony and my didn't hear anything else, our single man programming kicked in. So we escorted these girls back to their hotel, well actually we all staggered and bounced like some pinballs up the street.

We came up to this little hotel set back from the main drag, it was really looked interesting. The fun though didn't even get a chance to start, because as we staggered through the front door and the girls chaperon hit and octave and volume that I believe is reserved for emergency sirens.

Almost exact words were, "What are you girls doing with these boys! Have they touched you! Are you Drunk! OH MY GOD!" almost in the same breath. As I tried to calm this chaperon, Tony meanwhile was trying to plan a good time to go do touristy things with these girls the next day.

I explained how the girls were lost and run out of francs so we offered to pay for their dinner. Took them to dancing and walk around the little harbor. We then escorted them back home. I also told this chaperon that the same truth that we told the girls. That we were in town for the weekend and it was great to meet Americans. That calmed her down, found out that the girls were in deep kimchi for being out with out either her or one of the other 3 chaperons. Though that me and Tony were nice gentleman for escorting these girls home and she paid us a 1000 franc note (about 75 dollars) for the trouble.

We walked back to Fleet Landing and talked about how weird it was for sailors to be the gigolos and being paid for spending time with girls in a foreign port and not the typical way around.

More to come in future intallments after this commerical break. Southern and friend end up being guests of a racing team over in Monaco. Southern and friends spend a whole day on a beach in the French Riveria. Stay tuned.

Car salesman or Jewelers?

Time yet again kiddies for another of Southern Air Pirates sea stories. Hold on to your Pirate hats and remember to scream what you want for birthdays and Christmas to your parents during the commercial breaks.


So it came to be on my first fleet cruise after seeing most of Southern Europe in the summer time and before the world turned up sided down. My ship USS Oldboat sailed through the Suez Canal (aka as the ditch) went around the horn of Africa and the Saudi Peninsula and found its self near the end of that summer in the Persian Gulf doing our best to enforce the Southern No fly zone. The ship we were supposed to relieve USS Olderboat didn't leave station because one of her airplanes was shot at while in international air space by an Iraqi Surface to Air missile battery. The talk start to come up about dropping some bombs and basically conducting a live fire exercises on a few of the Iraqi Army positions outside of the no-fly zones as a way to say the UN meant business. Long story short a few more aggressive patrols and the use of a few inert training bombs on the fixed sites and the bluster past. Port Visit time, time to hit the Sandbox in Jebel Ali.

Those of you that are in or were in the Navy and have cruised post-Desert Storm then you know the Sandbox. For those of you that haven't been there let me tell you what it is the absolute joy and jewel of the UAE. What the Sandbox is an attempt to provided a safe area away from the native population for a ship to release her crew to be fat, stupid, westerners (the time I was there a UK ship pulled in at the same time). Drinking, shopping, sports, a place to wash your clothes, and to re-sample American food.

This is officially called The Oasis-Jebel Ali MWR. They offer on something akin to 3 football fields of fenced in compound: a AT&T calling center with a free 15min call anywhere in the world; a laundry center; a center with Internet computers, movies on a projection TV (and yes some are cruise videos), gameboxes to play video games to your hearts content; then around the fence line of the compound are trailers with stores in them hawking everything from the latest electronic gizmo to Persian rugs to stuff from Hard Rock Dubai; a car dealership where you can order an American car that can be delivered to your hometown or near your hometown as discounted rates; other trailers with food like Popeye's chicken, Fuddruckers, Uno's Pizza, Burger King, 31 Flavors, and even a Starbucks. About half a mile away is the taxi stand where you can hope in to a UAE taxi and then head into town.

Heading into town is an adventure, I remember doing this with a buddy of mine name Steve. Our plan was to visit the Gold Suk in town and then head over to the mall and do some shopping there. We took the cab into town and found paid out something close to 35 dollars for this cabbie to take us from middle of boonievile into civilization. The ride was interesting because there was miles and miles of desert pock marked here and there with either a refinery or some outdoors storage facility for cars or cargo containers. We go into town and headed right for the Gold Suk.

