BOTC 114

I am a NOAA Commissioned Officer.

I am an Operational Specialist at Sea, on Land, or in the Air.

I am a Steward of our Oceans & Atmosphere.

Above all though, I am a Leader, Dedicated to Safety, Operational Excellence, Scientific Integrity, Professionalism, and the Citizens whom I serve.

I serve with Honor, Respect and Commitment to my Country and my Corps.

I am Semper Illic, from the Line Office to the Front Line of Scientific Discovery.

We are the NOAA Commissioned Corps!

BOTC 116 in formation for marching to the evening meal.

I am Lieutenant (junior grade) Jonathan R. Heesch of the NOAA Commissioned Corps.  I am the Junior Officer-in-Charge of the NOAA Officer Training Center and the primary Officer Instructor for the Indoctrination Period, I also assist with continued professional development throughout BOTC and afterwards.  I am posting because I know how valuable this site is to our recruiting effort and answering questions potential officers have in regards to coming to BOTC. 

You must understand that you are potentially joining an organization of professional officers who are given a Commission by the President of the United States.   That Commission is no different than that of an officer in the Marine Corps, the Army, the Navy, or any other Service.  Becoming an Officer means you are becoming part of something much larger than yourself, a line of Officers extending back 230 plus years to the founding of our nation. 

Our mission is unique, our requirements for joining are high, we are an elite force of Commissioned Officers serving the needs of our nation by fulfilling the need for operational skill in gathering the critical environmental data to provide to our nation’s decision makers to make difficult calls.  It may not be combat, but it is critical for the maintenance of commerce and in turn our economy.  Therefore, we must maintain the high standards that are set for Officers in the Service of the United States.   The only way to do that is to ensure that we adhere to the same time honored standards and traditions of those who have come before us and to provide the competent and dedicated leadership that NOAA needs. 

With this in mind we have changed our indoctrination process significantly.  Expect a Boot Camp environment for the first two weeks of BOTC.  Everything that you would expect in any other service, expect it here; there is no difference except a shorter duration.  We are continuing to develop and evolve this process with each class, but please note that things are not the same as they used to be, we are developing the next generation of the NOAA Corps; a generation of Leaders, Operational Specialists and Officers proud of their Heritage, ready to execute the missions of today and have an eye on the future of NOAA, the Department of Commerce and the Nation!  Forward with NOAA!

ENS Bryan Begun

Many people have asked me to write about what it is like to be an officer in the NOAA Corps.  It would take a novel to describe my job in detail, and frankly we don’t have that kind of time.  But I can give you an idea of  my life as a junior officer aboard the NOAA ship Ronald H. Brown.  First of all, there is no such thing as a typical day.  In general my days are spent either at sea or in a port somewhere between here, there, and Africa.   I also get sent various places for training.  So far I have been in the NOAA Corps for 16 months.  Training time has totaled about 6 of those months.  CDR Beckwith, training officer at the USMMA (where new officers receive their initial training), offers this wisdom:  “Your job as a NOAA Corps officer aboard a NOAA ship is to provide the safe working platform so the scientists can do their job”.  Getting the science done is why the NOAA Corps exists, but this simple explanation does little to shed light on the complicated and exhausting task of actually performing the job.   So to get at the heart of the matter, here is a sampling of what I have done over the past few days:

on the mess deck

Yesterday I woke up at 6:40 am (which is about as much sleeping in as can ever be hoped for).  We were in port at Little Creek Amphibious Base in Virginia.  I was the in-port OOD  (officer of the deck).   This is really just a fancy way of saying I am the ship’s babysitter. While the ship is sitting idle in port, the in-port OOD, along with the EOW (engineer on watch) keep vigil over the ship, performing routine tasks and battling entropy as it tries to take over.  A routine day of in-port OOD duties starts with a security round, checking all spaces on the ship for any signs of trouble.  I secured the deck lights and got the log book up to date.  Then I hit the buffet line for some breakfast, which I must say has improved with the recent addition of two new stewards.  Stewards are basically cooks, but we can’t call them that.  And herein lies your first lesson about going to sea: everything on a ship is encoded in strange vocabulary to make mariners seem mysterious and the industry impenetrable.  A toilet is a head, a rope is a line, a kitchen is a galley, a wall is a bulkhead, left is port and right is starboard–and that’s just getting started.

