Humbled

My feet hit the deck before I fully realized a pipe was being made. It was 0243 by my watch. We found the chug spotted by the MPA a full 12 hours before. 

Over the course of the next four hours, our team performed as trained, safely and professionally. There were a few tired squabbles as peoples' patience wore thin momentarily -- vaguely sharpened voices over the crackling radio, exacerbated by a couple metal decks' worth of interference. There were also shipmates helping shipmates, people offering a hand wherever they could. Lots of teamwork, buckets full of patience and overwhelming tolerance as we all worked together to get a difficult job done before the ass-crack of dawn.

And by 0645, I was sitting down to a veggie scramble with cheese, bacon and an English muffin. Watch sections were back in place and the ship's routine went ahead, with no hint of the turbulence caused by the early morning evolutions. 

The hard work done, the dedication shown, the effort put forth by this crew humbles me on a daily basis. OPS has finally just gone to bed after about an hour's worth of sleep over the past 40 hours. Boat crew and LE team members didn't blink an eye when we piped a debrief at 1930 to talk about lessons learned from the morning's excitement; instead, they came chock full of good suggestions, ways to make us all better at what we're already damn good at. During his impromptu check in with me on the bridge just before lunch, brand newly reported SN DA asked me about qualification deadlines. Not asking for an extension -- just raising the issue because, since he reported aboard two weeks ago, he's gone from standing migrant watch, to using his language skills as an interpreter, to breaking in helm and look out on the bridge, and he hasn't been able to get to any of the DCWQS training offered each day -- so willing to do what needs to be done at the moment and yet still concerned about meeting his future obligations.

There are, undoubtedly, 82 other examples from each of the folks onboard this ship, of daily selfless acts, both large and small, offered freely from a deep commitment to the larger goal..and frequently, with enough humor to keep it all in perspective. And this is what gets us through long days and exhausting weeks.

LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
**UNDERWAY**

Busy is Good

No pretty pictures for today's post. I know we took some, but they haven't yet made their way onto the public drive for me to scroll through. Today was quiet for most of the ship for most of the day. CIC was busy tracking maritime patrol aircraft (MPA (not to be confused with the other MPA -- Main Propulsion Assistant)) flights. Once the flights got up in the air, then CIC got busy tracking sightings of potential migrant vessels. 

We did get in a leadership pro dev session on Coast Guard appropriations structure, which *I* think is fascinating and highly useful stuff. I didn't have anyone throwing things at me, and there were some insightful questions asked, so I call it a highly successful session for how dreadful the topic was (to the non-budget geek). 

So basically, I don't really have anything to write about tonight. Some moments I feel like we're barreling to the end of my tour, and I'm frantic to make sure I have everything in order. Other moments, I feel like we're moving through the molasses of time, and it's all I can do to stretch my patience through until our next port call. I'm sure reality is somewhere there in the middle. 

The on again, off again nature of how this patrol is going is contributing to the feeling. At Evening Reports each evening, I look to OPS to tell us what to expect the next day. Some days, we just write TBD for everything because trying to map it all out is an exercise in frustration because guaranteed! something is gonna change. 

But we're busy, and busy is good. 

LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
**UNDERWAY**

A Thousand Words

I'm not sure what struck me about this picture; maybe that there are so many stories to tell from it. I think we had just finished up transferring migrants, and were setting up for a photo op with a few ships all in formation. Someone's cutter boat was in the water to take the pictures, and got a few candid shots along the way. 


The beauty of a ship at sea

It's a classic bridge shot, from the lookout staring intently through the big eyes on the fly bridge (just forward of the black mast), to the CO resting his forearms on the teak rail, looking out to the horizon. OPS, EO and I are all in a gaggle close up to the bridge bulkhead, talking about heaven knows what. BMC RB has the Deck and the Conn, and is watching to make sure everything was going according to plan. I can't quite tell who is further aft, just behind the .50 cal.

