Life at sea

Marines, sailors take in Super Bowl at sea

By Dan Lamothe on February 6, 2012 Blue-Green operations, Life at sea

ABOARD THE AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIP WASP -– If you’re going to watch your favorite NFL team lose in the Super Bowl, it may as well be somewhere interesting. That’s the scenario I found myself in last night as I continue to cover Bold Alligator 2012, a massive amphibious exercise involving at least 14,000 personnel and 25 ships off the coast of North Carolina and Virginia. Like many of the sailors and Marines aboard this gator ship, I had accepted there was a strong possibility the game wouldn’t be on while underway –- only to find out the exact opposite. Not…

A Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) approaches the well deck of the amphibious assault ship Wasp on Saturday as part of rehearsals for an amphibious landing during Bold Alligator 2012. (Mike Morones / Staff)

Operation Bold Alligator 2012 underway

By Dan Lamothe on February 5, 2012 Battle Rattle, Blue-Green operations, Embedded journalism, Life at sea, Life at Sea, MEU operations, Training

ABOARD THE AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIP WASP — Greetings from the Atlantic Ocean, where we’re covering the largest amphibious exercise on the East Coast since the beginning of the Iraq war. Bold Alligator 2012 involves at least 14,000 personnel from the U.S., France, Great Britain and other countries, and at least 25 ships. The majority of them are American, but Canada and France have both chipped in with their own hardware, as well. Conceptually, the forces at sea are currently in the early stages of planning an attack on enemy forces from the fictional country of Garnet, a common enemy in…

Give me liberty – but where?

By Gidget Fuentes on September 2, 2011 Life at sea, MEU operations, Off-duty, The Pacific

Will it be Hong Kong? Or Australia? For some 4,000 Marines and sailors aboard three amphibious ships on the homestretch of an overseas deployment, liberty this holiday weekend means they will get to spend their days, nights and dollars in Hong Kong and Australia. The crew of amphibious transport dock Green Bay is making its maiden operational deployment, and embarked Marines with 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit get to stretch their legs in Darwin, Australia. Darwin sits in the continent’s north-central coast. It’s a tropical city on the Timor Sea and the capital of the Northern Territory, a sparse region most known for…

Get some…air (with a dash of sea salt)

By Gidget Fuentes on August 16, 2011 Anti-piracy, Life at sea, MEU operations, Training

There’s nothing like that spray of salty air, open seas and several hundred horsepower to make one think: And they pay me to do this?? Just a thought looking at some images released this month as the California-based 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Navy’s Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group boarded a pair of ships and got underway for their first at-sea integration exercises ahead of a scheduled overseas deployment later this year. The boat crews supporting the training mission against mock pirates on a vessel near San Clemente Island operated off the transport dock ship New Orleans, which will deploy…

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