I have been OOD for a week now, and 12+ hour days have been the norm as we have worked very hard to get the ship back into service after it has sat in Colonna’s Shipyard (Norfolk, VA) undergoing intensive surgery.   A 12 hour workday is not normal, but then again an 8 hour day is even more rare.  No matter how many hours I put in there is always something more that can or should be done.  I look down at my desk covered in sticky notes scribbled with to-do lists:  perform a fire extinguisher inventory.  Inspect SCBA’s.  Finish EEBD inspections.   Inventory new movies into the ship’s movie library.  Remind XO of missing DSL items.  Order new fire hoses, gaskets,  and flash flash hoods.  Send PPD results to LCDR Hobson-Powell and submit to my OPF.  Find missing flashlight from EDG room, and log a recent dive with ENS Evory.  Come up with an SOP for an Emergency Towing Procedure.  This is today’s list of things to do.  Chances are I will finish 10% of it.  I laugh a little to myself, realizing that for most people my job description  is an incomprehensible string of acronyms.   I’ll decode just one for you; EDG: emergency diesel generator. NOAA is an alphabet soup of acronyms.  What is a TLI you ask?  Why heavens!  That is a tank level indicator.

Standing watch on the bridge- Patagonia

I often get asked what we do when the ship is sitting in port.  I get the impression that most people figure there is nothing for us to do in port besides drink margaritas.  Yes, we do drink margaritas (or whatever else should happen to pour out of a bottle), but only after dealing with 10 million items that require attention each day.  Life in port ranges from busy to chaotic, whereas  life at sea is more routine, in part because the XO can’t easily send you on errands.   Your main job at sea is to stand a watch, which is a fancy way of saying that you will be driving the boat.  The normal watch routine is known as a 4 and 8, meaning you stand watch for 4 hours and then get 8 hours “off”.  If you can do math in your head, you will see that two 4 hour watches and two 8 hours “breaks” complete a 24 hour cycle.   Each day, a watch schedule includes one watch with sensible hours and another with hours devastating to an ordinary sleep routine.  For example, the 4-8 watch.  You stand watch from 4-8 am and 4-8 pm.  If these don’t sound like normal work hours to you, then you will likely enjoy a persistent sensation reminiscent of heavy jetlag.  With any luck, by the time you adjust to this schedule you will pull into your next port and be expected to shift back to a normal working day routine which starts at 7:30 am and ends at some time greater than 8 hours later.  Then, when all is back to normal, it’s time to go back to sea.  Maybe this time you will  pull the mid watch which is 12-4 am and 12-4 pm.

Each NOAA ship is a little bit different, but for most junior officers, watch-standing is our primary concern.  To describe watch-standing in simple terms, it’s all about getting the ship where it needs to go and not having any accidents along the way.  I rely upon a wide array of advanced electronics with more buttons to push than I can possibly comprehend.  After an entire year on the Ronald H. Brown I am now feeling comfortable with the systems we use most often, but no sooner is competency achieved with our existing systems than something new gets installed.  During the shipyard period this summer we got a brand new echo sounder, a voyage data recorder, a multibeam sonar system, and a new navigational computer (TRANSAS 4000). I spent a huge amount of time during the summer catching up on my collateral duties, especially tasks related to Damage Control.  I prepared for our annual Fleet Inspection, took on new responsibilities like writing SOP’s (standard operating procedures) and I also managed to take some leave and get back home to California.  When the ship was finally ready to go back out to sea, there were plenty of surprises waiting for us; brand new equipment didn’t work as planned and familiar equipment didn’t work as planned.  These surprises revealed themselves not in advance, but only once we were out at sea and needing something to function properly.  To give an example,  our ship’s dynamic positioning system went haywire and preformed in ways that baffled us.  Essentially it was useless.  It turned out that nothing was broken but rather the system had reset itself to some default mode that simply was not compatible with the way we operate our ship.  The CO (commanding officer) fixed the problem by pressing the button labeled “DO NOT PRESS”.

