Between rolling blackouts and very limited connectivity, the press gaggle I was with out on Wasp and Kearsarge this weekend had a devil of a time getting on line long enough to transmit stories back to land. Timing is everything. I finally managed to get one sent Sunday night from Kearsarge that was posted Monday morning.
It was a pretty blustery day out there Sunday — so much so that flight operations were practically non-existent. But as the story notes, it was fun watching the topsiders track some “bad guys” who disembarked early afternoon into a small boat or two.
Master-at-Arms 1st Class (SW) Erwin Piper (left) scans the seas for possible enemy contacts while Master-at-Arms 3rd Class Evan Richardson makes a logbook entry Sunday aboard the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge, underway off the North Carolina coast during exercise Bold Alligator. // Photo by Bill McMichael, Navy Times
It also gave me a renewed appreciation for just how hard it is to spot small objects out on the water when there is any sort of inclement weather. The cloud ceiling was low and sometimes, what was visible disappeared into the fog.
Here’s a late-morning view of a choppy day at sea, looking aft, from the top of the Kearsarge’s well deck:
That's the dock landing ship Oak Hill trailing the Kearsarge Sunday and, we're pretty sure, the cruiser Anzio in the distance, as the six-ship group (and another in front of it) simulates a strait transit. // Photo by Bill McMichael, Navy Times.
