Day 37 Week 6

I found out that a daily commuter train runs almost hourly down to San Diego from here, so I took the train down there today. The last stop on the train line was at Santa Fe station which is right on San Diego harbour. I knew that the Aircraft Carrier USS Midway was permanently docked alongside as a floating museum, so I thought I would go and have a look.  The Midway was Commissioned in 1945 and Decommissioned in 1992. She was the flagship of the US Fleet in the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm and led the airborne assault on Baghdad.

 Nice clean commuter train to San Diego

Arriving in San Diego

Approaching the USS Midway

The USS Midway

Inside the Hanger deck

Sitting directly across the harbour was the USS Nimitz. Now that’s a big ship.  

While I was standing on the flight deck, looking at a flat screen TV that was mounted on the side of the ‘Island’ as they call the raised section that houses the bridge etc, I was watching a video about air operations and shooting planes off the deck. This young girl, turns out she was 19, came up and stood alongside me watching the video. I just glanced at her and said “Amazing isn’t it” and she said, “It’s not as cool as it looks.” So I said “Do you do this?” She said “Well, I’m in training at the moment but yeah.” It turns out she is from the Nimitz and had come over on her time off to have a look at the Midway. We ended up talking for at least ½ hour. I got all the inside guff on what happens on the flight line etc. She interpreted for me all the hand signals that the guys on video were using to communicate with each other. It is so noisy on the flight deck that everything is done by hand signals.  It was really good talking to her. She was a really nice girl.