HMCS Toronto's Pleasant Surprise Fanfare's

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

We entered Souda Bay, Crete on the morning of the 8th of October. I was port liaison officer for this port, which meant a few things. Among them was meeting, once a day, with a Greek Naval officer assigned to our fleet as a liaison officer. His job is to give us as much information about the area as possible – maps, transportation, places to visit, things to do. However, this is only useful if:

a.) I speak Greek,

b.) He speaks English.

Neither of these options presented themselves so needless to say there was a lot of “sign language” and hand waving. After my first meeting with him I spent the rest of the day painting ship with the rest of the Subbies. This port was a working port for the ship. We took on somewhere between 40 and 80 pallets of food, two truckloads of parts, and every department had major work to complete.

That evening the USS Bainbridge held a cocktail party. The XO, lover of all things naval as he is, made it an A-class function. This means that whether you like it or not, you have to go. On our way over to the Bainbridge Lt(N) Steve Parker and I led a conga line the entire length of the jetty – pausing only to salute the flag bearers. All the SNMG1 officers from the Admiral down saw it. At the end of the party the Admiral gave a speech where he praised all the ships for their hard work, and when he came to Toronto he mentioned three things: the work we did in the SAR operation in the Red Sea, our conga line, and the XO’s dashing good looks.

The next morning came painfully soon and I again spent the entire day painting ship. That evening I finally got a chance to go into Chania. It’s the closest major city to Souda and is ridiculously gorgeous. I’m not even going to try and describe the scenery. We had dinner on its beautiful waterfront and then Steve Parker and I returned to the ship early so that we’d get a good rest before standing duty the next day.

The following day was probably the best duty watch ever. The CF Show Tour had come to perform for us, so the XO allowed the duty watch to go to the jetty – where the bands were playing. So, although I couldn’t drink beer with everyone else I was still allowed to watch the show. And what a show! All the musicians that came had volunteered to do so, and they were all outstanding. I watched the lead singer from Wide Mouth Mason shred his guitar with his teeth. Also, at the start of the show, the ship’s own band “Halfway to Hell” (a play on words based on our hull number – 333) got a chance to play with a full setup. They were just as phenomenal as the rest of the musicians, and a few of the guys said it was like living a dream.

Mike MacDonald, the comedian, was also there. Before the show started he asked a few people “I thought you guys were the only ones here…I bash the Americans pretty hard in my show, should I change the material?” We all dissuaded him from this ridiculous idea. All of the entertainers were with us for a couple of days before the performance and they were all really great people. They were sincere in their appreciation for what we were doing with our lives, and never hesitated to entertain offstage.

The final day I went back to Chania’s waterfront and just basked on a patio in the beautiful Mediterranean sun. Now, we’re on our way to the coast of Syria and Lebanon as part of Op Active Endeavor. The Admiral, now aboard USS Bainbridge, has told us that he wants to do as many boardings as possible. However, considering that in the past 6 years that this operation has been running there has only been one boarding done by a Canadian ship I doubt we’ll be seeing much of that. It remains to be seen, but this trip never ceases to amaze me and has already been full of surprises.