There are far too many details of life at sea and life as a NOAA Corps officer to give a complete picture in one article.  But I can boil it down to a few simple truths:  You work very hard.  Life at sea is challenging.  There are great expectations upon your shoulders.  You wear a uniform and represent a proud organization.  It is a tough job, but I think we have it best compared to the other services.  You get full military benefits but your job is to support science.  There are a number of perks, like a little extra pay for diving.  I can’t believe that as an Ensign (the bottom of the totem pole), I get my own stateroom on the ship.*  I have a lot of freedom to perform my job as best I see fit, and I get treated with respect.  On top of all that, I get the finest maritime training in the world, compliments of Uncle Sam.  I went to Dive School, and if I wanted to I could apply to the aviation side of NOAA.  I have seen things that words cannot describe, and enjoyed some great adventures in exotic ports.  Heck, if I had know Cape Town, South Africa was such a cool place I would have gone there on my own a long time ago, but thanks NOAA for the heads up on that.   So whenever I get bogged down in a sea of paperwork, Excel spreadsheets, inspections, and inventories, not to mention homework, I try to remember to stick my head up and look around to remind myself that my grunting efforts are helping to support a good cause.

One more thing:  If you can control your internet shopping spree outbursts, (yes the ships have internet connections, albeit low bandwidth) you will find there are few ways to spend money at sea.  By keeping your overhead low and not blowing your wad living like a rock star while in port, you can save a HUGE percentage of your paycheck.   Going to sea is by far the best savings plan I have ever come across.  I am not going to publicly reveal how much I have socked away personally, but let’s just say that I won’t sweat making a down payment on a house.  And that is a far better financial space than I was in when I joined the NOAA Corps.  So if the feel good nature of the job is only making you feel okay, then a bit of cash in your bank account and a chance for some serious adventure might make the difference.

the scenery, at times, is simply unbelievable

*The NOAA ship Ronald H. Brown is the flagship of the fleet and offers some of the finest accommodations available.  I share my room with a scientist as needed, but I get the room to myself the rest of the time.  The Ronald H. Brown is the only NOAA ship to travel extensively abroad.  It is the ship to be on if you want to see the Panama Canal, Patagonia, and South Africa in one go.  But other ships have their advantages too.  For example, The Fairweather has legendary, restaurant quality cuisine.  The Okeanos Explorer has some of the coolest missions imaginable, working the cutting edge of discovery with deepsea submersibles.  The Hawaii boats are…well heck, they are in HAWAII.  They say there is not a bad ship in the fleet.  On some levels this may be true.  What I do know is that my ship is awesome and my fellow officers and crew are pretty fantastic.  There are a few things I would change if I could-for example I would make my ship’s homeport in San Francisco-but on the whole it’s a pretty good deal to be an officer in the NOAA Corps.

My time on the FAIRWEATHER:

I kept promising myself that I would eventually put this article on the BOTC114 website and now that I’ve finally got some downtime, here it is! A summary of my time on the NOAA Ship FAIRWEATHER thus far:

September:
I landed at the Anchorage airport where I made my way to Elmendorf Air Force Base. ENS Matt Forney picked me up the next day along with one of our Junior Engineers. The three of us had quite a time getting to know each other during the 2 hour car ride out to Seward, AK where the FA was moored. I grabbed my bags and met my fellow 114′er, ENS Steven Loy at the top of the brow. Joining a ship is quite a daunting task and needless to say, we were both happy to have a familiar face around.

Steve and I had joined the ship mid-fleet inspection. Wow! We were quickly introduced to our OOD inport workbooks and encouraged to finish them up by the time we reached Cordova, AK, two weeks later. We finished up fleet inspection and sailed out to start a new sheet in Prince William Sound. Honestly, the first month is a blur. Everyday I was doing something completely new and unexpected to me. I was actually conning the ship while looking at Bligh Reef and mentally comparing pictures of the Exxon Valdez oil spill nearly twenty years ago to what lay before my eyes at that time. I am glad to report that it was simply stunning.

