Comments

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  alvin e thomas January 14, 2013 at 10:57am

  They sent me for a falopian tube...i went to my rack...they found me and asked what was i doing in rack? I answered looking for a falopian tube....
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  Richard C. Cox January 13, 2013 at 9:42pm

  I just reread and my post was still there.  Each time I crossed the Equator I was in the Pacific, but never at the 180 degree (IDL).  I always understood a Golden shellback had crossed at GMT and Equator meet line.  I was wrong.  Golden is crossing at IDL and equator.  Sorry for speaking without knowing the true facts.
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  Peter D. Lister January 13, 2013 at 9:34pm

  Sir, I doubted not that you knew exactly where those Prime Meridians were. My comments were for the sake of those not as navigationally enlightened as we.

  Well, my C.O. just sounded chow call, so I'm off. Be well.
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  Peter D. Lister January 13, 2013 at 5:49pm

  I heard about them, too. I was an airman when we left Norfolks on my second Med Cruise. Some 1st class who thought I had just reported in sent me to find a couple fathoms of waterline. I went back to the compartment and took a nap. I showed up back in the shop several hours, and two meals, later, looking frustrated, and told him I couldn't find any. He thought it was hilarious. I kind of enjoyed it, too.
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  James W Ward January 13, 2013 at 5:45pm

  Oh yea, I remember that, we had another boot looking for the mail bouy.. First time at sea some first class asked me to get some relative bearing grease.. I looked at him and said Relative to What?  He laughed and went after the International date line boot..  My dad was Navy and he told me of a lot of the pranks they had, never fell for any but cause a few to go looking for a box of line feeds for the TTY..
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  Peter D. Lister January 13, 2013 at 5:31pm

  James, that's just a waste of an asset. That boot on the bow, the one looking for the international date line, could have been the mail buoy watch, without having to use two different guys to perform the two different, but nonetheless critical, functions!
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  James W Ward January 13, 2013 at 3:44pm

  Well not of my certs look like the golden, so I not be so golden.. However 5 times across is still a proud moment for me, the first one not so much but after that it was a celabration.  We had a boot on the bow looking for the international date line. 

  Yea really, I thought the captain was gonna die laughing..

   
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  David R. Seale January 13, 2013 at 6:56am

  I don't know where we were when we crossed. I was in VA-86 aboard the USS America in 1972 headed for the Gulf of Tonkin. I was mess cooking at the time. Went to the Weapons Team after I finished my time in the Galley.

  David Seale
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  Peter D. Lister January 13, 2013 at 2:27am

  Actually, Richard, if you cross the Greenwich Meridian exactly at the equator, you'd be off the coast of Africa, south of the Ivory Coast, south of Ghana and west of Sao Thome, in the Atlantic, as you stated.
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  Richard C. Cox January 12, 2013 at 9:40pm

  James when you cross the international dateline in the Pacific Ocean, it is 180 degrees from "0".  You can only cross the "0" by "0" line for Golden Shellback in the Atlantic Ocean.