With Thanks to 12259 Kevin Biggar

(I'd ask all navy types to forgive me if I've misspoken any Naval terms in this salty dip.  As a landlubber, the jargon has often left me scratching my head.  But here goes.)

As second year started at Roads, shortly after our arrival we were treated to what I'd term a Naval recruiting opportunity.  Off we went in a bus from Roads to the dockyards in Esquimalt and were thence herded like sheep onto a Destroyer for a day on the sea.  First stop was the galley, somewhere in the bowels of the ship, where we were briefed by various officers on what promised to be an exciting day afloat.  Now the galley had the odeur of bacon fat and bunker fuel -- but it was to be an exciting day, and we initially ignored it. 

The briefings went from one officer to the next, and at some point we realized that the ship had left the dock, and was pitching and rolling on the ocean.  Now I'm sure that you Naval types would roll your eyes at the thought of the ship coursing through the Straits of Juan de Fuca in a 2-3m swell as "pitching and rolling," -- but bear with me.  At some point through the briefings, the odeur, and the confinement in the bowels of the ship, combined with the motion left many of us slightly green around the gills. Whether the briefing had truly come to an end, or the officers had noticed that the motley crew in front of them were fast losing their attention and so decided to call it quits, we are not quite sure. 

However, when we were finally "dismissed," there was a crush for the exit -- not unlike a Three Stooges skit.  Being small and agile (and more anxious to leave than most), I was one of the first through the galley door.  Now, we all seemed to have no sense of where we were in the ship, so getting topside was both an urgent matter as well as a bit of a maze.  Nonetheless, I turned right and raced down the hall (passageway?) to the first set of stairs (ladders?) and scrambled up (through the hatch?) - with a significant number of my mates close on my heels, our pounding steps reverberating on the steel deck.  Arriving at another deck with no sight of the sky, I continued down the passageway to the next ladder.  No sky yet.  Along the passageway to the next ladder etc.  To be honest, I have no recollection of how many ladders we ascended, but eventually I looked up through a hatch and saw the sky.  Hallelujah!  Up the ladder I scrambled and poked my head out of the hatch not unlike a gopher sticking its head up out of its burrow (for you prairie landlubbers).  

 As my head came above the hatch, I looked across the water to see another Destroyer travelling adjacent to us sliding down one wave into the trough, and as its bow plowed into the next wave, a rush of water surged over the bow of the ship.  Cool!  I then looked to my left and saw the breakwater on the bow of our ship.  I looked to my right and saw the bow of our ship sliding into the wave trough and about to crash into the next wave.  Now, let's pause to think about this (I actually had a second and a half to ponder it …).  Bow hits wave.  Wave washes over bow of ship.  Wave is prevented from washing over the rest of the deck by the breakwater.  And I'm between the wave and the breakwater.  Shit! 

I frantically tried to stuff myself back down the hatch while my mates were just as frantically trying to push me up and out of the way so they too could gulp fresh air topside.  The result wasn't pretty.  I was the only one who knew what was coming but could do little about it.  We were all promptly doused with a cold dose of seawater.  We then slinked back down the passageway towards the stern of the ship like sodden bilge rats and found another way topside.  Perhaps the good news was the dousing did help to alleviate the queasiness we all felt.  The rest of the day is a bit of a blur, but needless to say, I was happy to keep my feet on solid ground thereafter.