We then stopped briefly in Whittier, AK for a night, completed the PWS sheet and then made our way to Cordova. There, we met our new CO, CAPT Dave Neander. We sailed a leg with two COs while they prepared for the transition and the upcoming change of command.

October:

Change of Command in Juneau! It was a short and sweet 30 minute ceremony in the ship’s lounge and then we made our way into Juneau to celebrate CAPT Doug Baird’s departure and CAPT Dave Neander’s arrival the only way we know how: FAIRWEATHER style. That weekend we also welcomed the first of many RAINIER crewmembers that now sail with us as the RA completes her major repair period.

October also meant the commencement of a nearly two month project in Glacier Bay, AK. If you ever have the chance to go to Glacier Bay, TAKE IT!!! Apart from the cruise ships that sail into the exclusive inlets, only 300 people set foot on land in Glacier Bay a year. We may have increased their statistics to about 330 this year. We installed four tide gauges(!!) and 4 Horizontal Control stations(for those of you that like to survey to the ellipsoid). That’s no small feat once you understand that it takes about twenty-thirty people including divers and visiting physical scientists, interns, etc. to install a tide gauge and a HorCon station.

November:

Continue Glacier Bay and Juneau inports. Halloween in Juneau(I was the OOD). Finally, we made it to the end of the season for a very tired crew. Oh wait! Steve got a survey! It took us one day to blitzkreig the Hawk Inlet survey using four launches. Okay, now we can go to Seattle. We sailed south through the Inside Passage for a few days until finally pulling into Seattle. I will have to admit I wasn’t too excited to spend the winter in Seattle until I saw the skyline illuminated against that dark, clear night just before Thanksgiving.

December-March:

The winter inport was more like the FA Tour of Seattle. We started at the USCG Base in November then sailed through the locks and Lake Union and Lake Washington to the Sand Point facility in December. We then made our way to Federal Center South near the SoDo/Industrial District of Seattle at the end of January where we stayed until finally sailing in April. The FAIRWEATHER takes advantage of the winter inport for ship repairs, training and leave. Steve and I went to our respective B-school sessions back at USMMA in Kings Point, NY, caught up on collateral duties and enjoyed a little time off. At the end of the winter inport, the FA conducted the first sheet of the season running just our launches from the Shilshole Bay Marina out to Port Madison, WA.

April:

Finally back to AK! We really kicked off the field season with an outstanding Inside Passage transit. Then it came time for my first sheet, which was also the first sheet of our Behm Canal project just outside of Ketchikan, AK, our homeport. We started survey preparations by deploying the Tides, Dive, and Horcon teams and started survey operations the following day. Unfortunately, our MSD system failed so we packed it up and made the short transit back to Ketchikan where we were tied up alongside for repairs until it was time for ENS Brett Floyd and I to leave for dive school at the beginning of May. Never fear, we continued data acquisition on my sheet by running our four launches out of Ketchikan and started on ENS Forney’s sheet.

May:
The FA continued on the Behm Canal project while Brett I went to the David Starr Jordan and Sand Point to complete the three week Working Diver training at the NOAA Dive Center. It was absolutely the best training I’ve ever had while at NOAA and I encourage anyone to attend it if given the opportunity. The ship was so kind to sail south to Seattle to collect us and hang out for Memorial Day Weekend in Seattle.

June:
We surveyed the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Washington state. For a ship that sails in mostly confined waters, surveying in the open ocean provided its challenges. We had some days that affected the data so much we had to anchor in Neah Bay, WA and wait till the seas subsided.

July:
We spent July 4th weekend in Seattle and the crew dispersed for some R&R. We welcomed our two new ensigns, ENS Leslie Flowers and ENS Daniel Smith to the ship and put them to work immediately. We also welcomed LT Tilley of the USPHS, and ENS Albie Davison and ENS Matt Forrest of BOTC 114!!! We set sail for the Arctic with a raccoon as a stowaway! Fortunately, we weren’t too far from the dock when the little guy jumped overboard and swam for shore.

