[jingram058]

Originally Posted by Yoda

After cruising in circles hope you made port at Subic Bay. Little rough but plenty of action.

Yes sir. A couple of cold San Miguel beers on Magsaysay in Olongapo City before heading out to Gaines Beach in Barrio Barretto. The girls became a lot prettier after a few beers, and away from the Olongapo sailor traps. It was something like 47 pesos to the dollar, and a cold bottle of San Miguel was, what, 20 p's? Pretty reasonable for good beer. Add some lumpia and pancit noodles, naked girls, and...well, you know how it is.

Then we would go back out and go in circles, cyclic flight ops between the carrier and Cubi Point Naval Air Station, before heading up to Hong Kong, then Sasebo, Japan on the island of Kyushu, where we would offload missiles and bombs, then fly off the air wing to Atsugi Naval Air Station before we pulled into Yokosuka, our home port. These were 3 month cruises around the South China Sea. When we went to the Indian Ocean, we would hit these same places in reverse going out, and hit them again coming back, but also stopping in Singapore and Pattaya Beach, Thailand. We also went to Mombasa, Kenya.

When I was on USS Independence CV-62, after Desert Shield/Desert Storm, we traded places with the Midway, and Indy then became the forward-deployed carrier. Same liberty ports, but one cruise we went to Sydney, Australia. And that is a story in itself...