The CB-L (Cutter Boat-Large -- we're so creative with names) is resting peacefully in her cradle. The TSTA Es are all bright and shiny. And there's a little hometown pride shown with the outline of North Carolina on the gumby suit box just aft of the spar-colored davit arm for the CB-L.

And as you start to look closer, the ship's bell stands out with its brass color an anomaly among all the white, black, blue and international orange (at the bottom of the mast, aft). The wind is blowing gently about 10 knots off the starboard side. It must have been kinda hot for the CO leaning out into the sunshine like that on the lee side of the bridge. The radar arms are caught in an unusual moment of stillness; usually they rotate endlessly.

Everything has its purpose, and (most) everything is in its place. Oh, the beauty of a ship at sea...


LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
**UNDERWAY**

Sunrise and Sunset

I was up for sunrise this morning, and I'm about to head out onto the foc'sle to watch sunset. I didn't actually see the sun pop over the horizon this morning -- our boat launching course put it on the opposite side of the ship, but I did spend about 30 minutes watching the sun light the clouds across the sky, coloring the higher ones a dazzling pink, but leaving the lower ones dark and grey somehow. 

I couldn't resist checking on it at least once, though. When I did, the sun was already about two inches above the water, shining brightly through a cloud as it rained. A few minutes later, a rainbow materialized out in front of us. 

Just checked -- still have about five minutes before I'll start to miss good stuff for this evening's sunset. Right now all there is to see are green specks in front of my eyes from glancing at the blazing ball of fire.

Since this may be my last patrol (ever), one of my personal goals is to watch at least sunrise or sunset every day, and hopefully both. So far so good. The early morning migrant transfers make catching sunrise doable, and I've had to be careful about how I schedule Evening Reports to make sure sunset fits into the plan of the day. No two are ever alike, and some are so subtle as to be...unremarkable, but the very idea of including a totally non-work related ritual that I can only experience at sea appeals to me. 

My five minutes is up. Off to sunset.

LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
**UNDERWAY**

A "Quiet" Day

I say "quiet" in quotation marks because we still had migrant transfers with
two other cutters, moving a total of 51 people, rendezvoused with a station
small boat for a personnel transfer, and made a logistics run with our own
cutter boat. We're still sheltering over 100 additional people onboard the
ship. And every watch station is on a one-in-four rotation, with three hour
watches. There were still a number of changes to the plan of the day, and I
know OPS is juggling so many cases he feels like he could *teach* clown
school. 

But it felt a little more steady state. The overall plan seems to be holding
for now; we're just managing the details. I say "we...," I mean "OPS." He's
doing an amazing job of keeping track of everything, rattling off case and
individual numbers like he's reading from his notes. He said he almost lost
the bubble at one point, but was able to take about 45 minutes yesterday to
wrestle it all back under control.

We'll see what happens when the weather settles down later this week. I
suspect the pace will pick up again. 

LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
**UNDERWAY**

Randomness of Birthrights

I'd really like to write about what we did today...while at the same time, I
think I need some time to process it mentally before it's ready for public
consumption. We had a very busy day. Before it had even started, the plan
had already gone through about three iterations, with early boat ops
combined with logistics runs that then got changed to just a personnel drop
off then moving quickly into receiving migrants from an FRC and another boat
run to complete the personnel transfer (both inbound and outbound) and
setting up the tent on the foc'sle because the flight deck was filling up
and then receiving more migrants from another FRC and having the logistics
run work out well just differently than what we had planned and then another
transfer of migrants off to another FRC for repatriation tomorrow and one
more boat run tonight to take people ashore. 

Those are the broad strokes, anyway. I thought lots today about how the life
I live comes down in so many ways to the arbitrariness of my birthplace. The
most significant difference between me and the people trying to come into
the US illegally by the maritime route is simply that I was born in the US
and they were not. It has little to do with hard work, intelligence, or
tenacity. Because, while those are definitely traits within me that have
gotten me to the success I enjoy, without my original stroke of luck to be
born a US citizen, I would not have had the same opportunities to turn those
traits into standing on the deck of a Coast Guard ship, telling other
hardworking, intelligent, tenacious people they had to find another way to
success this day. Imagining myself without that birthright, it's easy to see
me in their shoes. 