We introduced our new ensigns to the Inside Passage and a 4 day Gulf of Alaska transit. Again, the FAIRWEATHER usually finds herself in calm seas. Again, not the case here. We pitched, rolled, yawed and heaved our way to Dutch Harbor for fuel and a 6 hour inport period and continued up to the Arctic.

Currently:
Surveying the Bering Sea has proven to be much easier than OCNMS. However, we had a challenging tide gauge installation, HorCon base station setup and dive to kick off the project with a 2 knot current off of Port Clarence outside of Nome, AK. We decided to call another weather day after trying for hours to get our equipment to operate successfully with no luck. The next day provided much better conditions and we were successful. We also set up a tide gauge and base station in Tin City, AK and Little Diomede Island, AK.

Little Diomede Island, AK is located next to yep, you guessed it, Big Diomede Island. The difference is Little Diomede is on the US Side and Big Diomede is part of Siberia. DON’T CROSS THE LINE!!!! The natives of Little Diomede have been very welcoming and encouraged us to take part in a cultural exchange with them. We invited about 15 of them to the ship where we served them hamburgers at their request. Beef is hard to come by when you rely on subsistence hunting of walrus and polar bear. That night, they invited us to their one school where they shared tribal dances, songs and stories that were passed down through the generations. It was truly an honor for the FAIRWEATHER crew to experience such an evening.

So here we are, still surveying the Bering. I wish my classmates luck wherever they may be and I look forward to seeing most of you at your respective C school sessions. To the pilots, kick the tires and light the fires, boys!! I expect a buzz if either of you are nearby!

I will post pictures when I have a better internet connection!

ENS Leigh Hedgepeth
BOTC 114 Morale Officer
NOAA Ship FAIRWEATHER

Hello folks! Up here in Alaska for the summer and thought about all of you this morning and where you’re at–going on one year since finishing BOTC. I see that officers from our class have been to many places this past year spanning the globe. I think of you guys often and admire the work you do, especially those of you on ships supporting Gulf operations. When you get an opportunity, I know people following this website would love to hear/see a snippet of what you’ve been doing at sea. Stay safe and take care.

pre flight inspection

A random Tuesday evening isn’t the most likely time for an incredible thrill, but with Lt. Brinkley around anything is possible.  When he asked ENS Johnston and I if we wanted to go flying with him after work today, I was like “heck yeah!”  So we met at a regional airport and went through the preflight check and before I knew it we were airborne.  We set a course for the coast and I took the controls.  Through our headsets Brinkley was saying to me “nice job, it’s just like being in a simulator.”  To this I replied ” I’ve never been in a simulator before so thanks for fast forwarding me to the real thing!”  Later it occurred to me that this was not really like being in a simulator–we could really crash, and as I nosed down for a dive I hoped that Brinkley would let me know if I was pushing things too far.  In reality I think I kept things pretty tame because a minute later Brinkley showed me what the plane could really do.  We noticed that Johnston was catching some z’s in the backseat so Brinkley took the controls, banked hard and dove, thereby pressing our weight hard to starboard and waking up Johnston immediately.

ENS Begun at the controls

After that little adrenaline rush, I took the controls back and flew like a granny by comparison. “Okay, nice job” Brinkley was saying, “now take us down to 1000 feet and come along thebeach there”.  I banked to the right and came in low over North Carolina’s Outer Banks, with the sensation that I was coming in for a bombing run.  As we broke 1000 feet Brinkley took the controls back and brought us down to 500 feet, skimming the beach and checking out the beach people.  We proceeded for a time, feeling very sorry for the people below in their impoverished living conditions.  It’s hard to describe, you would have to see the beachfront houses on the Outer Banks to really appreciate this.  On our return to Norfolk, we buzzed the Great Dismal Swamp, which I noticed would be a really bad place to get lost in.  Then we landed nicely and went out for dinner.  All that excitement gave us a mean appetite.

Buzzing the Outer Banks of North Carolina

Okay, who let this guy fly?

