Ship Log HMCS Toronto

As Rough As It May Seem,It's Still Steady As You Go...

Over the past two weeks Toronto has rounded the Cape of Good Hope, practiced asymmetric warfare, and conducted a port visit in Victoria, Seychelles. During that time, Mike and I went back to a day-worker schedule and focused on our OOD package. After rounding the Cape, the CO authorized the wearing of earrings for 48 hours. He also opened sickbay for those who wanted to get their ear pierced for the occasion. I figured that this would be the only 48 hours of my life where I’d be wearing an earring, so I went to sickbay. For a $20 donation to charity I got my ear pierced with a rather large acupuncture needle after about 10 seconds worth of freezing from an ice cube on my earlobe.

On our way up to the Seychelles between Africa and Madagascar the XO tasked me with captaining a “migrant boat” for an asymmetric scenario. Myself along with three others dressed up as pirates and were given a radio, a C7, and a flare gun. Because the task group didn’t know what to expect, there was a good chance it would pass us by – hence, the flare gun.

Our job was to wait for a warship to see us, pretend like we were passed out from lack of food and water, and basically watch for any holes in their security. We sat out in a zodiac for about an hour, waiting for the task group to come upon us. We watched them come up, steam past, and then keep going. When the ships were on the horizon I decided it was high time we fired the flare. There was no initial response, and it was at this point I realized we should’ve brought more than just one flare.

Eventually the Dutch ship, Evertsen, came back and began circling us. It took them a little while to launch a boat, but when they did they reacted exactly as they should’ve. They gave us food, water, and fuel. They asked us about our C7, which was laying haphazardly in the boat. We told them it was for self-defence against pirates. We were traveling from Madagascar to Somalia. When asked our nationality I took a minute to think and then responded with “Madagascarian”. They then inquired which city we came from, to which I replied “Cleveland”.

They searched the boat, and then sent us on our way. If they hadn’t searched the boat I was to give them an envelope addressed to their CO that said “BOOM” inside. Fortunately for them they were very cautious.

A few days before that, the fleet conducted a drag race that ran 3.33 Nm. The tiny Danish ship, Olfert Fischer, leapt out in front of the pack and led for the first mile or so, with Toronto in second, Normandy in third, and the Evertsen dead last. The tanker, Spessart, was positioned at the finish line. Toronto broke into the lead about a third of the way into the race and led the way until the Normandy’s 4 GTs kicked in. After that we were toast.

We arrived in the tropical paradise that is the Seychelles on the morning of the 14th. Toronto held a beautiful cocktail party that night, where Lt(N) Noseworthy entertained everyone from the stewards to the President of the island country with his rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”. The following day I was on duty, and thankfully, things were relatively quiet. On the third day in port, we were forced to move out to anchor by the port authority to give room for a container ship. Once that was finished, most of the crew went ashore to conduct the Terry Fox run. There were 118 participants from throughout the fleet and, all told, we raised around $5972 CDN multi-coloured bucks. Immediately after the run, the group came back and was greeted with 6 large tubs of the infamous moosemilk. What better way to cap off a good 10k run than with a nice cold glass of moosemilk?

I spent the rest of my time in the Seychelles on a beach in front of a hotel. I was able to rent a sailboat and go out for a short spin while some of the other guys rented jet skis. A lot of the crew went scuba diving and apparently some of them actually got to swim with a whale shark, among the thousands of other types of fish in the area. A few guys chartered a boat to go deep-sea fishing and brought back a 7 foot sailfish!

We weighed anchor on the 18th and headed out for the coast of Somalia. Personally, I could’ve gone for a few more days on the beach, but I don’t get paid this much just to lie in the sun.

Toronto went out under water restrictions, because we couldn’t run the RODs (Reverse Osmosis Desalination plant that makes fresh water) whilst in harbour at anchor. It’s alright, showering is overrated anyways. For the next 3 weeks Mike and I will continue to chug away at our packages while we stand 1 in 2 as “on-call” SEOSS operators.

Again, I hope there isn’t too much to write home about from this extremely dangerous area of the world.