Neptunus Lex has a list of things you'll never see unless you've crossed the briny deep, with plenty more in left in the comments. Here's one:

YouÂ’ve never stood on the very point of the bow of a destroyer in the Caribean, where the sea is clearer than it has any right to be, with the rays of the aching sun slashing down through the water like spears from heaven and seen the sonar dome there thirty feet below the waterline as the cut line brusquely shoulders the waves aside.

From personal experience, I'll add:

* Looking backwards off the fantail of your carrier and seeing that the wake of the ship stretches all the way to the horizon:

(click to enlarge)

* Looking backwards off the fantail of your carrier and seeing what kind of wake a 90,000 ton ship can kick up at ahead full. Something like 20 foot tall mounds of seething blue froth:

(click to enlarge)

* And the sunsets on a flat horizon, with nothing to interrupt the stream of color

(click to enlarge)

I'm not saying that it's worth joining the Navy just to see these things, but I *will* say that it's these things that help make the time spent aboard ship seem worth it.

[Hat tip: blogdaughter Tammi of Tammi's World]

Posted by: Harvey at 07:21 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 224 words, total size 3 kb.