It’s more of an anniversary than a birthday for botc114.com; call it what you will but the one year mark is almost here.  And that means a few things.  First of all, it means the members of BOTC 114 have been proud officers of the NOAA Corps for a year.  It seems like just yesterday we were the new thing- but already BOTC 115 has graduated and BOTC 116 is currently in full swing at the USMMA, King’s Point, New York.  It also means that like any subscription service, I recently got a letter asking for a birthday check.  To be more specific, the web hosting company that makes this website possible, Blue Host, got the crazy idea that I needed to pay for another year of service and domain name registration.  So I had to pause and ask myself “do I want to keep this thing going?  Is it worth the time and money?”  Is this website relevant and useful?

On relevancy.   At the moment this is a great website for hearing about what ENS Begun is doing aboard the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown, and to a lesser extent what ENS Gebauer is doing in NOAA aviation. We are the only guys who write articles for this website, so the relevancy of this website to the whole of BOTC 114 is a question mark.   In order to represent the other members of the class it looks like I’m going to have to start interviewing them and writing the articles myself.  And that would actually be fun to do.  But as any junior officer on a NOAA ship can attest, free time is not in huge abundance.  It was suggested by another officer, upon reviewing this website, that I rename this website something that reflected it’s scope more accurately.  But there is a lot that goes into establishing a domain name.  Renaming the website something like www.begunandgebauerareawesome.com is not really all that palatable, and it would just kill this website’s Google search rankings.   BOTC 114 is the only class with our own website, and that is cool.  So the question of relevancy remains an open issue that maybe isn’t really a problem.

On Usefulness.   I sometimes wonder if this website is useful or interesting to anyone besides myself.  But it seems every time I start to question the effort,  I get a word of encouragement.  For example, I was corresponding with a couple of the new Ensigns in BOTC 116 and I asked them this question: Is BOTC and King’s Point/USMMA anything like you expected?  What did you expect, and what has been your experience so far? ENS Phillips’ response was very encouraging: “…We got a great deal of information of what to expect of the place from the botc114.com website…”.  Ensign Phillips reminded me of something I felt was frustrating about the NOAA Coprs, back when I was applying: a lack of information.  When I was first interested in the NOAA Corps, I had a really hard time digging up any juicy tidbits.  Sure, there is the official NOAA Corps website, but it’s scope is limited and impersonal.  As a member of a society that trusts the reviews of fellow users over the official company line, I wanted information from the people in the trenches; those who had signed up and were serving.  What was the NOAA Corps really like?  I think that kind of information is really valuable.  I won’t buy a digital camera or open an online brokerage account without first reading a lot of positive reviews written by ordinary people just like myself.  But I signed up for the NOAA Corps with far less knowledge about what I was getting into than what I knew about my last cell phone before I bought it.  Perhaps that is a positive reflection on the Corps, in the sense that I felt such a strong positive energy that I was willing to sign up, even without a lot of clarity about the job.  Nevertheless, one of the goals of this website is to provide information about what it is really like to be a NOAA Corps officer; the proud job we do, the sacrifices and rewards involved.  It looks like that goal is being met to some extent, but to what extent is hard to determine. And that is why I like statistical tools.

One of the nerdiest and most interesting features I employ in the background of this website is a statistical tool that tells me how many visitors I get, what search terms helped people arrive at this website, what pages were viewed, etc.  Of course I don’t know who is looking, but I know how many people are looking, and what they are looking at.  It is crazy to review some to the search terms that lead people to botc114.com.  For example, somebody typed into a search engine “NOAA Corps sucks” and then got this website.  Now that is not nice.  I hope that individual looked at this website and changed their mind.   In any case, this website gets a decent amount of traffic.  544 visitors last month, for example.  Who are these people and what are they looking for and are they finding it?  I don’t know.  But at least people are looking, as evidenced by the partial screenshot below:

botc114.com visitor statistics

Just for fun, here is another partial screenshot that shows some of the search terms people used to arrive at botc114.com.  It sure seems like someone was trying hard to find out something about Dave Cowan!