The Gold Suk is a place where all the gold dealers and jewelers in the city hawk their jewelry or plates. From what we had heard from old hands to the area is that you can get some killer deals on 18K or 24K gold that is pretty pure. The only thing that might not be up to stuff is the workmanship, but when you are paying about 100-150 dollars for a nice 24k gold chain well you can over look the manufacturing marks. Both of us at the time were dating some wonderful girls and we wanted to get them a nice chain, pendant, some piece of jewelery. I don't know, we had heard a rumor that girls love that stuff, we weren't completely sure. Anyhow we walk into this place and it hits us right off the bat. That this is going to be interesting. It was like watching those live Wall Street market shots on a cable news network. People are talking in raised voices and mainly arguing about prices.

We had learned from the pre-brief that haggling with a seller, outside of a name brand store, was typical in the Mid-east. It was actually considered part of the tradition and showing bad manners to not argue about the price at least once during the transaction. So, Steve and I set it up that we would pull a good cop/bad cop routine with these jokers. The first thing we did was walk around and observe everything going on in this place. This was set up like a farmer's market in any typical town with little kiosks set up and all sorts of gold laying out on clothes and pillows. Also walking conspiciously around are the local police and federals. The local feds looked kind of scary walking around with a sub-machine gun strapped to their back and almost Dirty Harry look on their faces. Nearly all of them in their walk, demeanor, and posture seem to say "Go ahead Make my day!"

After scouting out a couple of the kiosk that we like. Steve and I walked back to a corner and mashed heads together. We agreed to haggle on a price of no more then 100 for a simple chain and no more then 125 on any chain with some sort of pendant/locket on it. I had found at a kiosk some pretty large gold braid chains with hearts on them. So as Steve and I walked up to this guy it started.

"Hey Joe you buy gold for girlfriend"

"No, we are just looking"

"Southern this chain would look nice on Shannon"

"Steve I don't know..."

"Yes, yes these are very good gold, pure 18k only 115 Dirhams"

"Yea but the guy," and I swung my arm out one way down the row of kiosks, "down that way was selling a better looking chain with 24k for only 100 Dirhams"

The conversion at the time was about 1.50 Dollars to a Dirham. So we were talking at something around 170 dollars to start with

"No, No, they are lying cheating bastard sons of camels. I will give this chain and another locket on it for 100 Dirhams."

"Southern that is a sweet deal. Look at a few of these chains."

"Steve, I really don't know I mean what about that guy near the entrance. He had offered us both 2 chains with 3 pendants for 80 Dirhams."

"Southern you are just trying to cheat Abdul here now."

"Okay, okay I will give you 2 chains with two of my pendants that are inlaid with some Rubies for 90"

" Steve lets go that still doesn't sound like a plan. We should look some more."

As we walked away. The owner of this kiosk laughed hard and said. "Fine, fine my friends 2 chains, 2 pendants for no more then 60 dirhams"

At which we both needled each other pretend to argue some more and I finally paid up. The end of the deal I got to nice chains with a heart pendant that had a small ruby inlaid in the center for about 65 dollars US. All of it showed some real shoddy workmanship. There where some hammering marks on everything and where the ruby fit showed that it would be loose.

So we walked over to where Steve had found some stuff, did a role reversal and went through the same process. Long story short there he got a 3 plain chains for little over 50 dollars.

At the end of cruise since we both went to a jeweler in Norfolk and asked him to remake them into something better. I paid an additional 40 dollars for him to remelt everything and re form it better and get the rubies to fit tighter. The jeweler we went to told us that the stuff we had was 24k gold that was about 85% pure and if made or import here in the states would have been about 200 dollars if he or a name brand jewelry store made them. So at the end even though we both save about 10 dollars it was still worth it. Because the girlfriend at the time loved the gift and my mother loved her Christmas present. So I guess women do love jewelry, you learn new things every day.

So ends our sea story. Stay tuned next time, same Southern Channel for another exciting adventure of Southern Air Pirate and his band of wacky sailors.