Now, at the end of this very busy day, that helps me with two things: being
so very grateful for the fluke of my existence, the happenstance of
privilege, the benefits of opportunity I did nothing more to earn that be
born in a free country; and finding that much more compassion for each
individual as they come onboard. It's easy to get frustrated with the
constant press and the stress of having so many people to look after,
figuring out all the logistics of keeping them safe while keeping ourselves
safe, that every reminder and illustration of our common humanity gets me
that much further through the day.

LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
**UNDERWAY**

Best Awful Day Ever

I'm not even sure what to say about today. It's not over yet, so who knows 
what is yet to come. So far, though, I have been delighted with some great 
experiences even in the face of some really crappy circumstances.

My tooth ache from two patrols came back. Raging back. With angry and fiery 
vengeance. On Friday afternoon. The day before we got underway. I asked Doc 
(HS2 TW) for something stronger than 200 mg of ibuprofen which just wasn't 
cutting through the pounding agony in my face. He gave me 800 mg of ibuprofen 
which I could take one every eight hours. It wore off after five.

In the meantime, we got down to the oparea, met up with four other cutters, 
embarked over 140 migrants and some contraband that went immediately down to 
lock up. Nothing like jumping in with both feet, as CO said over the 1MC when 
we had about half the transfers done.

Finally, Monday morning arrived, and I took the first opportunity I could to 
get set up with dental sick call at the local MTF (military treatment 
facility). I rode in on the Station 45' Response Boat-Medium (RB-M) when they 
came out to drop some partner agency representatives off to us. The ride in 
was glorious; flat calm about an hour after dawn, not too many boats out and 
about, and we tied up right as the base was observing morning colors. The duty 
HS from last night told me exactly what I needed to do this morning, and the 
HS3 at the clinic was ready and waiting for me. Logistics had a GV all ready 
for me to go, and by 0900 I was filling out paperwork at the dentist's office.

The awful part of the experience was the tooth extraction. Never done that 
before. Never want to do that again. 'Nuff said.

On the brighter side, the dentist and all his assistants were thoughtful, kind 
and seemed to truly care about providing good service. The dentist was very 
concerned that he couldn't find a smoking gun for my discomfort, but was much 
more confident once he heard the whole back story about a pending extraction 
that I hadn't gotten done yet. He explained everything thoroughly, and his 
technician was very apologetic for having to jam the big x-ray frame all the 
way back into my mouth to get the roots of the molars in the picture. I was 
even lucky enough that the office had one cancellation and one no show so they 
could do the procedure straightaway and take their time with it.

I was back in Coast Guard territory by 1145, even with a stop at the grocery 
store for soft foods so I had something to eat for the next few days without 
making special requests to the cooks onboard. It took a few moments to figure 
out how I was going to get back to DILIGENCE, but that just gave me time to 
gather up all the parts and packages that had been delivered to us for 
transport back to the ship. It was gonna be Christmas in May when I got back 
to the ship!

Our cutter boat made a run in, dropping off some of those partner agency 
representatives who had quickly finished what they needed to do onboard. BM2 
CJ and MK3 CC loaded the packages all into the boat, and away we went.

What a glorious ride we had out to the ship. It took about 20 minutes at 30+ 
knots, and once we got away from the traffic-ridden harbor area, we *flew* 
over the glassy calm water. I saw a fish boil about 30 yards off the port bow, 
with silver and grey flashes churning all over each other. And the fresh air 
smelled damp and briny with a hint of fishiness. The ship was far off on the 
horizon, barely a spot when I first saw it. It grew larger, with more details 
coming into focus until I could see the individual faces peering at me from 
the flight deck and fantail. We have a new migrant tent for the flight deck 
that, if possible, even improves the lines of a very good looking ship. 

         DILIGENCE framed by DILI 1. Just another day at the office.

So, what could have been a shitty day turned out to be a string of really good 
things one after the other. Love it when that happens!

LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
**UNDERWAY**