search terms that lead people to botc114.com

Dave Cowan at BOTC 114, summer of 2009

The future, never clear, holds one things for certain: at least 12 more months of botc114.com; I just paid the fees for another year.  So for anyone out there looking for information about the NOAA Corps, this website will remain available as a tool.  Some of the questions I raised in this article will remain unsolved and continue to nag at me, asking for answers I don’t have.  For example, I know for a fact that some people in BOTC 115 wanted to start their own class website,  having been inspired by this one.  But in the end the BOTC 115 class decided not to go ahead, citing as one of their reasons their belief they would just be repeating a lot of the information I had already put together in this website.  And maybe that is true…but it is also unfortunate because we are missing out on those individuals’ unique experience and perspective.   I hate to see that kind of enthusiasm going to waste.   I would love it if more people wrote for this website.  But how excited is somebody not in BOTC 114 going to be about writing for a website called BOTC 114?  Inadvertently it seems this website has excluded others who are interested in doing something similar.  Being specific with your website is really important in a world where there are more websites than there are people on the planet.  But in this case, it seems I got so specific that it’s like I made dinner reservations for a party of one, with an extra place set for Gebauer just in case he shows.  This exclusivity is a dilemma, but I should be careful what I wish for because I’m mostly happy with what I’ve got.  A lesson I learned recently is that when I have a good idea, it sometimes gets taken over by management and made into something totally different and not at all like what I had in mind.  And that would be a tragedy too.  Because this website is for the little guy, the independent voice, the uncensored perspective which is, admittedly, often restrained due to the need for professionalism and a desire to preserve at least some of my promotion potential.  But I do tell a lot.  So for the 544 of you that visited botc114.com last month, you can expect the flavor to stay the same for some time to come.   And  to ENS Gebauer and the occasional guest writer, thank you for helping contribute to this website too.  And finally, for the person who tried so hard to find something about Dave Cowan in association with BOTC, here is the best thing I’ve got; a photo that might as well be our poster child for botc114.com.  It’s one year down for BOTC 114 and who knows how many to go.

What to do with a box of expired emergency signaling flares and smoke?    Hmm, how about we light them off?  Step 1: determine that we are indeed alone in the middle of the south Atlantic.  Yes we are.  Days and even weeks go by without us seeing anyone as we sail the ocean deserts, but a quick check of the radars and AIS confirms there are no ships in our vicinity to accidentally respond to our mini Fourth of July.  Step 2:  make it an official safety stand down; gather the crew, discuss proper use of pyrotechnics and safety.  Step 3: pass out the big boy toys to everyone who wants to play….I mean learn.  Step 4: save some for night time so we can do it again in the dark! Step 5; note to self: red rocket parachute flares are my new favorite thing.

The NOAA ship Ronald H. Brown docked in Victoria Basin, Cape Town, South Africa. Table Mountain looms in the background.

When our ship pulls into any port, the crew is ready to scram, for the most part.  Except for those individuals who have taken to cave dwelling and only leave their rooms when it can’t be avoided, i.e. to work or feed.  So it may be a useful measure of a port’s quality when even those crew who seem to be magnetically bound to the ship manage to break free and explore the scene.  This was the scenario in Cape Town where it was agreed amongst the crew that this port was our finest yet and likely to be the best we would see.  Ever.  Everyone, as far as can be determined, thoroughly enjoyed Cape Town, and some of us would probably be happy if we made it our home port.

The first surprise about Cape Town is the landscape.  Table Mountain rises abruptly behind the city  with a looming presence that is so close at hand that small details of the mountain can easily be made out with the eye.  The view from the top is nothing short of amazing, and with a cable car leading to the top, even the most exercise-adverse individual can still enjoy the panorama.  Hiking up is also an option, but I will report from personal experience that while I loved the hike, it is a strenuous effort with little relief from the summer heat and relentless climb.

