Sea Stories by Brad Williamson
Those of you that haven't spent hours at a watchstation underway might wonder what a "Sea Story" is. In a functional sense, it is little more than an anecdote or short tale of an event or events that took place in the life of the story-teller while on-board the submarine.
For the story-teller, it could be bragging, boasting, decompression, passing on of critical truths, teaching the unqualified, or a hundred other things. For the listeners, it was always taken with a grain of salt, because sea stories had a way of evolving, in which the story-teller always became the 'good guy', and the tale, despite having taken on the proportions of Paul Bunyan and the blue ox, Babe, was still unarguably "true".
Whatever it was about, it usually started with the expression "this is a no-s_____r".
Regardless of who was talking and who was listening, sea stories were a way of life, a part of the tradition of sailors from ages past, a way of passing time, that filled our endless hours and sometimes, for a brief moment or two, helped us escape the reality of the present.
We hope you enjoy these.
The passing of time has taught us that while the story might remain relevant and funny, years of experience and wisdom earned the hard way make us more careful now with our words and stories than we were then.
It is not our intent to disrespect or demean any individual in the re-telling of these sea stories, but to share the humor and camaraderie that surrounds our shared experience.
We trust you will enjoy these stories in the spirit intended, as it is not our intention to hurt or offend. Contact me if you feel we should modify or remove a specific story.
On the other hand, in the true spirit of sea stories, I imagine you have a few in which I feature prominently, and I expect you to share them as well.
~ Brad Williamson, Lead Admin
Sea Stories sorted by author, alphabetically from a-z, by command. Click on headings to change sort.
- Brad Williamson
- Sea Stories - SSN 680
December 8, 2010.
Thirty years since the murder of famed Beatle John Lennon, on the sidewalk in front of his New York City apartment. Like the assassination of Kennedy, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, the attack on and subsequent collapse of the two towers of the World Trade Center, there are a few events that were significant enough that people remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when the event occurred.
Now, I wasn't a big fan of John Lennon, and for the most part don't consider celebrities of being worthy of remembering where I was when they joined the choir eternal. Many famed musicians have shuffled off this mortal coil since I was born...Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Buddy Holly, Jiles Richardson, Michael Jackson...the list goes on. Of those, for some reason, I only remember where I was when I learned of the passing of two of them: The King, and John Lennon.
- Brad Williamson
- Sea Stories - SSN 680
Anybody been sailing in San Francisco Bay lately? I don't mean Sunday afternoon, lazing under the sun, draped around the cockpit of your 47 foot Carver. I don't even mean scudding before a stiff breeze on your 14 foot Hobie Cat hanging on a lanyard with only one hull in the water.
I'm talking about the serious, no holds barred, get dirty, get wet, darn near get drowned kind of sailing, best done in a 300 foot pleasure liner with more shaft horsepower than you can talk about and a power plant you only refuel once every twelve years, if you get my drift. I'm talking about taking the Bates into Alameda and Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Serious sailing.
Every sailor knows that the approach to San Francisco Bay is one of the most dangerous in the world. The coastline and the wave action combine to produce truly horrendous sea states, with hard to predict wave action and treacherous currents. Rocks and shoals abound and eye your boat with salacious greed, ready to grind you up for a single mistake. Bridge crew have been lost here. Shipping traffic is nearly equal to the straits of Malacca, and the seascape and Golden Gate bridge combine to produce a relatively narrow channel. And that's when the weather is good!
- Brad Williamson
- Sea Stories - SSN 680
This is a story about a cow, a cow that walked on water, the Jesus cow. And I'm not making this up. This is a no-s______!
It takes place just off the coast of South Korea...
You really have to love South Korea. I've been there many times since I left the Navy, and every visit has been exciting and interesting. Looking out over the night time brilliance of the Seoul city lights from the observation deck of the Seoul Tower, rivaling the Seattle Space Needle for majestic views. Scurrying along, crab like, 500 feet underground in the cramped invasion tunnels the North Koreans dug under the DMZ. Enjoying magnificent traditional Korean fare in restaurants hundreds of years old.
I've really come to love the place.
But all that was in the future back in 1985, when our Westpac adventures took us to the port of Chin Hae.
Sonar had been fighting some self-originated noise for days, if not weeks. It was killing our capability for the Spec Op, and the crew was feeling the pain. We scoured the boat for sound shorts. Days had been spent crawling around outboard everything, under the deck plates, and in the overhead, looking for this elusive noise problem.
- Brad Williamson
- Sea Stories - SSN 680
Remember showers on the boat? As much as I loved my daily ephemeral oblutions, snagging a shower before watch was a major evolution.
First, slide out of my rack on the port side of the eighteen-man bunkroom. Stand on that ice-cold floor, doubly so in north Pacific or the 'Sea of None of Your Business'. Pull my damp shower shoes out of the shoe locker, grab my shower gear, don't forget the towel, shuffle over to the ladder, slowly pull my way up to Bow Compartment Upper Level by the door to the 'Goat Locker', clamber sleepily through the hatch into Ops Middle Level, hoping I didn't drag any bare skin across cold hullmetal, turn starboard into the shower room, and hope there was an empty shower stall. All that just to get there.
Hang my towel and skivvies, open the door, and climb into one of two stainless steel iceboxes. If you were lucky, someone just left having warmed up the stall, otherwise hope you didn't bump the bare steel wall with any body part you didn't want to get frozen off. Readjust the shower head so you didn't get blasted with icy cold or searing hot water until you got temperature adjusted, turn on the hot and cold, quickly adjust the temperature, readjust the shower head, get my hair and skin wet, savor that feeling for about 15 secs, and then shut off the water.