Cape Town is in South Africa, for those of you who have no sense of geography or didn’t pay attention to the title of this article.  Previously, I have never been to anywhere in Africa, so I didn’t know what to expect. For whatever reason I had an image of Africa as a dangerous place where crime and poverty were likely to be dominant factors for any visitor.  Of course it is outrageous to stereotype an entire continent based upon nothing but made up beliefs, so I can’t say why I had this impression.  But this image was helped none by a man from NCIS who came to our ship when we first arrived in port and gave the crew a safety briefing on Cape Town that made it sound like most of the crew would likely experience the following misfortunes: ATM scams, pickpocketing, armed assault, robbery, and AIDS.  I’m not going to say this safety briefing had no value, and I’m sure the statistics on crime in South Africa are not good.  But the ship was docked in a guarded and patrolled waterfront area full of tourists and upscale restaurants that felt a heck of a lot safer than the vicinity of our home port of North Charleston, South Carolina.  And by the way I would love to hear a safety briefing about THAT place just for the sake of comparison.  In any case, I have done a lot of traveling around the world and have found that even supposedly questionable places like Guatemala and Cambodia are delightful and safe places to explore.  Point being that most places are safe to travel so long as you pay attention to what you are doing, make yourself aware of the pertinent concerns, and are not extremely unlucky.  Cape Town is one of the safest place to visit in South Africa so I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this area to anyone who has at least one ounce of common sense.

Cape Point is a must visit for anyone who is not allergic to the outdoors and beautiful scenery.

Many of the crew from my ship, the Ronald H. Brown, took advantage of our time in port to experience nearby wineries, tour Cape Point, explore Table Mountain, and check out the hopping nightlife.  It was convenient and easy to eat and drink in the waterfront area where we were docked, referred to officially as Victoria Basin, but colloquially as “The Waterfront”.  Mithchell’s Brewery was a constantly popular Waterfront hangout, and it was here we said goodbye to ENS Rossi whose time aboard the Brown had come to and end and NOAA Aviation awaited his arrival.

During our week in port, most of us branched out a bit further from the Waterfront and checked out other hot spots such as Long Street, Cubanas (a bar/club), and the trendy, pretentious Camps Bay.  Further afield a great spot for going out would be the Brass Bell.  All in all it was one heck of a good inport.  For me personally, the highlights were hiking to the top of Table Mountain, the Brass Bell, and exploring Cape Point.  By the way, if you like penguins there are many beaches where you can get close and personal with the little guys.  If you really need a friend who dresses sensibly and appears to tolerate your presence, a Cape Point penguin might seem like a good choice.  But it’s not, the little guys are endangered and they might tolerate your presence but what they really need to be doing is making baby penguins.  So after you get your photo snapped with the adorable little birds, best to head back to Cape Town where there are many potential friends who seem to be blessed with all the right phenotypes.  It’s good to be in Cape Town.

After a great deal of prodding from ENS Jellison and then some resolved technical bugs, I finally got around to checking out the new JO wiki that appears to be the brainchild of LTJG Chamberlain over at MOC-P (and perhaps Jonathan Oneil?).   I can already see that some of my fellow BOTC 114 classmates are up and running on the wiki, especially ENS Loy, unsurprisingly.  As for the wiki itself, first impression: this is something that has been badly needed.  I have often wondered if I have been struggling through a problem that has simultaneously vexed 19 other Junior Officers on 19 other NOAA ships.  Wouldn’t it be great if only one of us had to struggle with a particular issue and then could easily share the knowledge gained with everyone else and save them the hassle?  In today’s world of internet connectivity, surely there must be powerful tools that we can use to help each other out, and this wiki seems to offer that potential.

The wiki is fairly straighforward to use, but like anything there is a learning curve and a bit of trial and error.  I noticed the JO discussion board and I was like YES!, this is the thing I have always wanted.   I had a question about how to find a better way to make the station bill.  It took some time to figure out how to add a new topic to the discussion board, but in the end I think I got it right.  So to anyone who had a part in creating the new wiki, good job.  We’ll see how it pans out, but no matter what the idea is right.  So to promote the wiki, here is a link to it:

Although I am referring to this wiki as the “JO wiki”, it appears that its official title may be “OMAO Fleet Wiki”

https://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/confluence/display/FleetWiki/Home

note that you need a username and password, which is no problem: use the same as for all other noaa websites, i.e. your email address prefix and your password